Chapter Seven, Hearts & Minds

Farrow Forest, nightfall, 14th of Duskcrest, 1328 CE

Beneath black, misshapen bows the sorceress contorts herself in trance. Her dance tethers tune to the earth. She bends with the breeze and sways with the stars. Witch-ruse and oneiromancy possessed; her lungs breathe in revenge. Redemption blows through the dusky air. Pale pyre yearns to alight her locks. Azarra forgets herself, her name, her pain. Swirling her spirit bare before the firmament. Naked catharsis & jubilant reprisal becomes her.

Kassan’s spirit remained affixed to bloody pole. No body of ‘the Bear’ remained whole to tear at hers. The lot of his lame corpse: a feast for ruin. How could fear reach her anymore, when that head was splayed upon ignominious end of a spike? Yet it did, enfolding over her rapture. Evening gloom of Farrow grew oppressive, even without lurking wraiths, and consumed the paths before her. Still, the paralysis of possibility was preferable to shame’s spell of stasis.

An acolyte approached from the murk, cloaked in gray garb & dowdy hood. Flashing sign of deference, she removed her hood. The faithful face of her servant revealed: the fresh-faced mien of Dahlia. This green yet ambitious disciple she’d sent to summon the desiccated Stieg to her current lair, this withered bower tucked far from awful oglers.

Glowing cheeks contrasted her silver skin. Golden-green eyes, framed by bobbed, black-brunette cut, gleamed at her with devious enthusiasm. Azarra thought Dahlia reminiscent in likeness to her own untainted youth, despite their varied hues. I envy her innocence but revere her naivety all the same. I will not allow any treachery to befall her as what did me. A fine mirror, heir of image, she may be for me. But her flushness lacks the warm glow of Delphine’s.

Dahlia’s eager lips lusted for speech. “All that you asked of me, High Mother, is arranged. The bard, Baron ov Bredrodan, is arrived at this liberated hearth. And that Ferali wizard agreed to come with me here. Stieg is just over yonder, kept by other acolytes inspecting his person for concealed edge. They’ll cleanse him of steel and any wicked will before entering your beauteous company. He awaits your word to be delivered as you will of me.”

Azarra’s glee elevated to nefarious smile. Her heartbeat raced with malicious anticipation. “Beautifully done, Dahlia. I shall reward you dearly in due time. You hath served me and the Drakoni more than you may imagine already. In my appreciation of your unwavering service, I trust you will not prick up any ear once I admit our guest.”

“My complete confidence; my tongue and its silence are for you, mystical Mother.” Dahlia enunciated clearly, in manner one might only presume from a noble or well-versed scholar beyond her experience. “Lady Delphine accompanies our Living Lord as he surveys the land with the bard and elders of Ferali and Farrow. I stand humbly as your Gate. Shall I swing these hinges? Let enter our visitor and send off the rest? Or shall several swords remain by the trees?”

“Shut them out. Close him to my company alone.” Azarra’s ribcage rang with pulsating pleasure. Battering bliss at the willing obedience of Dahlia and her Will unfolding so smoothly (crossing vast steppes, enfolded by future she commands). Stieg - emissary and witness to her torment beneath the last red moon – willingly walking to his doom, granting his flesh to her thoughts of sweet revenge, filled her with devilish delight.

Passion played puppet of her. A lark of lust sang her soul wet the lips of her lovely acolyte with hers. Their stormy kiss invigorates Azarra’s apprentice, fusing the affection she so craved to sensual sublimation. In their impassioned peck, a promise to Dahlia’s want for more; a taste to lure her into the matriarch’s pull.

Dahlia blushes at their mouths part, beheld by hysterical elation. Her pupils dilate with devotion and the sundrenched stupor of girlish gaiety. Their kiss finished, they exhale butterflies from a vortex of color and pain. Dahlia, cheek blushing rose, leaves the ritual circle for her post. Hips waving coquettishly as she swayed into the swallowing dark of tree towers. Affixing her look from one shape to the next across the wood, a silhouette slides out of thicket & crosses moonbeams’ downpour.

At the sight of Stieg’s grey, artless countenance the sorceress convulses with unconscious animosity. Blistering revenge threatens to tear outward. An impending sense of closure draws near with his arrival. Aroma of incense rose from altar adjacent to Azarra, fused with another horribly familiar scent swelling into her nostrils. That beading musk, satyr’s sweat & breath of myrrh that accompanied Kassan’s arrival at the Temple, his befouling coronation.

You, stars! Sky-Seers! Ye who turned protective gaze from me while I was wronged: watch now with your celestial sight! Bear witness to my hidden hand, the steel I conceal! Deliver not this craven fiend to your astral plane! Seal what might take flight from cold corpse in sunless oblivion, as shade condemned. Let him recant the errors of his life as he is lost to fog.

Stieg’s sandy drawl dusted her hearing. “My Lady Azarra.” The Harbinger bowed low, sincerely. Inwardly the woman quivered at his greeting but kept her repose. “Forgive my dithering in not making it sooner. Alas, I feared you would pay my need for resolution no great mind with so much going on. Yet you humor this old and bitter man who hath played part in many an atrocity. Long was I devoid of hope, light soiled by shade until Kassan fell by your son’s sword and gave me first respite. Thank you for this. Heavy as my heart still is, in my obstinate twilight.”

Azarra refused to greet him. Didn’t relent a word. Left him hanging on her silence.

“I hope that I might die with as much contentedness as suits an old butcher of the Bear. But as you have sought out my service, I pledge it to you in my wolfen hours. If I may aid your cause with what vigor remains of this parched, gray rucksack you only need ask. I shall raise no argument but chase your mission venerably.”

Does he pretend not to remember Kassan’s ‘glorious’ coronation that left me so bereaved?! The embers of his master’s memory flickered within the old man’s stare. She wanted nothing less than to gouge out that foul imprint carving into her. My son can never learn shameful truth from these winter lips. I will burn his heart by balefire!

“Do you recall the 13th night of Wolvsmoon, 1308th cycle of our Common Era? How Gaahl renounced relic to knavery of your old master? Were you not among his emissaries gathered on that mount to see him crowned?”

“Aye.” Admitted Stieg. “I was there at Kassan’s request....” The old man coughed. “My lady, might I inquire as to your angle in this questioning? I am well aged and without much verve left for life. I confess it brings displeasure to look back upon my darker years of service – to a master justly slain.”

“Did he boast of his meeting with the oracle? Gloat about the virginal fruits he enjoyed and ravaged foul?!”

Azarra’s venomous look betrayed her intention, and Stieg stepped back from the wounded witch, uncertain. “Yes, I heard tales of his ‘conquest’ of some cherry, a damsel. I thought nothing of it, as such are the spoils of war. Not only among the Ferali but among all our tribes, even if this does not justify our worst lust ...” Overcome with revelatory apprehension at the deathly accusation lining her words, he lowered his head to her, that wounded oracle of which she alluded. “Ah, I see. Let it be known that you will hear no begging from me. I accept any culpability. If I am not wanted, not needed among your cause, I no longer desire to linger in life.”

Azarra snorted, her appetite for vengeance not rightly satiated. “Humor me first, warlock of the bear, why did you serve him then? Let me tear open those old wounds of yours! My past yet bleeds out onto yours, after all! Why straddle the steps of the despoiler knowing what he was; what he did to villages and virgin vows? Why carry water for his cruel tide? Was it not until you saw the madman slip, and you saw a chance at reward, that you turned coat?”

Stieg fell quiet for a breath. The balefire sighed smoke, waiting for the accused to speak his defense. Then he recanted his silence. Addressing Azarra’s angry inquiry as a voice distant from his experience, as a sage or storyteller recalling another’s tale of disgrace.

“-once a man of tradition, of family and simple service. Concerned with the runes and ways of the world only so far as it could ensure more harvest for my kin. Another witness to the rise of Kassan; the murder of his brother, and the descent of my tribe into madness. I served loyally, as any good kinsman would. Paid heed my father’s wisdom, the imbued customs of honor: that one should stand for their people above all else. Taught that the chieftain’s will as ours, I hid my doubts and followed tread till it led me to tenure. Glory with great cost.”

Indifference filtering his host’s eye, he hurried his story. Yet she frowned at scant aspect of enjoyment its telling. “Kassan became a lunatic led not by a vision for his people but by fetish for aggrandizement. But the blood spilt by his pursuit splashes my palms still. For this ancient fool in me often played as his left hand in military affairs when greater warriors were off on boundless battle. My runes, my advice, and my ardency for the clan laid stones of our success over the graves of our foes. Victories seized for his glory. Perhaps life mocked me for allowing ambition to trample respect for true mysticism. For my master bestowed no honor unto those who won the battles for him, least of all his harbingers.”

Azarra remained unimpressed. Fingering at the blade hid at her belt, she let his retelling roll on. “Under the banner of the Bear I played cool hand in the culling of many a village; each that were

not so different from my old home outside Harmsburg. I heard the screams of countless families torn apart for the Bear’s roar. And when my armor, my defenses and self-deceit, cracked the guilt finally found me. Should I see outside this night I shall still be haunted by those cries and nasty memories which sleep’s reprieve from me...”

“And yet,” Stieg persisted, “save my ‘turning coat’ to your Drakkon, I had naught any courage to stand or speak against him. You may take heart to know how my master repaid me my service? Kassan, wanted for more than his first wife and mistresses. None could sire a son after constant tries, so he took my beloved wife, for concubine and womb.”

Azarra grew sharp to hear Stieg recount his harsher sorrows. Titillated by his woes. “He had no right nor reason but to satisfy base desires and humiliate me. He who was responsible for much of his success and who he hated for it. Thus, he sought to castrate me, so to speak. I had no choice but to allow their union... She gave him what he yearned. Bore him two twins, Beron & Heron. Those two she gave everything to birth!”

“I could not call him to kraagspeer nor resist his power. So, I chose to channel my hatred onto the battlefield and become a relentless machine of war. The gods do delight in their irony. For it was war that took the life of my true son...I watched our first boy, the sun of my seed, die at the point of Harathi spear in a fight that gained not a meter for our tribe!” Stieg fumed with impassioned retelling that contrasted the brume of the circle. “It was not the Harathi I cursed. For they only defended their hills, as good men must their homes. It was Kassan!”

To Azarra there could be no doubt that he spoke from the stomach of his soul. Yet this only perturbed her more. His sincerity so serrating. Mockingly clear in his recollection of all the sins, including the crime done to her. Watching the reluctant tears stream down, it was evident that this was a pain he long kept concealed and expressed to no one else in full.

When the witness to her worst moment ceased his speech Azarra returned his confession with an icy spear of apathy and rejection. “It took your own pain to awaken you to that of others. There is no salvation in your sobbing. It only makes you more pathetic, especially when even you know no redemption is earned.”

Stieg nodded, unemotionally. He accepted this condemnation; even should it be warrant for execution. Reverence stood in his poise. “If my death should be a fitting rite to make things right, so be it. Pathetic parasite that I am. There is no hatred in me should you cast me out. You are Mother of the Divine, the real revolutionary who spun this land out of its plagued stagnation. Your son hath delivered me from my fetters. I am but a mast adrift your waves, your eminent Will. Claim or release me, as is your want.”

Azarra’s grip fastened firmly about the ritual dagger, jutting from her cloak. “Your death is exactly my desire. But do not think to find solace in the company of the honored dead. I deliver you into the maw of oblivion to be devoured by dark. Your treacherous obedience to survival is no pardon. Steal my air no longer.”

Silver edge of athame slits open his throat. Gushing crimson wets blade & grass. Stieg accepts this flow with cold consent, uttering no cries. Even the repentant harbinger’s death throes were modest; muzzled by the soul’s stoicism save the gurgling of the body’s red supply slipping out.

The welkin weeps for Azarra as distant towers of rain release a long-built tension. Inbound drizzle dampens the dirt though not enough to stamp out the fire. She carves pieces from gashed cavity. Removing bloody pulp in his chest with less than surgical precision, with wrath to shout storms, she tosses it to the balefire. Famished flames warmly receive her sacrifice, creating kindling of organ bits to survive the slight drops. Stieg’s heart roasts in sight of starlight.

Meanwhile, outskirts of Hearthfarrow

An ethereal chord struck at the soft storm’s arrival. Winds gave to vespers, caroling about the village and wood. Drakkon closed his eyes as he stood on the perimeter, marking it all in his mind. Filled his lungs with reverent awe at the beauty of freed land. Alongside the lord were led diverse delegates including famed smith of song, Baron. Having triumphed, earning peace for all from the shadow of the Bear, his banner looming large spun inspiration into bard’s brain and wooed heralds of competing clans to unite under it.

Under guarded escort the last living son of Kassan, Heron, was shuffled to the hill. Presented then before Drakkon, slayer of the Black Bear. The young cub showed less of a likeness to his father than his fallen brother. Prolonged survey of him might incite wonder as to if he inherited some ill-fitting features from his birthmother – soft aspects which clashed offense when fused with his father’s - or an ancestor who contributed to buried oddness of older lines. First glance gave almost guileless impression of the lad.

His was a husky but stumpy bone structure. Heron held brutality in him, verging on ugly from certain angles, with fell chin & unset jowls. But this was made up for by a glimmer of intelligence shining under his brow. Eyes of conflicted nobility, nicking a grit incongruous with initial sense of him. There came further aesthetic imbalance in the boy, but a runt compared to brother and father. Found in asymmetry of seeming simultaneously attenuated, thick set & hefty in various areas. A short mead-belly, marginally noticeable, pushed above his kilt (but did not slosh grossly, being padded of stronger stuff) as he lunged bow of supplication. Head slunk in acceptance of what fate should be decreed as his, he stated his piece.

“Drakkon – Lord. I am aware of my father’s sins. To face responsibility for these crimes I may well deserve... I am not proud. My father’s crest gave naught but grief, nor did I give pride to his line with little, gruesome glories. I ask no clemency.” Heron’s resolve reached far even as his shaggy black hair hid his eyes. Till he lifted grey lids from dank soil to fix on his father’s killer. “I let a monster be born through me. The choice – the frail fear of it – still mine to own. That there are better men than me among our camp who did the same is no consort to the truth of it. Death would be just sentence for this pitiful creature in me. But I would not wish it upon those better men left among the Bear-clad. I humbly pray our penance does not extinguish bloodlines not yet blossomed into balanced shape. What mercy may.”

The Lord stepped forward, searching his features for character. Something about him – though childe of devilish siring – resounded with a strange, unnamable, connection inside him. Peering into him showed spiritual dignity, inheritance of more breadth than blood. Heron boldly admitted his fate. Begged no mercy for himself yet prayed it for others. His judge sheathed his sword in silk coated scabbard and speaks to the bastard of Kassan, hand of steel gloved in velvet upon shoulder.

“None of us get to choose our fathers, Heron. All too many of us do not get to choose our masters either. Sadly, even now there are countless numbers of sons of all our tribes just beyond the great rivers who are bound in chains and made to serve the unholy whims of Vizzari magisters.” To the shock of the bard Baron, among throng of followers, Drakkon knelt to Heron’s level and addressed him with compassion.

“I am a god of Light, not god of war. It is merely that I must wield the sword to reap said Light in the darkened canvas of this world. But I do not seek excess bloodshed. Thus, I do not seek to cleave the head of a soul with virtue. Not unless that soul cloaks vice beneath it. Yet not so of you.”

Heron appeared just as much in awe as those surrounding them. “Then what would you ask of me, if not lethal penance?”

“I would ask you serve to the Light, rather than condemn you to darkness. Willingly. Not of fearing obligation but by your choice. Will you serve as champion of unification? Will you go forth among the Ferali and lead them, with your virtue carrying banner of Living Light?”

As Heron pondered Drakkon stood, height obscuring the welkin light. Beneath his shade the bear cub spoke. “Aye, Lord. I accept this trust you offer unto me, though I feel yet unworthy. I use this chance you grant to redeem path of my life and that of my clan to walk towards the future. All fibers of mine heart sing tune of service unto you, Living Lord.”

Hearing this Drakkon unleashed anew his sword. Then rested it upon Heron’s shoulder. Not as the sword of execution but of knightly endowment. “Then, son of the feral wilds,” he moved the groove gently over his other shoulder, “I declare you no longer the progeny of darkness,” the tip met top of Heron’s brow, “for you are a childe of Light! Consummate this rebirth in quest for our cause!”

Voiceless reverence prevailed as all attendants removed their helmets and hoods. For all understood here that it was better the Ferali be an ally than martyr or another fledgling tyrant. Even if some among their congregation questioned the success of such redemption, they acknowledged the try. Loyalists of the various parties alike observed this portentous moment. Their savior once more addressed the one emboldened by glow of his mercy.

“Now, Heron, thou art christened champion of the solar fire of creation. Take what measure is needed to rally thy fellows to greater purpose! And know,” his sheathe welcomed sword with night’s finality, yet threat of steel hung heavy in air, “that should thou spurn my bestowal, this chance, then the face the god in me greets thee with shall be more terrible than death.”

“Lord. Should I falter, will that I suffer death by a thousand cuts. I ask now to take leave, with your blessing.” Heron grips fist to his chest, saluting his Lord’s mercy. A tear of hopeful absolution spots his pale cheek, sparkling silver as he sends back for his people’s interment post.

Discussion brewed amongst the players of warfare and speakers of civility. Some offered praise for their host’s temperance while others persisted in unrest. The Farrowkin steward, most set in his ways, spoke up for the latter position; pacing discontent, unafraid to show resistance to Drakkon’s decision. “The Ferali will never follow that boy, even if your will is a forgiving one. They are bred of a wild, untamable lot. It was not merely their former jarl who took sadistic pleasure in slaughter & butchery – it is their nature as a tribe and the only one they know! They hear voice of the leadership only as brute force. ‘Tis unwise to let them stay under pretense of diplomacy! Will not the vengeance they visit later be worsened by this injury? If we do not grant these fiends to the grave all children and adherents of Farrow & our cousins will be given to it when their evil grows again!”

Drakkon turned slowly to the source of this dissent. Holding no malice in his gaze nor fury in his address when it followed the rhetoric’s outburst. “That decision is not yours to make. O, steward whose House I rescued from the flames. Hearthfarrow would be ash & cinders had I not arrived to call kraagspeer. I did not do so only that one tribe may assert their supremacy over another or undermine our aim of unity.”

He shut up any further dispute with a wave. “You hath been granted a second chance at life yourselves. You share this blessing. So why not extend the same grace to young Heron and his men? Those men whose nerves have them caged, feeling closed in on as the feral beasts you assert them to always be. The slaughter you request would be stupid. Tis your line of rabid reasoning that would spin the wheel of vengeance you fear into action. Against you and us all. Cease this evil chatter. You are all dismissed as of now. Sleep on beds of gratitude. Let us speak more soberly on the morrow.”

The speakers descended back into the town proper, but Drakkon, two of his honor guard & Baron waited to start after them. Their periphery path illumed by returning folds of starry drapery and the glow of celebratory fires. Ahead near the central green a massive bonfire belched a mood between whimsy & wan. From scrying coals, the poet of song & sword swilled the fumes of history & prophecy. What inspiration & worry fed there! A beacon to reflect faces of prouder past when tribes stood to sever the strangling coil of their Serpent foe; flashes of time’s melody when it moved the likes of King Ferion & Drakkon’s preceding incarnations. Yet cowering anxieties spotted the curious eyes pecking at them from perches around the pyre.

The bard smirked as he offered his lord a skin of wine. “Fancy some spirits to liven your own? Given how Hearthfarrow is all but rescued from baneful ‘wraiths’ by your heroism it is odd that you should wear such dour face.”

Drakkon briskly denied the flask. “The numbing draughts of which mortal men quell their minds are not suitable for my nature. Besides, there is much still to contemplate upon ground of solid thought. Reveling is well won for the people of this place, who till its soil and hunt its forests. But I mustn’t stoop into festive stupor. Especially when the spirits these folk spit down their gullets tonight are not all poured in spirit of celebration.”

Baron cocked his brow ever so slightly at the notion of ‘mortal men’ but made quick motion to drown his doubt with steep swig. “Ever the stoic, I see. Well, suit yourself. Perhaps ‘tis better they do not take their new Lord for a drunkard. Please do not take me for one either. I simply drink to your success! That Living Light floods my liver!”

He wiped sweetly sour dribble from his chin and waltzed on in musical mood. “DO forgive those of the hearth that frown upon your mercy for the young heir of the bear. They are understandably well rooted in their grudge against the Ferali, after long years of loss by the Black claws. We are not all so far seeing as your, er, holy self. Many live only for the day and seek only small comforts. Heads buried in security do not seek the horizon with their sight. But, as a student of history, I feel the tides are surging with such nigh unprecedented current. That your ‘tomorrow’ to build for them shall dwarf even the elder days of our earliest progenitors, who walked besides and warred for gods among them.”

“What are you getting at? I do not need flattery nor praise from the likes of you, bard.” Said Drakkon simply. “You hang on the tail of my cloak at the High Mother’s behest. Would not your art, you were recruited for, be best conducted by studying your subject from afar?”

“We bards are well known as smiths of verse. They also say our sour tongues are dipped in silver as to grasp for even the most guarded coin purse.” He chuckled softly to himself. “But I ask no trivial tithe but to give tribute to you, Lord. I wish simply to know who this great person is, perched upon the precipice of history & change. To know his wish of what might be sculpted of constantly churning morass.”

“Your tongue spins endlessly in circles!”

“A talent which the maidens are quite fond of, heh,” the vagabond poet consumed more spirits, undeterred by his host’s annoyance, “but forgive me. In sooth, my manner is of gratitude. We bards and fighting skalds search the annals of history. All the same, we seek fresh inspiration for ballad and poem in the wide world. In this you are a living Muse.”

“You are attributing my efforts, this cause, as solely purposed as vessel for your song?” Drakkon scowled.

“Nay, nay! I compare not your stature to some lovely maiden or rumor so shrouded it can be freely shaped! You are Muse beyond comparison. You offer glittering rapture. An entirely new song. I am remiss to admit, I was curious to the truth of your myth. But I see a greatness in you to combine our collective dreams, personal muses, to pursuit of a better world. It is that empyrean dream for which I feel blessed to be a part of and ask only that I might scribe this march of progress as it unfolds before the vast tapestry of all our lives.”

“Well, it is good my mother’s kindness gifts you with the chance of the lifetime. I am certain you will put your quill to parchment with excited retelling of our journey onward. But I am yet unable to see what use you offer our ‘progress’. I must be frank it stating it is an odd choice on my mother’s part to admit you into our camp. What might you offer the Drakoni in return, save a drunken poet’s flowery flourishes?”

“My good Lord, not to diminish your luminousness in the least but what scope should your ‘Light’ reach without the tales & truth of your glory to touch the masses near & yonder? All our shared history was etched in stone, scroll & song by men like myself – well I would still consider myself a different sort but perhaps that is some stroke of hubris on my part.”

“All the imaginations & beliefs of our peoples are illumed by torch of art & scholarship. Kept alit to bid the world dream of days of old and ask what future might yet be dreamt. So, my ‘use’ as you put it is to spread the good word & Drakoni virtue. Honor you and Azarra by carving gospel f a breathing legend. As my patrons, I am also e’ermore willing to offer my services as scout & spy, which my respectable trade allows. My oath is for you, not the hermetic Druids who taught me but a couple chords.”

“Alas your words lift with meaning. I understand well enough, this purpose. Yet I still am unaware as to why you should seek my companionship so actively, Baron ov Bredrodan.”

The pair reached the perimeter of the bonfire where many souls danced happy circles & shared concerns with what good friends remained among them. Drakkon stayed beyond the noisy circle, to not draw unwarranted attention. If only he could push the stares away and unshackle his mental sinews in solitude. For difficult duties still stared him down. As did the visage of Kassan still blaze through gray matter of his brain as a phantom, alight in the tendrils of the bonfire.

“May I ask if ever in your incarnations there’s been any whom you could call a true friend?” asked Baron, prodding the trance of his fellow. “Any who cared for you as a person rather than as an object of worship?”

“Hum?” he asked, baffled by such an inquiry. His focus did not drift from the crackling pillar. Its kindling: revelry, hopes, joys, nightmare & still more spirits. Baron’s abrupt & unexpectedly personal question exiled that blasphemous effigy of Kassan and his own charred semblance behind it. Now the swaying motions of smoke and the wings that formed of them cast faces, vaguely discernable. Char coughed image from childhood, belonging to a bygone denizen of Erosian Hearth. That of a young girl with whom he played & frolicked through dreaming fields, seared by pillage.

“What I mean to say, Lord, is that should you ever need another to speak to without any pretension or official conduct I would be glad to spend what little time you hold free from planning & meetings to simply be. Perhaps share in discussion of philosophy or memories of our own adventures. If only to offer brief reprieve from the journey of little solace. That is, if you should humor my offer, I would enjoy a chance to meditate with you and know the man who you inhabit on our mortal plane.” Baron concluded with a beaming smile. He then retrieved his lyre from his pack and sauntered towards the masses. “Think on it. In the meanwhile, the music of the night calls to me.”

The songster's steps swayed onward to the bonfire’s brim. His fingers followed his feet in rhythmic symmetry; lyre strumming to summon an audience. Plucked strings rippled across the open square and echoed in the eardrums of those in attendance as a stone cast into a wading pool. Heads & ears turned to Baron as his lilting accompanied his instrument, matching its triumphant tone and stirring some semblance of exaltation from beyond the circle.

Villagers crooned along with the tune. Reverent chorus drowned out the night winds and filling the town with renewal of Hope’s shared song. What a curious phenomenon it was to Drakkon to witness this boastful minstrel conjure such binding trance with his melodies. Perhaps he did have purpose among them...

Azarra’s post, past midnight

Infernal elation defined her. Azarra flew high upon wings of dark passion. From meditative pose her spirit arose from her construct, freed to pass the archway of sky. Gulf of Nocturne’s awning above netted soul’s flight. Inner eye pulled by unearthly repose. Energetic impressions of her unfolding existence radiated through sifting space.

She saw her birth through the eyes of her parents. And their own lives became a twinkling bubble in cosmic glass. Malaena’s surrender to the sickness, when her apostate daughter was only a couple eves away from a final visit. Her father’s failures tried to shackle her as her own. Siblings’ paths stretching out in separation, so alien to the trail she walked. Friction of different alignments, going under and over each other in ephemeral swells. Contortions of causality & chafing contrasts of conscious goals, colliding or collapsing against reality’s walls. Then, swearing them off she abandons those cousins who abandoned her, wings flapped away their streams.

Raptured mind brushed infinity. Supernal scrub abutted all spaces between the dreams of all living creatures. But enlightenment’s crowning was not static nor to behold her for all time. Her awareness contracted. She fell alongside sparse morsels of rain & leaves. Balefire’s touch rejoined her with motionless body, gasping for intoxicating breath.

A curious shudder convulsed her shoulders before shaking it off. The shadows swallowed what wasn’t lit by the flickering glow. Then waning ambience opened for Dahlia’s silhouette to dance through midnight’s mouth. Her ardent smile shined for Azarra, giving curtsy yielding more than gesture but genuine, willing, supplication to the sorceress mother.

The bubbling cauldron adjacent to the defiant fire, having fed upon the old man’s heart, crackled call for more to sate it; preserve it against the drizzle. Azarra reached into nearby silk pouch of herbs, powder, incendiaries, and assorted reagents. This pouch too was gorged on the stores of the local wisewoman - who no longer was needed to heal the sick or make them potions. Such loss would be attributed to Ferali treachery, she hoped, rather than the crafty hand of her disciple. She returned the smile. “Rise you up and join in intimate endeavor. Tonight, I share with you a reward and another request.”

Dahlia gazed into the cauldron as Azarra poured unfamiliar flora and seedlings into it. Azarra grasped her hand tenderly, then slipped crushed leaf into her palms. “I trust you with this, Dahlia. This potion will be yours to help me for the next task. I endow its creation for your fervor...” Her gaze hypnotized the young woman who stared into the glaring luster of the sun.

“This wee tonic will take a while to brew proper. The dawn will signal the brew’s completion. So, let us bask in the pleasure of our company till then. Know you, sweet disciple, of the hannabis plant? How it enhances the workings of witchery; grants splendid sensations to she whom partakes of it?”

“No, Divine Mother. I must admit I know only a little of botany. I am delighted to learn. If you will indulge?”

“Oh, I shall. Tonight, you shall soar with the spirits and be preserved through their powers.” She produced a vial of melted hannabis extract and delicately rubbed some on the tips of her finger, Then smeared it upon her lips, infusing them with intoxicant. Azarra sent a mesmerizing hook through her look to Dahlia. Her lovely little disciple caught in magnetizing draw of her lips, pulled into a kiss.

As their lips touched, Azarra’s imbued Dahlia’s with the bittersweet taste that expanded sense to erotic jubilation. That look of willing surrender etched on the Dahlia’s tableau sweetly saturated the moment with savory nectar of suggestion.

Azarra pulled back to the cauldron. She worships me! Let them all follow suit! Let more followers flock to my momentum. I will assert my right not to be defamed as a harlot or a victim but to lead my life with the power earned through spite and so much more. Let them be as enchanted as she! We shall give them a show of miracles. I must amaze them! Assure them of Drakkon’s immaculate incarnation. Enthrall them with easy entertainment that the shame of his origin never be so much as wondered at...

“This vinum sabbati we concoct will be for you alone to partake. The elation I give before its cup is yours is as a testament of my favor... Drink every drop when I tell you. Before it takes hold though there is yet time. If you will show yourself to me to know, then let me know you. But a crucial task remains for you before we may sup on prime knowledge.”

Dahlia drooled over Azarra’s every syllable. Stuttered at every glance she offered her. Her witch’s frame wobbled with anticipation and herb’s inhalation.

“Here is what you must do for me...” Came the nibbling whispers of her high priestess. Her plan rubbed her lobes with siren’s lilt & massaged her every curve with its genius. She absorbed it, nodding. Dribbling from every fawning pore, Dahlia flitted in sway of promises she suspired to hear her say.