Campaign Log: Confessions of a Forked Tongue

[coronatiger]

Grogg had no new wounds, so there was nothing for me to do that the healing needle wasn’t already doing for him. Since it was still the middle of the night, Yana and I curled up together. The hammering in my leg kept me awake for the hour needed for the salve to do its work, and I shed some tears because of the pain, but I didn’t cry out however tempting that was. I couldn’t deprive Yana of her sleep.

It was still dark when I woke again, but it took a moment to realize that, for my dark vision had unexpectedly returned. Usually, my period of weakness lasts for another day or two after the full moon reaches its climax, but I could see neither moon nor stars, and I didn’t think the light mist would completely block the celestial bodies from sight, so they couldn’t be up. Despite there being no sun either, I believed morning had come, or at least that the right amount of time had passed that the sun should have risen. I suspected the dragons were to blame for the lack of light, but I wasn’t sure. I could see just fine, so it didn’t bother me at all.

Hylda heard me sit up and asked if it was still night. I said it was morning, adding that something strange was happening. Hylda stated that it wasn’t raining as much as before; the faint drumming of the light drizzle against the rowboat was still audible.

Yana and Xipil heard our voices and began to stir. I asked Xipil if he wanted me to use the healing salve on him, but he preferred to save it and instead use my traditional medicine. For answer, I reached out from under the rowboat. The heavy rain had softened the soil, making it easy to extract a handful. I spat on the lump and kneaded the healthy saliva into the soil. I put the mixture on Xipil’s chest, where the spirit horse had given him a nasty bruise, then covered it with bandages. That would hold it in place so he wouldn’t have to lie on his back while the soil and saliva drew the injury out of him. Xipil went down to the river to catch some fish when I was done.

I asked Yana how her eyes were doing. She said it was still a little difficult to focus on things that were very distant or very close, but she felt better. I studied her eyes closely, taking the opportunity to caress her soft cheeks. Yana’s eyes seemed to catch reflections abnormally well, and it didn’t appear like she had any trouble with the darkness. I hoped that You had blessed Yana with a metamorphosis while I was away from the ship, but the circumstances were unheard of, and I feared that it was Darvan who had influenced her. I said nothing of my suspicions, for I didn’t want to scare Yana if I turned out to be wrong.

Yana mentioned seeing something strange running after the dragon last evening, and I asked if she meant Xipil’s troll illusions or something else. She said there was something wrong with what she saw. Since she didn’t see the trolls in addition to the wrong whatever-it-was, I concluded that it was Xipil’s illusions that upset her. I told Yana that perhaps we should try to avoid having Xipil cast spells on us, at least until we figured this out, and she thought this was a sensible precaution.

Sitting down to meditate was bliss. The healing salve had dealt with my injuries, and with the disappearance of the moon had also gone my monthly misery. After an hour, I had replenished my venom glands, and I started to fill up my vial. I looked at Yana, sitting there so beautiful, and I smiled. Her monthly pains were gone, too, but she still hurt from her fall. That soured my mood a little, but I knew her injuries weren’t bad, and she would heal. How I could sense all this, I didn’t know. Had she turned into a snake while I wasn’t looking? No, when I thought about it, I realized that my ophidian empathy had started to expand to humans as well. Yana certainly didn’t have the same power, or she would have reacted to the intense love I felt for her just then. I put down the venom vial and returned to my prayers.

Not long after the next time I paused to spit venom, Wolfram interrupted my meditation. He said that now that everyone was awake, we should make some plans. I must have missed part of the discussion, because the last I knew, we were headed for the mysterious ancient city in the eastern mountains, but now they were talking about going to Sam. My heart leapt at the chance to visit my home temple again. It soon became clear that Xipil had divined that Pak and Groman were headed for Sam, and we needed them to help us translate and understand what we discovered in the ruins.

We agreed to check out the hole that Wolfram had dug before leaving. Xipil wanted to row downriver to Sam, as if our feet weren’t good enough. Since Grogg had made a hole in the bottom of the rowboat, we needed to repair it, and I challenged him and Grogg to see to the repairs. Wolfram wanted healing salve, and I knew he wouldn’t be fit for much while the salve worked its painful magic. I had no idea how to fix a hole in a boat, and I hadn’t finished meditating yet either.

Since we wouldn’t have the rowboat for shelter, Yana and I erected our little tent. Last night, I had been afraid that the terrible wind the dragon brought would have blown the tent away, but apart from the darkness that still lingered, everything was back to normal. Yana placed me protectively in front of the tent opening, facing away from her. She knew I was no use as a guard while I meditated, but I supposed having me between her and the opening gave her some sense of security anyway. I heard the rustling of cloth behind me before I sank into my trance. Yana loves sewing, and I wondered briefly when she was going to start working on the dress she had promised me.

Xipil was the next to interrupt my meditation. Like Wolfram, he had timed his approach to just after I had spat venom into my small vial. I usually meditated in private when I was restoring my venom, so I didn’t think they had picked up on my “schedule”. Yana knew when an interruption would be the least annoying, and I suspected her of alerting our friends to come back a little later, if they made it known that they wanted to speak with me, and I was near to reaching a climax. The venom I produce is holy, and I need to complete the ritual from start to finish without interruptions. It isn’t like Yana’s sewing projects that she can just put down and pick up again later. I have to start over if I’m disturbed. Being in communion with You is an exalted experience that I never mind repeating, but when I have other tasks and chores, I don’t like having to postpone them.

Wolfram and Xipil had continued digging, clearing all the dirt from the stone slab. Before, only part of it had been visible. They wanted me there to oversee the removal of the stone slab. Xipil asked if I could see spirits, for the slab might be covering a coffin or a tomb. I affirmed that my weakness had passed, and Xipil and I joined Grogg and Wolfram at the hole.

The stone slab was big, and it probably weighed more than Xipil and me put together, but Grogg and Wolfram had no trouble lifting it up from the bottom of the hole. They tilted it upright to get better footing for hoisting it up and it made a loud crash when they put it down on edge and tipped it over.

Stale air rose from the room below. I could see that it was only about two meters from the ceiling down to the floor, so both Wolfram and Grogg would have to bend over if they wanted to go down there. I could just see a wall on the north side of the hole. Xipil and the others needed light to see anything below, and Wolfram offered his lantern. I didn’t have to wait for that, so I climbed down to the hole and put my head through.

The room below was about two by six meters, and it had no other exits that I could see. A thick layer of dust covered everything and almost concealed a ring-shaped protrusion on the floor, about a meter in diameter. A few shelves of stone and metal were mostly intact, but the wooden furniture had almost turned to dust. I reported that there was no danger lurking under us and suggested that we let the room air itself out a little before we went down to explore in more detail. I went back to the tent. Yana had put away her sewing before I came inside and she welcomed me with a hug. As nice as it was, I had to finish my meditation, so I reluctantly disentangled myself from Yana’s embrace.

[coronatiger]

Wolfram, Grogg and Xipil didn’t bother waiting for me, and they climbed down to examine the room. I suspected it was Xipil who couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer. Searching the room, they discovered that the ring on the floor was magical. Xipil was reminded of the teleportation circle at the Evening Fort. The ring here had several hollows along it, which could hold spherical objects, and my friends found three such among the rubble.

When I arrived, all three of them were studying a stone tablet with what I immediately recognized as an engraved map of Arland’s waterways. There were symbols on the map that looked like symbols on the ring on the floor, Xipil informed me. One such symbol marked our current location, and two other symbols marked the locations of Guling and Ur, cities we knew hosted nodes of the teleportation network. We assumed that the other symbols also marked the location of teleportation nodes, but several of them were difficult to translate onto our map of Arland, for the stone tablet didn’t mark any terrain features other than rivers and lakes, and even those weren’t identical on the two maps. I guess the stone tablet map was even older than I had thought at first.

Wolfram thought it was odd that we just happened to disembark at this exact place. I told him we were destined to dig up such things as we now had, which didn’t comfort him at all. Changing the subject, I asked the group if we really wanted to experiment with the teleportation network. At the Evening Fort, we learned that there was a large risk involved, even when you knew what you were doing. We decided that it wouldn’t harm us to have Xipil analyze the magic circle before making a decision. Having access to the teleportation network would be a boon, at least if we discovered that the danger was exaggerated. However, there was no symbol on the stone tablet at Sam, so we couldn’t teleport there.

Grogg, Wolfram and I climbed up from the teleportation chamber. My two larger companions could just grab hold of the rim around the hole in the ceiling, although Grogg needed Wolfram’s help since he only has one good arm. I, on the other hand, was grateful that Xipil had the foresight to fasten a rope to the tree above.

I thought I might take the opportunity to give Yana medical care while we waited for Xipil to do his analysis. “Care for some care, sweetie-pie?” I cooed through the tent wall. Yana gazed expectantly at me as I entered the tent. A command to strip slipped out of me just as I caught up with my own double entendre. Yana’s left eyebrow climbed up her forehead. “Feeling masterful, are we?” she asked coyly. I presented the wet lump of dirt I had just dug up, in explanation. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it that way.” I rarely fail to get my intended meaning across, even when my words contradict my non-verbal message, except perhaps when talking to someone particularly dense. Maybe my subconsciousness had taken over. I certainly wouldn’t have minded giving Yana another type of care, but her injury had to take priority.

“Most bodily fluids, when freshly taken from a healthy individual, have healing properties,” I explained to Yana while covering her bruises with my mixture of dirt and spittle. “Some fluids are better suited to treat certain types of injuries and sicknesses than others, and some are generally more potent than others. Saliva is a good, all-purpose fluid, and readily available. Tears are powerful, but risky, for the emotion that engenders them determines what ailments they can cure, and if they are usable at all. For treating injuries, like yours, nothing beats blood, but it has to be healthy blood, otherwise it loses its potency. Cutting open one person to heal another just doesn’t work. The blood has to come naturally. The only silver lining to my monthly terror is that I can use the blood for healing.” But of course, just when I had a use for my blood, I had stopped bleeding. If she hadn’t stopped bleeding too, Yana’s blood wouldn’t have been suited for healing, since she was wounded.

“The skin is a barrier to keep bad stuff out of the body,” I continued, “but it also holds sickness and injury inside. However, by applying soil infused with a healthy fluid, I can trick the skin to become permeable, to allow a patient to expel the bad stuff and soak up the good stuff instead. It’s like when you have a fever and you sweat out the little demons that make you sick. Only, in that case, your body is so full of the bad stuff that it starts expelling it even if you don’t use a dirt mixture.”

Treatment complete, Yana and I rehearsed our secret signs until Xipil emerged from the excavation. I went outside to see what he had to say. Xipil warned that his analysis would take longer because there were more spells to be identified. His initial research had discovered that the ring on the floor could absorb enormous amounts of energy from the spheres if they were put into the sockets on the ring. Wolfram stated that the spheres we found probably contained much energy at one time, but they had probably discharged their contents over the centuries. His theory was corroborated by the fact that one of the spheres had had a tiny amount of energy when we found it, but this energy had been released when the sphere was disturbed.

I prepared food and we all ate while Xipil rested up for another round of analysis. Hylda cleared up after the meal, and I went down to the river to feed Hope and watch her frolic. I completely lost track of time, for the next thing I knew, Xipil had climbed back up from the hole. He said he needed starlight to get further with his analysis, and he asked Grogg and Wolfram to fetch the ring, carefully.

The ring, while not fastened to the floor, proved to be enormously heavy, and while it wasn’t too heavy for our large companions, it was slightly too large for the hole in the roof. Xipil instructed Grogg and Wolfram to put the ring back on the floor, just below the hole where the stars would shine on it. There were no stars on the sky at the moment, and Xipil asked when I thought they might appear. This mysterious darkness bewildered us all, but I estimated that sunset should occur in four or five hours, if this had been a normal day.

I went back to the river with Hope, and time just flew by again. I blinked and realized that it was even darker than before. I judged that this meant the day had died and I spoke a short prayer to praise You. I put Hope back in her nest in my pouch and walked up the short incline, thinking how my dark vision might have tricked me into believing that the darkness had come suddenly. I sometimes had to concentrate to register how dark it actually was around me, although I thought I was getting better at it.

Crawling inside our tent, I apologized to Yana for leaving her alone for so long. She told me it was all right; she had her flower sewing project to keep her busy. I heard the pride in her voice and reasoned that she must be nearing the conclusion. I had only seen bits and pieces of the project, but I could tell Yana was bursting to show it to me, once she was satisfied with it, of course.

Yana commented that she was glad we weren’t in Byblos, for the populace must be in full panic. That brought laughter to my lips. I knew how afraid of the dark the sun-mad Mitra worshippers were. We chattered and giggled for a while before turning in. When she had enveloped me in her arms, Yana whispered, “When we get to Sam, would you like for us to go shopping for fabrics for your dress?”

O Ashtar! We surrender our lives to Your coils. Take us while we sleep, or grant us another day in Your service, as You will.

[coronatiger]

2nd of Tityra, year 412

O Ashtar, Mother of Snakes, Keeper of Death’s Door, hear my confession!

The sun rising in the east shone its light on the tent wall and woke Yana and me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that; I thrive in the dark, but the sun does give life to all that grows, including my food, so it wasn’t all bad to learn the sun had returned. The poor, deluded infidels living in these parts had to be ecstatic, though. I glanced outside. It had stopped raining, and despite the sun’s rays, the air carried a raw chill.

Yana yawned, stretched and smiled. I smiled back, then peeked under her clothes to check on her injuries. I could tell a day of rest had done her good, for it wasn’t hard to see that the ugly bruises had faded considerably. We went outside to join the others for breakfast.

Xipil informed us he hadn’t had the opportunity to analyze the magic ring, for the stars hadn’t revealed themselves during the night. There hadn’t been much progress on repairing the rowboat either, and Wolfram suggested that Yana and I went down to the small village we saw not far to the south and asked around for help. Xipil wanted us to bring the rowboat with us. It was clear he didn’t want the villagers to know about him, but the boat was too big for two girls to carry and while we might be able to keep it afloat, it would surely be a hassle. I briefly considered asking Grogg and Wolfram to carry it for us, but quickly dismissed the idea. It was better to reveal our unsociable companions after we had successfully recruited aid.

As soon as we finished eating, I gave Yana my arm and led her down to the King’s Road, which followed the river. We had come up this road almost a month ago, but we had veered off to the east before reaching Byblos. I didn’t recognize this spot, and thought perhaps we had left the road south of where we currently found ourselves. Yana was of a similar mind, but she reminded me that both of us are better at remembering faces than geography.

We had walked five or ten minutes when a wagon approached from the south; they must have set out from this village about the same time as we started walking. Yana and I smiled and waved, but the two men on the wagon seemed wary of strangers and made no move to stop. As we passed them, we overheard one asking the other from where we might have come.

When we reached the village a few minutes later, Yana and I saw that the people there were nervous and withdrawn. They were out and about, but it was clear that yesterday’s darkness had put a fright in them all.

I looked around for someone more collected, someone who carried themselves with authority. An elderly woman sat in a rocking chair on her porch and kept an eye on things. I indicated her to Yana, who nodded. We put on our best smiles and approached. Our white sailor’s outfits were far from pristine, but I thought that would only help sell our need for assistance.

The woman in the rocking chair became skeptical when I told her we had a problem, but she lightened up as soon as I explained that we had a leaky rowboat. “That isn’t a problem,” she admonished before pointing us in the direction of two young men chopping wood.

Yana and I walked over to the woodcutters, and I explained again our need. The men quickly gathered up some tools and supplies in a wheelbarrow, and then we were off. I might have given Xipil the impression that we were just going to the village to ascertain whether someone there had the skill to help, but without an explanation that he had become as afraid of people as Wolfram was, I wasn’t going to complicate the repair process.

I caught Yana’s slight hand movement. “Xipil. Hostile.” The way she cocked her head to the side made it a question, and I knew she wanted to remind me that Xipil didn’t want these people to see him. As we walked, I told the men tall tales about our exploits, so outlandish that even Grogg would have understood that I was making it all up. I made the stories as funny as I could, and I roared with laughter at my own jokes. I kept it going until we reached the hill where we had camped, certain that everyone there heard us long before we arrived. That should warn anyone who didn’t want to show themselves to stay hidden.

Wolfram came down to meet us. “I need to speak with you, Nuur-Karif,” he proclaimed. Yana and I had carefully avoided giving any names and I scolded myself for failing to mention that we planned to do so, before leaving for the village. I gestured for Yana to take over the story-telling while Wolfram and I walked off to the side.

Wolfram didn’t want to reveal the hole to the villagers, so I told him to ask Grogg to help him carry the rowboat down to the road. The hole wasn’t visible from there. The two villagers did see our tents, though, and they were not pleased that we had chosen to camp just there. I apologized, but said this was where our boat sprang a hole, and the terrible thunderstorm had encouraged us to put up shelter immediately. I understood that the villagers had heard horror stories about this place.

The men wanted three pieces of silver for repairing the boat, they said when Grogg and Wolfram brought it. I gave them five. Grogg and Wolfram returned to camp, but Yana and I sat down halfway up the slope to watch the men work.

When the rowboat was fixed, Yana and I talked briefly with the two villagers. One was still quite jovial, but the other regarded us cautiously. The men walked off towards their village, pushing the wheelbarrow, and Yana and I went up the hill to tell our friends that the rowboat had been repaired.

[coronatiger]

2nd of Tityra, year 412 (continued)

Wolfram inspected the rowboat repairs, since he had some small skill at woodworking. He decided there would still be a small leak. Xipil, our most experienced sailor, said this wouldn’t be a problem; we could use a kettle to manage the amount of water in the bottom of the rowboat. I volunteered for that task and Xipil said I needed to pay attention to the influx of water. If it started to increase, that would be a signal for us to get to shore.

Xipil wanted to bring the teleportation ring when we left and he instructed Wolfram to carve a small dent in the frame around the hole in the roof so we could get the ring out. We had lunch and prepared to leave. This included putting the stone slab back over the hole and filling up the excavation with the pile of dirt. Wolfram even put the turf back on top. If anyone came to inspect the site, they’d surely discern that we had been digging, but I didn’t think the locals would dare to climb the haunted hill.

We were in the process of loading the rowboat with our luggage when we noticed a cart approaching from the south. Normally, this wouldn’t be a cause for alarm, in fact there had been quite a few travelers on the King’s Road this morning, but this cart had already passed us twice, and it now carried the village headwoman – the old woman in the rocking chair – and the rowboat repairer who had seemed the most skeptical about us using the hill for a campsite. I warned my friends and turned around to shout for Yana to hurry, but she was already on the way down, having made a trip uphill to fetch the last piece of luggage.

With the approach of the villagers, who were still far away, Xipil cast a spell to disguise himself as a middle-aged human woman. Yana stopped and stared at him, frozen in terror, so I begged Xipil to abort the spell, since there was clearly something wrong with it. Xipil refused. Yana dropped her load, and my head whipped around to see what the noise was. I caught Yana’s fingers signing “Danger”, just before she took off, legging it up the King’s Road as fast as she could.

I ran after Yana, obviously. When I caught up with her and she saw that it was me, she held out her hand and I took it. Holding on, I slowed us down gently to avoid scaring Yana further. When we had stopped completely, Yana asked what happened. “Well, clearly, there is something wrong with Xipil’s illusions,” I decided. Yana took it one step further and claimed that Xipil had turned into a monster. Peering back down the road, I informed Yana that I couldn’t see that myself. Yana explained that she had feared for my life. She thought I would throw myself in front of her when the monster attacked, and so she signaled and ran away.

The cart with the villagers had stopped a couple hundred meters short of the rowboat and the old woman walked on alone, leaning heavily on her cane. I told Yana I had to go and save our friends from her, or rather to prevent them from bungling the interaction. Yana came with me most of the way back, but she stopped a distance from our friends, since Xipil’s illusion was still active. It pained me to leave her, for I had never seen her this afraid before, but even though we had walked far faster than the old woman, I couldn’t take the time to soothe Yana further. It didn’t think Xipil would actually try to harm her.

I passed the rowboat and our friends and proceeded to intercept the old woman. “Hi. Can I help you?” I asked. “Did you sleep here?” the woman accused. I admitted that we had. “Then you are cursed, banned from the village. You must not show your faces where we can see them from our windows,” the woman intoned. Since we were leaving anyway, I saw no reason to argue, and I promised that we would honor the ban.

I informed my friends about the exchange, in case they hadn’t heard. They weren’t interested at all, but they were all the more eager to learn why Yana had suddenly taken fright. I explained that there was something wrong with Xipil’s illusions. Xipil wouldn’t hear of it and insisted that it was Yana’s eyes that needed healing. I told him that if there was anything wrong with Yana’s eyes, I would surely find a cure, but for the time being, I asked him not to use any illusions, at least when Yana could see. Xipil said he couldn’t make any promises, but he terminated his active spell.

I went back to Yana and told her I had ordered Xipil not to use any more illusions. We hugged and said nothing more, but my mind raced. I already suspected that Darvan had done something to Yana’s eyes. Darvan’s powers were those of trickery and shadows, and he might dislike Xipil’s illusions for not being of the right kind, but I thought there had to be more to it. Apparently, Darvan and Volkir hated each other intensely, so maybe Darvan was warning us that Volkir had influence over Xipil and his illusions. After all, we only had Xipil’s word as to what happened up that ship’s mast. Had he really released the demon the way he claimed? Or had Xipil made a deal with Volkir? I decided we needed to get to the temple in Sam, where the truth could be revealed to me. If Xipil was being deceptive, I would surely pick up on it in no time, but he might not be aware of Volkir’s influence on him.

When our friends called out to ask if we were coming, Yana and I broke off the hug and returned to them. We got everyone into the rowboat and pushed off from the shore. Xipil and Wolfram rowed out to the middle of the river, where the current was strongest and we could let it take us downstream without much effort.

We discussed if we should go ashore to camp in the evening, or if we should continue moving through the night. I argued that it wasn’t safe to sleep in a leaky rowboat, but Wolfram wanted to put as much distance between us and Byblos as possible, and he thought that since someone had to stay awake to keep us on course, the night watch could monitor the leakage and keep the boat from taking on too much water. I didn’t think any single party member had all the requirements covered for doing night watch duty. Some of us knew how to handle a rowboat, and some could see at night, but nobody had both abilities. We decided to revisit the subject when evening approached. I didn’t know what Wolfram was afraid of, but I hoped by evening, his fear had stilled.

[coronatiger]

Hours went by. Using a kettle, I kept the bottom of the rowboat mostly dry, except for a strip along the middle which was hard to get to, and Xipil said that it was only good for the rowboat to have a little water in it. I understood that this somehow prevented the leak from growing. On the east side of the river, village after village passed us by. Most of them were quite small, but whenever I caught Wolfram staring at them, he shrunk a little from the thought of so many strangers gathered in one place. The western shore had mostly scattered farmsteads.

Then Xipil alerted everyone to a thick white fog that was creeping down the river and slowly catching up with us. I had seen this phenomenon before, but not this far south, and not so early in the cold months. This should be cold air flowing down from the mountains, but I hadn’t expected to see it today, at least not here. Grogg said he could smell the mountain air. I proposed we put ashore before the fog overtook us, in case there was something wrong with it. Nobody heeded my warning, but Grogg launched Kraa to see what was inside the fog.

Xipil cast a spell, so I dropped the kettle and hurried to Yana’s side to hold her and prevent her from doing anything rash. Yana informed me there was nothing wrong with Xipil’s spell, and I could see no illusion; the lizard man was just staring back at the fog. When he was done studying the fog, Xipil said there was much magical energy in it despite there not being any actual spells there, and he asked if Wolfram knew what this meant. Wolfram seemed uncertain when he said he thought water mages might have use for the energy.

Blessed with the ability to see spirits, I saw Kraa approaching from far off. When it landed on Grogg’s shoulder, rime spread from its claws. This fog was even colder than I had first thought. In case Xipil failed to see the rime, I informed him how cold the fog had to be. As a reptile, his body wasn’t suited for such freezing temperatures. We sent Kraa upwards, to see how far upriver the fog spread. I don’t know how Grogg interpreted the kraaing to mean “very far”. Being able to talk to snakes myself, I concluded that Grogg had to have some equivalent skill. Sometimes, he seemed to be guessing what Kraa had to say, but other times, like this, he was spot on. Maybe he didn’t have the ability to understand the spirit raven; if he just made enough guesses, he was bound to be correct at least a few times.

Wolfram wanted to go ashore on the west bank since there were fewer people there. Xipil wanted to head east since that wasn’t Larma territory. I cut through their discussion and said we should go east. We landed between two villages and secured the rowboat. A short debate ensued of whether we should leave the teleportation circle in the rowboat or risk having it seen by the locals. It didn’t look all that special, not compared to our peculiar party, but if it was that important… I just pointed out that we could cover it with a blanket.

With the dragon scales and the teleportation circle in addition to his already heavy sacks, Grogg struggled to move very fast. The rest of us didn’t have the strength to help him with meaningful amounts, not even if we combined our efforts. Fortunately, we didn’t have to go very far. It was only about a hundred and fifty meters from the river to the road, and not much further to the southern village. I asked Wolfram if he wanted me to dose him with river thistle, but he said he would be fine. His brave face didn’t fool me, so I asked one or two more times as we got closer to the village.

As we approached the village, a bell started ringing. Wolfram wanted to send someone to “sneak up and find out what’s going on”, but I reminded him that we could just ask, and anyway, it was obvious the village called in the workers who were out on the fields because of the fog.

We stopped just outside the village so Yana and I could go on and make the necessary arrangements without having to keep our companions in check. Hylda can be a bit brusque, but she doesn’t usually need anyone to sort out a messed-up conversation. The others have a tendency to make a scene for various reasons, and only survive encounters with the rich and powerful because those are sure enough of themselves to consider my companions’ antics as funny or quaint. Common folk, like these villagers, were easily frightened, and could react unpredictably and exacerbate the trouble Grogg, Xipil and Wolfram stirred up.

Of the three, I would actually send Grogg to deal with a social situation if Hylda, Yana and I were prevented from going. Sure, both Wolfram and Xipil are more intelligent than the troll, but at least he can be relied on to follow simple instructions. Xipil is clever enough to realize that he can improvise, but our culture is foreign to him, and if he gets a bright idea, he just acts on impulse instead of asking himself why I didn’t come up with it; the reason I didn’t mention it was probably because it was a bad idea. Wolfram, of course, can go berserk if there are too many strangers nearby.

Two older men had been staring at the fog, and one of them met Yana and me when we entered the village. He asked warily if we had anywhere to sleep; the people in these parts have their superstitions about staying out after sunset. I said we hoped to find an inn in his village. The village looked too small to support such an establishment, and the man confirmed there was no inn, but he asked us to wait while he went to see if anyone could take us in.

[coronatiger]

The man returned a few minutes later and showed us to an abandoned, little house on the edge of the village. The windows were boarded up and the single room didn’t look as if anyone had lived there for quite some time. There was a bed in one corner and a small stove in another. I asked where we might get firewood, and the man asked if we came from the north, and if it was cold up there. “Yes, a little,” I replied. I didn’t want to scare the poor man, but I didn’t want to give him a false sense of security either. He walked off, muttering to himself.

When he came back, he had a bucket with some coal. He apologized for the small amount, but the people here didn’t have much to spare. With the landscape consisting of open fields, it wasn’t possible to simply go out and harvest some wood for a fire. Lumber had to be transported downriver from the forests up north, so it was only natural that fuels were in short supply. I thanked the villager. He left, wishing us good luck, but his mind was elsewhere.

Fearing the night could be very cold, I emptied the coal bucket and took it outside with a shovel, to fill it with dirt. Yana came along to keep me company, and she started singing when I started digging, a song about a merry shopkeeper who had all kinds of goods in his shop. Yana has the most wonderful voice, and regrettably, she stopped singing when I had filled the bucket and indicated that we should go inside again.

Yana and I used the dirt to fill in cracks in the walls where there was a draft. Our companions retrieved what we had of wool and furs and we divided it up. We started a small fire in the stove; it didn’t help much, but at least we had a fire going in case it suddenly became a lot colder. We only had enough coal to maintain this small fire through the night, but we could chop up the bed and burn that if we became desperate. I suggested we kept a watch during the night, so we wouldn’t be totally surprised if anything happened.

Xipil and Wolfram went outside, promising not to be long. I checked on Korro and Nillet. They seemed tired, as if they had been working all day instead of sitting still in a rowboat. I was still examining them when Xipil returned. He asked if I had found out anything and said there was something wrong with the two of them, apart from having their shadows switched. There wasn’t much I could say.

Xipil took Wolfram and me to a corner and asked under his voice what we were to do with Darvan’s barrel. We agreed to open it up and checking what was inside. Wolfram got the honor. The barrel was almost half-full with a pink powder with a sharp, unpleasant scent. I grabbed a wooden ladle from the kitchen corner and asked Xipil to check if there was something hidden in the powder. I joked that there might be a severed head there, but the barrel was slightly too small for that. Instead of a head, Xipil immediately discovered a red crystal about the size of my fist. It had a faint glow, and Wolfram said Xipil could analyze it, so I reasoned that it was magical. Xipil conjectured that the crystal hadn’t wanted to be found, and he stirred in the pink powder with the ladle to see if he could find anything else.

Wolfram insisted that we closed the barrel. The stench had spread to the entire room, and Wolfram opened the door to get fresh air inside. I asked him to put the barrel outside and close the door again. I wanted to keep inside the meagre heat we produced.

I huddled up with Yana under our share of wool and fur. I leaned against the wall and Yana leaned against me, and it was quite cozy. We watched Grogg smell the crystal and poke at it with the magic needle. Suddenly, there was a weird noise and some flashes of light. Korro and Nillet had fallen asleep on the bed already and the commotion didn’t wake them.

Xipil hurried over to the crystal and scrutinized it. He asked Grogg how the needle felt. Grogg replied that it didn’t feel very different from earlier. Grogg moved to poke at the crystal again and Xipil grabbed his wrist to stop him, but of course Grogg was too strong. The same noise and lights came as before, and Xipil crumpled to the floor.

I leaped into action and checked on Xipil. He was unconscious, obviously, although I got the sensation that he was just asleep. It was more worrying that he was cold and stiff. Wolfram came over and dug the spirit-seeing ring out of Xipil’s pouch. He looked around through the ring and said we needed to get further inland, as it was near the river it was the coldest. I didn’t think it was necessary to leave our shelter, so I asked Hylda if she could share her body heat with Xipil. After a glance at Grogg, she came and picked Xipil up. That woke him.

Xipil asked what happened. Hylda ignored him and asked Grogg if she should go on, and Grogg nodded. Then she looked at Xipil and asked if he wanted her to give him some warmth. But Xipil was too curious about the crystal to consider his own well-being.

First, Xipil instructed Grogg not to poke at the crystal with the needle. Grogg said he didn’t see the problem, but Xipil reminded him that people suddenly falling unconscious wasn’t a good thing. Xipil declared that he wanted to study the crystal, preferably in peace. I proposed that everyone except Xipil and whoever took first watch tried to get some sleep. Xipil would be too preoccupied with his studies to pay attention to anything, so we needed someone else to keep watch and maintain the fire. Grogg said he wasn’t tired and volunteered to take first watch.

I went back to sit with Yana, wrapping myself around her, and then wrapping the wool and furs around us. Then I realized I had forgotten to brush my teeth, so I apologized to Yana for getting up again. While I brushed, I thought about Hope. She lay in my pouch, which wasn’t the warmest place. She has the same weakness against cold as Xipil, so I moved her inside my shirt. She settled against my stomach, just above the belt. Hope was quite cold, but I felt blessed to be allowed to warm her.

An extremely loud raven scream woke me. When I opened my eyes, I imagined I saw a huge claw sweep through the room. I was confused that it touched nothing and nobody, but a couple of clues made me piece together what had happened. The first was that Yana froze, her muscles tightening in fear as she whispered hoarsely, “What was that?” The second was Grogg, who replied that it was a raven, after congratulating Xipil on waking me up.

I upbraided Xipil for making the giant raven illusion. I had told him not to make any illusions near Yana, and the loud noise had to have woken the entire village. “You should have thought twice before doing something so reckless!” Wolfram rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and was clearly not up to speed. He looked at me as if I was mad for giving Xipil a tongue-lashing in the middle of the night, but when I explained that Xipil had been experimenting with magic and probably woke all the poor, frightened villagers, Wolfram took my side. The village bell rang a few times to emphasize my point, but the villagers weren’t supposed to go out after dark, so the ringing stopped. Wolfram confiscated the crystal from Xipil and put it in his pouch.

Grogg spoke soothingly to Kraa and Yana and I tried to go back to sleep, but a group of villagers came and knocked on our door. Grogg opened. Kraa was still upset from the incident and it made its usual ruckus. This scared away all but one villager. He informed us that the harbinger of evil we had with us had to leave. Grogg turned to Xipil and joked “It’s for you.” Then he slammed the door in the villager’s face. The villager stomped away.

Wolfram decided he should take over yelling at Xipil, who tried to make excuses, saying he had discovered that the crystal amplified magic. There was no chance I could fall asleep while Wolfram was so loud, and when he finished his lecture on responsible use of magic, it didn’t take long before another, single knock struck the door. Xipil opened the door, but I saw nobody outside, so I closed my eyes again.

O Ashtar! We surrender our lives to Your coils. Take us while we sleep, or grant us another day in Your service, as You will.

[coronatiger]

3rd of Tityra, year 412

O Ashtar, Mother of Snakes, Keeper of Death’s Door, hear my confession!

That Grogg was awake all through the night was no surprise. The side-effect of the magic needle made it impossible to find sleep for a while after the healing slumber. What I didn’t expect was Xipil waking everybody. He had to be right about the crystal amplifying magic, for it seemed clear that he also had contracted a case of insomnia.

Xipil said the villagers had left a note on the door. It read, “Begone before sunrise!” Since the windows were boarded up, it was hard to say how early it was, but Xipil informed us that the predawn light had just begun to creep up on the landscape. If You gave me Your blessing, I could surely talk to the villagers and have them come around, but that would take some time and we were planning to leave anyway, so I didn’t bring it up. Instead, we ate a quick breakfast, packed up and left.

It was quite cold outside, but not colder than I had ever felt before. That had been further north, though. The fog lay so thick over the river, it blocked the view of the water entirely. I suggested we continued our journey on foot. Rowing seemed infeasible when we’d barely be able to see the front of the rowboat from the back, and I was sure the cold fog would make everyone extremely uncomfortable.

Wolfram was terrified of all the people we’d meet on the King’s Road and in the east bank villages, and he insisted on using the rowboat. Hylda could keep Xipil warm. I patted my belly and Hope stirred against my skin. She was comfortable in her new nest. I figured that Wolfram would come around when he felt the cold of the fog, so I humored him by following back towards the rowboat.

When our companions took off from the road and entered the fog, Yana held me back. “I thought I felt something stir against my back during the night,” she said, eyes on my stomach where Hope lay hidden. Yana glanced up and down the road to see if anyone witnessed her behavior. “May I?” she asked, her eyes again focused on Hope. “Of course,” I told her. Yana’s hand trembled slightly when she caressed Hope. There was no need for her to fear, obviously, for You had blessed Yana as Your spawn; no child of Yours would ever harm her. “Were you the snake I felt tonight?” she asked Hope, “Or have I made a man of Nuur-Karif?”

Yana looked right into my eyes. “May I check?” she asked. “Go ahead,” I whispered, my voice failing. I knew where Yana was headed, but I hadn’t expected her hand to find its way inside my trousers so quickly. I froze, but not from the cold of Yana’s touch. In fact, heat spread throughout my body and brought a red glow to my cheeks. Yana smiled. “You’re so cute when you’re flustered,” she teased before giving me a quick kiss. “You’re perfect,” she concluded. “Although… You do have some manly qualities: You definitely need to shave!” Yana slid her fingers over my stubble as she pulled her hand free.

We hurried into the fog to catch up with our friends. The damp cold took care of my flush despite Yana’s attempt to keep it going by licking her finger suggestively. She stood behind Grogg’s back so only I could see the gesture, and her eyes roamed all over me. She had been so respectful just before, or at least as respectful as it was possible to be with your hand down someone’s trousers, searching for undesirable appendages. I found myself wishing that she hadn’t been, that she had done more than just teasing the surface. Too aroused to argue, I agreed to make an attempt with the rowboat.

There was a thin layer of ice along the bank, but it shattered when we pushed out from the shore. We only had to get out to the middle of the river, and then the current would take us towards Sam. I found the kettle I had used yesterday and took up the duty of keeping us afloat.

Wolfram manned the oars and gave us some extra speed. The fog pressed in on us, and nobody felt like speaking much. Only the rhythmic creaking as Wolfram rowed broke the silence. Whenever I emptied the kettle, I held it so close to the water it didn’t make a splash.

After a couple of hours, I noticed that Yana was shivering, so I declared that we had to go ashore. When the others wouldn’t hear of it, Yana claimed to be fine, but I knew I had to take action. I let some time pass before I started displaying signs of cold myself. The cold was getting to me too, but as time wore on, I exaggerated more and more. My shivering and swaying caused Yana to insist we went ashore and lit a fire. I believed her concern was genuine, although I had thought she would see through my performance. Perhaps the chill slowed her mind.

Wolfram wanted to land on the west side, where there were fewer people, but I said I needed a warm shelter. Wolfram accepted that and turned the rowboat east, but not before extracting a promise from Xipil not to experiment with magic and stars while we were among people.

We secured the boat and loaded ourselves up with the luggage. I ascertained covertly that neither Korro nor Nillet, our patients, looked about to keel over from cold or exhaustion, then I hurried out of the fog. We had a clear view both up and down the road, and it was only a couple of hundred meters to a village south of us. We walked towards it as fast as Grogg’s enormous load permitted.

Wolfram was reluctant to enter the village, but I insisted we needed a warm place where we could have lunch and expel the cold from our bodies before we turned to icicles. Luckily for Wolfram, most of the villagers were out of sight, and the inn was empty but for the innkeeper, who seemed happy to get so many customers at once.

I ordered hot soup for everyone. While we waited for the food, the innkeeper tried to entice us to rent rooms until the weather improved. I replied that we couldn’t commit to a lengthy stay but had to take one day at the time. We still had many hours of daylight, so we could potentially travel quite far before having to stop for the night.

The soup arrived. I placed my hands against the bowl and savored the heat; it almost seemed too hot. Xipil regarded his soup with apprehension, but the few slivers of meat in it weren’t enough to stop him from partaking in the hot meal. Everyone else ate eagerly. The innkeeper offered warm water with honey, and along with the soup, this chased away the cold.

I asked the innkeeper if he knew of someone in the village with a cart that we could purchase. He brought me to the stable adjoining the inn. The gloomy interior reminded me of a conversation I overheard once, where a mother explained to her ten-year-old daughter that she should never let strange men take her to isolated, dark places.

I had no fear of darkness, nor of isolation, but this stable would have been safe, even for that girl. The innkeeper was kind and hospitable, and his only flaw was greed. The cart he showed me had seen better days, but it would do the job of carrying our luggage to Sam; Grogg and Wolfram could take turns pulling the cart. I paid more than the cart was worth, but the price the innkeeper set wasn’t so high that I bothered to haggle. Maybe I should have, if only to hone my skill, but I wanted to get back to Yana, to sit beside her on that bench, and to feel the sparks fly when I my leg touched hers.

[coronatiger]

3rd of Tityra, year 412 (continued)

Back at the table, I noticed the innkeeper throwing glances at us. His body language screamed that there was something he wanted. I sensed no malevolent intent from him and concluded he wanted to ask us for a favor. I was about to get up when I spotted Xipil’s hand carefully opening Wolfram’s belt pouch. He was clearly trying to get to Darvan’s crystal which Wolfram had confiscated. Wolfram was totally oblivious to the endeavor, so I reached over and slapped Xipil’s hand.

Xipil withdrew his thieving fingers, so I stood up and walked over to the innkeeper. He asked again if we wanted rooms, but I asked if there was anything we could do to help him. He locked the door and we sat down with the others.

The cause for the innkeeper’s concern was the village idiot, he said. The codger had always seemed old to the innkeeper. With grey hair at his temples, the innkeeper was no youngster himself. Children, of course, consider all adults “old”, but I suspected there was something more to this old-timer. If he somehow had extended his life beyond his allotted years, that would be sacrilegious, and I would have to remedy the situation. I would pray for guidance, but first, I needed to hear out the innkeeper.

The village idiot didn’t worship Mitra, which around these parts was considered suspect. He kept mostly to himself, living in a walled-up garden on the outskirts of the village. I remembered seeing the high wall when we approached the village; it had tickled my memory, but I couldn’t recall where I had seen its like before.

The old man was considered odd but harmless. This changed six months ago, when he received visitors. Since then, the villagers had heard strange sounds from the garden after dark. Nobody knew what happened to the visitors. Were they still there? Had they been murdered? Some thought the garden was now haunted by ghosts. The innkeeper suspected the old man was worshipping demons.

Since we seemed like a capable party, the innkeeper hoped we would investigate. He couldn’t pay us, he said, but he slid a gold coin across the table towards me. I was confused for a fraction of a second, until I remembered that gold coins have symbolic value to Mitra adherents. I took the coin and said we would check out what was going on. The innkeeper left us to talk amongst ourselves.

I proposed that Yana and Hylda watched our luggage and patients while the rest of us went outside to “stretch our legs”. Since the innkeeper had mentioned ghosts, Xipil asked to have the spirit-seeing ring back. Wolfram handed it over.

Wolfram believed we were up against Kabal. The combination of an overgrown garden and rumors of ghosts or spirits made it likely. I suddenly realized why the wall had seemed so familiar. I entered such a garden once on Your behest. I felt a stab of shame, for the man I killed there, we had met again at the Evening Fort in the form of a wraith. If I had done my job properly, his spirit would have passed through Death’s Door. In the aftermath of the fight against the wraith, I had told my friends that we had met before, and Xipil asked now if I could shed any light on what might be going on in the garden. I couldn’t. If we were lucky, You had a chapel secreted away in the village, and we could find answers there. Xipil said he would come with me, which made me suggest that the others remained at the inn.

I took Yana over to a corner, away from the others, so I could “say goodbye”. I gave her a hug and whispered in her ear. “Xipil tried to steal the crystal from Wolfram. When we’re gone, ask if you can guard it. I don’t think it’s wise to allow Xipil to know where it is.” Walking past the table, I asked Xipil if he was ready to go, but he stared fascinatedly at a clay mug.

I began the search alone, but Xipil followed after a few minutes. We found no chapel, but we got a good look at the suspected Kabal site. The wall was about three and a half meters tall, but it hadn’t been maintained very well, so there were several spots where it was a full meter shorter. There was some distance between the garden and the nearest neighbor, about twenty meters. We took a stroll around the perimeter and saw no entrances to the garden, but a shed leaned against the wall, and we assumed it was possible to enter through it. Xipil whispered that the shed was in use; he must have heard movement inside. Speaking loudly enough to be overheard by whoever was inside the shed, I told Xipil, “I’m getting cold. Let’s go back inside.”

Yana gave me the thumbs-up sign when Xipil and I returned to the inn. That meant she had secured the crystal. We sat down at the table and Xipil recounted what we had discovered. I added that I had seen no spirits. I said I wanted to pray, but Xipil wanted to establish a base of operation for us. The innkeeper had indicated that he didn’t want to be suspected of being to blame for what was about to happen, so Xipil thought we had to relocate. I told him an innkeeper could hardly be held accountable for what his guests did. I wondered if inns were a foreign concept to Xipil.

I stood up and pulled Yana with me to our corner, saying we had to pray now. I had planned to take possession of the magic crystal, put it into my pouch along with Hope, and I would instruct my little sister to guard the artifact. I didn’t think she’d actually bite Xipil if he started rummaging around in the pouch, for Xipil has given himself to You, but I was sure Hope would tell me if the pouch opened without my knowledge. Xipil, however, asked if he could pray with us, so I had to put my plans on hold. There was no way Xipil could know that Yana had the crystal, so it should be safe enough. I could get it from her later.

The three of us knelt, and I fished Hope out of my shirt so she could join our prayer. You told me You had no objections to us going forward with our plans for the garden, but it was also not something You demanded of us. When we returned to the table, Hope safely tucked back in under my shirt, I relayed Your message to the others.

I wanted to talk to the “village idiot” and hear his side of things. If everything checked out and he really was just an eccentric old man, there was no need for further action. Xipil said he would climb the wall, sneak into the garden and take a look around. He wanted Grogg and Wolfram to be nearby, in case he was attacked.

The four of us left the inn; I went directly for the shed while the others circled around to the side of the garden. As I lifted my hand to knock, I heard movement inside, and the door creaked open, just enough for the old man inside to peek out. He warned me to go away, but I tried to make small talk. The man discerned that I wasn’t local and tried using that as an argument to get me to leave, but I countered that he wasn’t local either. I heard Badahan on his tongue.

The man poked his head out and looked around before pulling gently on my sleeve. I followed him inside the shed. The shed was furnished with a simple bed and a desk, and as Xipil and I had predicted, a door through to the garden. The door was closed, but there was nowhere else it could lead. The shed also had equipment for boiling water and making pottery.

When the old man asked what I was doing there, I played the curious youth and began asking all kinds of questions. This fellow had sharp ears. He had heard me approach and I thought he heard Xipil rummaging around in the garden, too, even though I could hear nothing, myself. I distracted him with my litany of questions, so he wouldn’t go check on the noise.

I learned that the man was once an adherent of Kabal, but something happened that made him denounce them, and now he stayed here to prevent innocents from stumbling into the dangerous garden. He claimed there was another man inside the garden, and he was either mad or enlightened, and the old man didn’t know which would be worse. He told me about one of Kabal’s practices, that they killed little birds. I asked why they did that, but I received no answer. Instead, he tried to scare me off by pretending Kabalists started killing people when they were done with the birds.

I didn’t believe him on that last point, but we had talked for more than one hour by then. I had a good grip on the old man’s intentions, and if Xipil hadn’t finished his scouting already, there couldn’t be much more to discover. I said goodbye to the old man, loudly enough for Xipil to hear it behind the stone wall. “Have a good day, and never return,” the old man replied.

I walked back to the inn despite spotting Grogg and Wolfram waiting off to the side. I didn’t want to rouse any suspicions if the old man was watching me go. My friends followed just a couple of minutes later, before I could arrange for an unseen transfer of the red crystal. I thought it was for the best; if we decided to attack the garden, the crystal would be safer with Yana.

[coronatiger]

I informed everyone what I had learned in the shed, mainly that the old man was a former Kabalist who had taken it upon himself to keep people safe from the garden and whatever went on in there. Wolfram was concerned that the old man might have lied about some of the things we discussed, but I assured him I would have discerned if the old man wasn’t truthful. “Actually, he did lie once,” I admitted. “He claimed that Kabal kills people when they grow tired of killing sparrows, but he only said it to scare me away.”

Xipil spoke next. He reported that there was a large shed with no windows in the middle of the garden and a dead body just inside one of the stone walls. The corpse had been there for a while, for the smell of it was fading. Someone had also been digging holes of varying sizes in the ground. Through the spirit-seeing ring, Xipil had seen fragments of spirits flittering about in the trees and bushes.

Wolfram wanted to send the spirits on, and he wanted to do it after dark, so we wouldn’t be seen. He wanted to perform his ritual inside the garden, where Xipil feared there might be a wraith. If there was indeed a wraith, we had to vanquish it, Wolfram decided. Since there would likely be fighting tonight, followed by us fleeing the scene, once the villagers heard the commotion, Wolfram suggested we tried to get some sleep first. Nobody had slept all that well last night, and Grogg and Xipil not at all.

I talked to the innkeeper about rooms. There was a single room, two double rooms and a dormitory, and the innkeeper said we could have them all for free. He claimed it was because it was so nice to have guests again, but the rooms were obviously payment for our assistance. Yana and I got one of the doubles. We could have taken the smallest room since we only had need of one bed, but Xipil claimed it for himself.

When Yana and I had put down our packs, she took my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “What’s troubling you?” she quested, worry tingeing her melodious voice. I hadn’t felt particularly troubled, but when I searched my feelings, I realized what had been nagging at me. “I lied to you,” I admitted. “To everyone, really. In the rowboat, when you were so cold and nobody wanted to protect you, to go ashore and find you some heat. I pretended to be cold myself. Well, colder than I actually was. I thought you would see through the act, but you didn’t, and that made me feel guilty.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised when Yana forgave me. In fact, she was proud that my acting skills were good enough to deceive even her. We decided we needed a secret sign so we could inform each other when we were lying to someone. We devised a sign for “truth” as well; we might need that too.

We brushed our teeth, and then Yana taught me a game. She would make a claim, and I would have to determine if it was true or false. If I got it right, she would give me a kiss. If I was wrong, I had to kiss her instead. The logic of it brought a smile to my face.

“Let’s sit down,” Yana suggested. She sat on the side of the bed and indicated that I should sit, too, turned to face her so we could read each other’s body language. “I’ll begin,” she said, then looked me right in the eyes, her face settling into a neutral expression. “The first time I met Lunas Aldera, the first word I heard out of him was a curse-word.” Despite Yana’s attempt to keep her features neutral, I saw expectation and excitement in her. No lie, though. “True,” I declared. “But why would he curse at you? No, he didn’t,” I amended quickly. “He cursed at someone else, but in your presence.”

“You’re completely right, Nuur-Karif. It was on the streets of Byblos, two years ago, when I worked there making dresses for the ladies at court. He was walking along, enjoying some juicy fruit, when someone ran into him, making the fruit fly. Of all the people in the busy street, the fruit decided that I was the one whose hair needed a new fragrance. It hit me right in the back of the head. After Lord Lunas apologized, we struck up a friendship; he was the first noble who didn’t look down his nose at me.”

Sadness crept up on Yana while she spoke of Lord Lunas. His murder had shaken her deeply. “It’s your turn to make a claim. Take me somewhere happy,” Yana requested after giving me my prize. I considered what to say. “Before I met you, I had never kissed anyone on the mouth.”

Yana frowned at me. “Hm… When we met, you were terribly inexperienced with romance, but I know you have used your sex appeal to lure your victims. No kissing, though? That sounds far-fetched. I’m going to guess that it’s a lie. No, wait, I change my mind. Your tongue or fangs could give you away, even if you tried to hide them. You’re telling the truth.” I maintained eye contact, waiting for Yana to change her mind again, but she didn’t. “Sorry, Yana. You weren’t the first to taste these luscious lips, but I do hope you’ll be the last.” Yana grabbed the front of my jacket and pulled me close, then she took my head between her hands, sucked on my lower lip and bit down carefully, yet hard enough to make a mark. “Mine,” she asserted with a possessive smile.

Yana sat up straight again and stared into the air, deep in thought. I supposed she counted marking me as hers as paying the forfeit. I wouldn’t have called her bite a kiss, despite our lips touching, yet I had felt a flutter spreading through my body, and I suspected that my pupils were dilating with arousal.

When Yana had decided on her next claim, her eyes found mine again. “My real father, the man who made my mother pregnant, was Oridal Larma.” Yana’s statement made me think, and when I didn’t answer as quickly as before, she started to glow triumphantly. On the surface, the claim was ridiculous. The head of the Larma family was widely known to be as racist as the rest of his clan, and I would never have thought that the elf lord would deign to sleep with a human woman, not even a noble, like Yana’s mother. Also, if Yana had elven blood, I would surely have seen it manifest in her appearance. Was this really a case of “too outrageous to be a lie”? I considered Yana’s body language and the hint of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth while I recalled what she had said earlier about her upbringing.

Lady Kalia Amrosh bore Yana out of wedlock, and the scandal only grew when it became known that the father of the child was a commoner, a soldier assigned to protect Lady Kalia. Rallan Sandari was sent off to patrol the border as soon as Lady Kalia confessed his name. Gossip and distance drove a wedge between the two lovers, and the dream they had shared shattered.

Yana’s presence was a constant reminder in the House of “Kalia’s shame”, and even though it broke her heart, Lady Kalia sent for Rallan, to have him take the toddler away. Rallan had no idea how to raise a child, so he went to live with his sister, who had three children of her own. Rallan resigned from active duty and joined his brother-in-law’s business of breeding horses.

Lady Kalia visited the horse ranch about once a year. She explained to Yana, when the girl was old enough to understand, about the duties she had towards the House. Yana was deliberately vague when she told me about these duties, but I thought they included spying for the Moon Shadows. Lady Kalia also sent a woman to live at the ranch, ostensibly as a tutor for Yana and her cousins, but her true task was to instill in Yana a sense of loyalty towards House Amrosh. She also instructed the children in religion, which Yana hated; she didn’t want to be told what to believe, so she paid as little attention as possible.

I couldn’t remember that anything seemed off about Yana’s story, when she first told it. I couldn’t imagine that she’d have any reason to lie at the time, but another possibility dawned on me. If Rallan Sandari was as devoted to Lady Kalia as Yana had made out, he could have been willing to raise another man’s child as his own. I hardly believed Yana stopped spying when she moved to the capital, so it wasn’t inconceivable that she uncovered rumors of some nobleman’s dalliance with her mother, twenty or so years earlier.

Studying Yana, I got the sensation that she wanted me to say that her claim was true. “No, it’s a lie,” I declared. “It’s true that it was a lie,” Yana conceded, disappointed that she hadn’t been able to outsmart me. I spotted a twinkle in her eye, though, when she leaned over to give me my reward.

This was a real kiss, I was happy to find, nice and soft and wet, and with lots of tongue. “I love you,” escaped my lips as Yana leaned back. She grinned victoriously. “That’s true,” she said, and claimed a kiss from me. I gave it willingly, but I also wanted a real turn at the game.

“If I extend my fangs, but I don’t attack with them, I must perform a ritual of contrition as soon as possible after I’ve retracted them,” I proposed. Yana thought out loud. “I’ve seen you extend your fangs plenty of times, and even though you fall on your knees often enough that one might suspect you of having weak legs, I’ve never connected your praying to the flaunting of your fangs. On the other hand, you would never lie about anything concerning Ashtar, so this has to be true.” Smiling, I tightened the muscles that ejected the fangs, then I flicked them in and out a few times to show Yana she had been wrong. Yana’s jaw dropped, but so did my stomach, and I broke out in a cold sweat. I slid to the floor and prayed fervently for forgiveness.

[coronatiger]

When I finally got up, Yana rewarded me with a hug instead of a kiss. We played a few more rounds, but after my blasphemy, my heart wasn’t in it. Still, I won every round except the last, which made me start to think Yana was letting me win, but her joy when she caught me in a lie in the last round was too genuine. Thinking back on her behavior this morning, her unabashed flirting, I hoped this victory would entice Yana to take our game to the next level, but she declared that I needed to rest up for tonight’s excursion. She was probably right. None of us had slept very well last night. Also, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the intimacy as much as I would have if I hadn’t just transgressed so grievously.

We woke again when the sun was dipping towards the horizon. Packing our sailor’s clothes away, we donned dresses instead. Yana chose her creation of green and yellow pastels, while I put on the white one with blue embroidery that Yana had made for me.

I asked Yana if she was hungry too, and she took the rounds to gather everyone while I went downstairs to talk to the innkeeper. He made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to know what we were going to do after sunset, but he provided a free meal before leaving us alone to plan.

I suggested that Wolfram erected his totem pole up at the Kabal garden and cast his spell to allow the nearby spirits to move on. If a wraith appeared, I could handle it. Wolfram thought we should warn the old man in the shed that we were going to eradicate Kabal’s influence in the village.

Yana and Hylda took the cart with most of our luggage, as well as the two patients, to wait for us south of the village. I headed for the garden with Xipil, Grogg and Wolfram, but an elderly man waved me over. His son had claimed that I had been up at the garden earlier, and this greybeard warned us not to go there. He also thought it was suspicious that we allowed a troll to walk around armed. I thanked him for his concern and wished him a good night.

Wolfram, Xipil and Grogg overheard the conversation, and Wolfram said we should proceed with our plan. I nodded. We split up and I walked towards the shed. The old man inside bounced up before I knocked and ushered me inside. “What are you doing out at this time?” he queried, for it was rapidly growing darker outside. I passed along our warning that my friends and I were going to remove Kabal from the village and cautioned him to stay out of our hair. He said straight out that he would rather we killed him.

You hadn’t given me any indications about how to deal with the gatekeeper, so I knelt and prayed, asking permission to kill, but it was hard to establish a connection. I had half-expected that, being on another cult’s holy land, but it was still upsetting. There was also the possibility that I wasn’t quite forgiven yet. That idea sent a shiver down my spine. The old man recognized that I was an Ashtarite, and he begged, nearly ordered, that I killed him. I said I first needed permission from You, so I went outside and tried to pray closer to the village. I got a sensation that something wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t wrong of me to kill this man, but there was more to it, something I couldn’t grasp. Despite the vagueness of Your answer, the feel of Your coils wrapping around my mind made me tremble with ecstasy.

I met up with Xipil, Grogg and Wolfram. “I suspect the old man will turn into a wraith if I kill him,” I explained, “but I’m not sure, so I hesitate to use the last dose of the wraith-preventing venom. I don’t want to waste it if I’m wrong.” We discussed this as well as how large Wolfram’s magic circle needed to be until the old man came around the corner. Xipil said his staff was magical, then darted behind a tree, hiding before the old man got too close.

The old man raised his voice and asked us to leave. Wolfram seized the man and held his huge hand over his mouth. We didn’t want the villagers to hear what we were doing. Wolfram asked me what to do with the old man, and I reminded him that he knew what You had told me.

Our captive indicated that he wanted to talk calmly, so Wolfram removed the hand from his mouth. There had been a gruesome ritual in the garden, so we couldn’t enter, according to the old man. At least one of the people in there was either mad or enlightened. To elaborate on the ritual, he explained that four men who each had lived long enough for two men joined together to find enlightenment, but one would become apostate, one would go mad, and one would die. From what I was able to piece together, the ritual had happened several months ago, but the old man said it might take years before the process completed. However, I was fairly sure that some parts of it had finished. I suspected this man of being the apostate, with all his talk about preventing people from joining Kabal, and Xipil had discovered that there was a dead body in the garden. That only left the mad one and the enlightened one. Xipil hadn’t seen the insides of the shed in the garden, so they could be there.

Wolfram asked the man if he could guarantee not to return as a wraith if we killed him. He got no answer, so he asked for rope to bind him. Grogg started searching in his sack. Wolfram also told us to take the man’s staff away from him, but the man clung to it and claimed that the staff was dangerous. Grogg reached for the staff, but pulled back when Kraa screamed. Xipil seized the staff instead, and Grogg wrapped his arm around the lizard man and pulled both him and the staff away from the old man.

There really was some danger in the staff, for Xipil became dizzy and Grogg had to steady him so he didn’t fall over. Xipil dropped the staff to the ground and rubbed his eyes. Wolfram asked if he was all right, but Xipil asked the man what it was he had seen. He didn’t answer beyond a conclusion that Xipil had to be a mage, and he mumbled to himself, wondering what to do with the staff if he died. Xipil offered to take care of it, but I said the old man could guard the staff himself, if he let us do what we had planned at the garden. The old man indicated that using the staff caused the wielder to grow power-hungry. The staff still lay where Xipil had dropped it, but after hearing the owner’s testimony, Grogg positioned himself between it and me. I couldn’t tell if Grogg didn’t bother to be circumspect, or if he just failed miserably.

We eventually got out of the old man that the staff could be used to control minor spirits. I expected that to set Wolfram off, but he just changed the subject. If I hadn’t been paying close attention, I would have thought the old man had cast a charm on Wolfram, for he suddenly seemed to trust the oldtimer. He asked if he knew how to heal colored souls, revealing almost everything about Korro and Nillet. The old man didn’t have any answers for us. In fact, he hadn’t believed that coloring souls could be done to living creatures. It would be a great evil if it was possible.

I think we managed to convince the old man that our intentions were good and that we should go ahead with our plan, for he concluded that he should leave this place and “track down some loose threads”. Grogg asked if he knew how to track down lost shadows, but the old man didn’t know. He did, however, suggest that the lost shadows were colored by a demon. Grogg had us all swear not to reveal this to Hylda.

Xipil picked up the staff and returned it to its owner. I thought that was that, but Wolfram held back the old man and began discussing philosophy with him, comparing the difference between Tiri and Kabal when it came to how untethered spirits should be treated. Kabal’s view was to contain the spirits until they had been cleansed, while Tiri’s was to send them on. I felt I had to side with Wolfram and Tiri. You have always given me Your blessing to send souls to the afterlife, no matter how tainted they were. The old man worried that the unclean souls might not find their way, but I assured him that when I sent a soul to You, the soul went where I directed. He was happy to hear that. We said goodbye to each other and I wished him luck on his journey.

Wolfram spoke a prayer to the moon goddess before asking if he should begin his ritual. Xipil had sat down to meditate, so he wasn’t paying attention at all, but I told Wolfram to go ahead. Wolfram erected his totem pole near the garden wall and started drawing magical symbols on the ground. After a while, Wolfram said something tried to disturb him, but he kept drawing. I saw no spirits outside the garden, and tiny ones in the trees behind the wall, so I suspected he had the same difficulty as me. Enforcing one divinity’s will on another’s turf wasn’t easy. Once Xipil finished his meditation, he helped with the drawing, which took about a quarter of an hour.

When Wolfram declared that his magic circle was ready, I handed Xipil the vial of anti-spirit venom. My holy weapons allowed me to affect spirits without it, so I thought it was wise to facilitate another fighter, if it came to that; Xipil had the spirit-seeing ring, so he could see where to strike. Xipil climbed the wall and stood on top of it to have a better view of the garden.

Wolfram cast his spell, and I drew my long knives in case someone showed up to complain. The spirits up in the trees blinked out of existence, and Xipil climbed back down to inform us that most of the souls in the garden had vanished. “No, no, no! Come back! My horse!” we heard an old man’s voice exclaim from the other side of the wall, and Xipil scampered back up.

Grogg, Wolfram and I hurried silently around the corner to the shed where I had talked to the apostate Kabalist. I opened the wooden door on the inner wall, but discovered that our way into the garden was blocked by a metal plate. I searched but could find no mechanism to open the passage through the stone wall.