Chapter Nine, A Time of Rest in Time for War

2nd of Sunhilte, Dul’Garon Fort

Slowly Baron’s lids lifted weight of drained slumber. His nostrils awake to the faint shimmer of strange flower & healing root. A scent of witchery & medicine for his rising. Although somewhat remaining in drugged haze, he knew that the gorgeous vision by his bedside as real. She, so divine in her innocence & innate loveliness; so wild & ageless that not even the gods could stain her glimmer. He gaped at Corinna, awed for his caretaker.

Half-numbed & heavy arm reached for the young woman’s face, brimmed with incandescent fire that could make even the greatest stars burn with envy. But for a beat, a bushel of rosy ardor wreathed her countenance. Then, drawing back, she cupped her hands over his head. Shines warmly.

“I am elated to count you once more among the living, friend. More than I, alone, will be grateful your throat is saved, given the curses groaned in sleep. We were all of us concerned. After all, how could we endure the silence that would envelop our world without your precious songs?” Corinna nudged her patient and kindly insisted he sip of a glistening violet flask. “Not that I would let you die in any case, dear singer-swordsman.”

“W-ha-?” He sputtered as the wave of alienation dissipated. Baron lifted his hand to Corinna’s and brought it to lay over his chest, decorated with gauze. “I am in disbelief to be living. Glad it missed my throat, at least, and this chest pain could certainly be worse. Ah, but I am not complaining, for it feels far too heavenly a sight: your face before mine. Truly this beauty I see could not belong to the dim & dirty realm of mortal creatures. When she is the mirror of all that is of heaven-”

“Well alive you are! Though you must cease this habit of getting hurt so horribly often. You, Baron, are nearly as talented at placing yourself at the unfortunate end of battlefield as you are at painting them so vividly in your tales & sonnets.” Corinna beamed such tenderness. How soothing her voice, cradling his ears with replenishing delight. Warming his awareness alongside the crackle of near fireplace. When their eyes crossed, an exchange deeper than words stirred up unfamiliar emotions. Yet they dare not hold the look, its temptation. “I would almost wager you are intent on getting a bit wounded any fights that flare! If only just to make me the more worried for your sake. My concern grows with each cut, blow & bruise and you receive.”

“I do not aim to burden you, Lady- “

“No burden but compassion, I gladly bear!” Her hands wove down about the wrappings of the man’s wounds, as purplish in hue as he was handsome of face; carefully palming reassuring touch & rejuvenating residue. Perhaps it was the heightening effect of alchemical formulae, but he found her lathering unspeakably comforting. She kindled such embers, and he understood fully how Drakkon, a man whose nature & dreams are godlike in scope of possibility, could find all the love of the world in her intelligent visage.

Baron’s hand fell over hers with trace of vulnerable affection. “To be attended by you, for the blessing of your company, is worth any wound. How all suffering of the world fades away into melted nothing in the wake of your bliss inducing face. Surely, I am not good enough a soul to deserve such an angelic sight & presence of this world.”

Corinna blushed but tamed her tone. Though dressing herself in physics’ professionalism, her tongue teased chastisement for his brash bravado. “Praise the Halcion! Its leaf proved strong enough to steady the venom of that pinch. Unwittingly wise were you to enjoy it idly before the ides of evil clash. I applied a little more in treatment, only enough to slow the strewing. Most should be drawn out. That fang shall not bestill your poet’s heart forever.”

Beneath her ward, with ardent eye, she saw Baron strive to honor her words with a kiss. Strange knots twisted in her stomach. The magnetism drawing her mouth to his was undeniable. As was it sinful. At first, she denied him. But the pulse pressing upon the cage under her breast possessed her to zeal. She commands his kiss, a fleeting reign of passion. Though pain underlaid their seal. From momentary but meaningful bridge of lips entwined such shame bended back.

“Praise the Halcion & its healing kiss!” He winked but his blush failed him. “Pardoning what flattery my impulse would have me caress you with, I feel the couple of hits that happened upon me have thankfully wounded my pride as a warrior more than my body. Each scar might be a mark from the muses & the fates, to show me that my true worth remains elsewhere. Perhaps my days are better spent getting back to the lute & lyre. Penning poems that might capture but a vial of your essence. Perhaps this chance tells me to live more for passion’s pull-”

Corinna pushed him softly away. Pressed finger to his lips to silence him and whispers of guilt. “You know I am sworn to Drakkon. You are important to me, Baron, but we both know humoring passing desire will only twist longing to a blade. More than this, we shared and should forget, would bring ruin to foundation of our lives. And I do love him! O, I cannot bear to be false to him – yet nor can I suffer that same with you… We are steadfast friends, always. Alas, I cannot sacrifice that much for passion’s pleasure. I am sorry.”

She feigned punching his pained chest and wore for him a pouty mask. “Forget all that, sweet silver-sung bard. Tell me how you feel, other than on this?”

‘I-I…” Baron stuttered, losing his eloquence as he reflected on his near-death. “If I may speak freely – as my conscience compels me for you, Cor – I am remiss of it all. When that arrow stung me, I disembarked from all that was. I surrendered to this-this- blank peace, this anchor into the Forever. Willing to let go of those last tethers. My soul finally knew rest.”

A sigh escaped him. “I feared returning here, to life. Thought, as much as one can in dreamless half-death, that it would be nothing more than condemnation to another cycle of striving & stumbling into unending seasons of violence. The void or the heavens or whatever awaits past those vacuous gates, seemed preferable to coming back to dim mire. I wished not to witness how corruption & wickedness simply replaces itself. Only transforms itself anew every generation – never wavering in the conquest of annihilation…” He caught his dismal trail and flashed attempt at one of his famous wooing smirks. “But yet, ‘tis you and your springtime countenance that raises me from the dead. Uplifts me back to life! Already there is much to treasure in our Elderath. Whatever awaits us, there is joy & purpose to be found. My soul is untainted by this bite. I shall rise above – if only for the chance to rise with you.”

Her tone took on morose pattern, though she tried to conceal this through mimicry of his mischievous grin. “Well, I am more than relieved to see your face alight with life. Your presence here makes this ‘dim mire’ more alit with beaming beauty!” The ecstasy of his resurrection entranced her. Corinna grasped his cheek as she clutched her desire’s reins. Yet temperance of affection slipped from her fingers as her hands hovered over the blanket, by his unguarded waist, where chafing twinges required redress.

Capriciously Corinna performed an ensemble player’s part as an enfant terrible. She garbed her tone in cold, gathered spring-frost over the dew of her yearning. “Hark the miracle you are wholly intact. By Druidry, perhaps, your body & blood defied the brunt of bleak tint. But to pursue a conquest of passion, more treacherous than any battlefield, behind my Lord’s eye might end with you being sent back to those woodsmen & hermits as a eunuch or a mute.” She shirked her harshness, even as but a tool of defending her heart.

What she meant as cool rebuke against more advances came with shivering want. Rose flush winked erotic wonder of what it might be like for him to rise with her, within her. To share his aching as hers…

Turning her head from Baron, Corinna caught an effigy in cinders. Drakkon’s likeness formed of fire. Watching through scrying flame this candle alight between his best singer & friend and his spouse to be. True chill became her. Frost painted her petals. “Forget that.” She shivered off the topic. “You awake to find yourself evermore a hero in the eyes of all our tribes, noble bard.”

His healer presented him a vial & some tea. Then gave words to simmer his hope as soup to soothe rowdiness. “Know yourself as muse of music, culture & spirit and even the embodiment of courage. Now, ‘resurrected’ from short tomb to ascend mythic status. I am assured that any maiden in all the divisions of our dreary ‘mortal plane’ will be more than happy to have you! As warriors brave the Ruun to earn spots in your songs. Rest your head from circling so much in ‘cycles’ that you swing to nihil. Or burn in broth of ardor.”

Baron croaked; his attempt to laugh & joke constricted by ambling pain from his chest to head. “You should share in this myth! As healer to the lost, reviver of the dead! Your skill helped drain venom from me safely. Perhaps your soul near to mine brought strength to want to awake.” Sensing her hesitance & spite at his insistent admiration he tilted his head and tone to offer his savior distracting topic. “How did our champion, Mordaunt, react to my sanctification in Drakoni canon? He curses my name for thieving his valor, surely?”

They chuckled together. Amused themselves at Mordaunt’s overlarge pride. Though she granted respect his martial willpower, she laughed along with the skald. “Aye! You know him more than he knows himself. He struck a bit of a raucous about Dul’Garon – oh which reminds me, we took the fort! Heron led the main force to here and captured before you and the man in question snuck up on the Vizzari legion! Now, in the Hold of Dul’Abraxi’Garonis, the Garden Seat of Abraxas, we reside. Soon all hosts of Elderath will join to ride with us to serpent’s fall.”

“But Mordaunt, though victor, broods and barks as if he’d been stung by poisoned tip. He rolls on rambling that he truly won the day and henceforth should be pissed on with praise from every passing citizen. By the gods, the man’s hubris doubles in size with every skirmish he wins!”

“Not unlike our Lord, Drakkon…” Baron blurted out, to his short regret.

Corinna shushed her stammering friend and ward subtly and gracefully with the offering of another swig of her herbal potion. “Hush now, little legend! Such speech alludes to heights even your big head should never climb.” She jibed at him, part-joking, though there was despair in her humour. “Speak not such blasphemy. My Lord – our Lord – is alive in Light. With him we bask in stream of the brink of greater potential. Part of vision truly grand-“

“I curse him not. Only mark that for every successful stratagem, every furlong won he walks deeper into the shadow of his own belief.” Baron mulled his worry, stirred Corinna’s. “How can one love the image cast on wall by flickering flame, by mirror-dance of worship’s beams?”

“I love him, I do. No longer bare foul fears. I will not be witness to slander. Why instill fear that the Lord to whom my love is bound is under delusion? Why bestow aspersion on his icon, judge Light solely by the umbrage cast?” But though the bard bit his tongue, withheld his deprecation Corinna heard his thoughts’ answer: ‘Because if he falls to an illusion of himself, it may crush the real good in him – which you love. & should it collapse on all our shoulders- ‘

Corinna shuddered. Catered, sleeky a bit to her own indulgent instinct for incense & herbal ring. Specially ground pines wafted into Baron’s nostrils with such a pleasant aroma of rejuvenation. “Rest & recover, dear friend. Do not darken your dreams nor the day.”

Intuitive inkling warned her of eavesdroppers or attendants. Elfin ears twitch to hear steps approach in confirmation of someone’s coming. The door latch swung. Heron stepped in, swaggering about, slight scent of ‘revelry’ about him, still proudly encased in his ceremonial armor. They bow to each other with reverence.

The recovering ‘hero’ was first to address them. Doing so with cheers and pushing off any awkward sign between himself and the lady. “Hail to Heron! O, conqueror of this great castle! You who are more savant of song & servant of sirens than even I. Yet your sworn songsmith is up and unshaken from snake’s venom.”

“Ah, good Baron! I am pleased to see that you are restored once more to health, and to your good wit as well. Yet know if you had fallen there would be none of us lest with the talent to compose any sonnet recounting the tragedy!” The captain of sodden visage clapped the bard’s shoulder with good humor. “This hold was nothing without its host. The helots here rallied quick to us. Welcomed our claim over Mordaunt’s wytchfyre and their master’s stagnant snows. I only wish I hastened back sooner to cut in twain that blasted bolt!”

“Turns out the gambeson you lent me blunted most of the hit, though that little bit that got through to my bosom was juiced enough that I required our Lady of herbs, wonders & clearest Sight to save me. Obviously, I write songs & legends more than enact the stuff of them- “Baron began, in tow with his charming old tune.

“Ah, given that the damsel rescued the swordsman from the wyrm’s jaws as much as that must be said.” Chimed Heron. In glee to be shed of false scales, cloaked again as rebel captain. “When you are fully yourself, we must wine together!”

“Truly, I almost wish I had the grave as an excuse to decline your offer.” Chuckled the bard with a happy jab at his fellow. “Were I more of an optimist I would search for hope in the chance that you might not be as boring a guest and as light a drinker as ever!”

“Good to hear that forked tongue of yours is still unfettered. That sharp sarcasm is as biting as the bloody venom!” They laughed together for a short beat before Heron turned to Corinna with more restrained tone of proper service. “But alas my Lady: we must away to our Lord, your Drakkon. It is His eminent request that we attend his congress and plan our strategy. We our close to our aim, sister, and to the end of this gauntlet. But we are evermore in need of your womanly wisdom. If you will come with? Leave the lout here to strum lute & stroke self-love.”

...

Aris patrolled his route with a certain glee. Savoring every step he took about this fortress, of which he had once been exiled from, as a sign of his ascendant fortune. This great hold, the seat of his line and became the crypt of his father. A thought which brought him the slyest of smirks, of smiles inverted. Indeed, the proud sigils of House Abraxas still stood high and in abundance about Dul’Garon, unlike other Vizzari symbols. But that they would be torn down for Drakkon’s passing sigil: he forswore his father’s House; feeling himself outstretching, beyond it. His chest swelled with excited gusts. Breathing in all the prospects of fortune & fate swimming within as he ascended the steps to the prison tower. Before unlocking the door with private key, the prodigal son affirmed his purpose.

While the chamber had been ordained to hold their hostage it also held comfortable furniture and fine velvets. Even a bed so fitted & threaded as to make nobility envious. Atop the luxury there was a further touch of a private closet stocked with wine and exotic peppers and spices. The downside: being bound to a thin lead tethering him to the bedpost. Argus had room to stroll about but not reach the windows or any tools which could help him escape this hospitality. Hospitality that was only kind to him, he thought, as to give his captor more amicable means of nourishing cooperation.

A worn and restless Argus slouched against the board. A bottle of something half-held in hand with pungent odor permeating from his unwashed and unchanged clothes. When Aris announced his presence in greetings, the scrawny, filth-stained and beaten man merely groaned an awful curse. Then turned his head from his guest, who spoke cordially. “Why must you be as such, old friend? Are these tidings truly so dour as that scowl of yours looks?”

“You… sent me unto the shores of death. Betrayed me when we bound our wills and hearts together in sacred oath! Why should I wear so happy a mask to face the one who curses me so? I care for no gilded comforts when I am but a prisoner of cruel cage you designed for me.” Argus spat purplish wine near Aris’ feet and slowly clamored up with withering scorn. “Soil your comforts! Filth upon these curtains! Pretender to Druidry & Abraxas!”

“I place no blame on you for this misunderstanding. But this is no sepulcher nor prison, nor am I opposed to you. Sometimes a man making good pace on the steed of his destiny must relent control of the reins to let the whims of fate unfold as they will. So that the proper path may be revealed.” To this Argus scoffed but Aris persisted. “Our pact is not forsaken, nor my love for you. I did not aim against you but neither did I raise a mark against Drakkon. Rather, I levied the fields and let flow either course. I find new clarity in the way the winds twine!”

The humiliated man whirled about with abrupt anger. Near lunged at Aris only to be tugged back by his tightly wound restraints. His locks of dirty flaxen brown whipped him. “How vapid and ostentatious a swine you must be. So bloated in your boasting, that you think I might praise this vague ‘clarity’? By the Fates, man! The Fates – pfft – perhaps this is my retribution for turning from that true faith. For helping you with your father. He trusted me as I trusted you. A viciously fair a punishment for that, my wickedness?”

“You call reason impure; fairness: wicked? I gave both ye contenders ample & equal opportunity to fend off the other’s claim. I tested your strength. You failed…” Sadness wove threads ‘neath his words. “But you may yet be useful.”

“Useful?! Why should I avail myself anymore ‘use’ in your evil ploys & enchaining schemes?” Argus reached for half-emptied bottle. Chugged it, smearing violet residue on his unkempt, scraggly chin. “Tell me: how I should claim this, or any, future when I am chained? Left to wallow in my filth, like beast of butcher? How are these taunting decorations to bring comfort?”

“You are not shackled to despair nor disgrace, friend,” Aris spoke in his shiny, silvery manner, unphased by display of spite, “nor hath my feelings changed towards you. We are still as close as brothers, bonded. No titles are stripped of you, nothing stolen from what was agreed to. Save some client knights who chose coin over covenant. You are yet prime Consul in all legality. By the lasting ink of Cassius’ blood.”

He fiddled with his leather-bound satchel, shuffling through reagents and scrolls before settling for a pouch of crushed herbs & strange leaf which he poured onto palm. “You stress over simple setback. This cell is temporary and for your protection. If you were sent to flooding prisons of your fellows, they’d sooner prove your executioners, over friends. Your surrender shames you to them, washes away your base among those who would always glare at your back as though trying to flay your skin with sight. Be glad to rid them.”

“I am not your enemy, Argus.” Their eyes latch. Then the rhetorician gestured to the tower window, just out of his ward’s reach (as to prevent him from tossing himself from those heights in a suicidal fit). Indicating sight beyond his guest’s view, he then pivots back. Slowly withdrawing dagger, steps to the bedpost ties. “Let me show you…”

With clean cut to the rope binding him, Argus found swift freedom. He grunted confusion and walked with caution over to the window where Aris beckoned. Once there his bony finger points him to a distant lantern pyre, steadily burning up into the skies. Alongside stakes & more lined up. The whole fortress, encircled by these macabre bonfires.

The prisoner’s eyes winced, narrowed. Becoming aware that there were bodies – or remnants thereof – pinned to those imposing flambeaus. Aris explained: “What you see now is the ‘Living Light’ of the west. The fiery demise of Vizzari’s most ardent. They, and many unfortunates, become are kept lit for terror cast by Drakkon. Diabolical a fashion it may seem, but his wrath can be merciful, at least to you. For among those damned to flame were your enemies within the Vizzar; all those that would conspire against both you, as Consul, and our vision. You are not condemned without Judgement. For you may yet aide his ‘Light’. More so our own.”

Aris inhaled the leafy substance he crushed in palm for pipe. Offered the rest to the man standing beside him. Argus proved stubborn. “What real future can there be under them?” He asked with bite of suspicion, not completely disarmed by this honey, perhaps too sweet to be believed. “Why leave all in that slippery grasp of idle fate and let this raging fire purge our peoples? Why not lift a hand for your brother in the face of it? Why instead bow & kneel to worship him as a god, incarnate?”

“Do you not see that the future is sparked in that fire? Tis the black flame of cleansing warfare! A cure to the affliction corrupting the shrines and podiums of Vizzarion! These hordes sailing across the Ruun are not a blight of blind punishment. The righteous shall endure this tribulation. That pure realm may rise from the grave of their crusade. And I believe you to be righteous.”

Aris whittled his attention on his longtime friend, searching the wells behind his eyes. He watched raw, spastic reaction of his face twitch to behold distant candles made of men. Offers reasons along with a handful of exotic flower. “Our Magistrate lusted long for life’s pleasures, its fruits of passion and its poisons. The state glutted on want for more. That yearning turned to an appetite without end. We ate at ourselves. Those we bit down upon come to chow on the bones of our courts. For their hunger, their need, grew ravenous while our fangs wilted of soft flesh.”

“This titan among barbarians is to cross threshold into an accomplishment neither of us could seek, even together. Let them bring this skeletal abomination our homeland devolved into to its groveling knees. You wavered, waived, faith in yourself that you could challenge Fel. So, allow those whose faiths paints their Lord as living god to shatter that tablet. With the trust I earned among his cause and the ear of his mother, we stand upon grounds of opportunity. Fresh to till.”

Argus accepted the uplifting offering of leaf, welcoming the relief of ashen smog. He looked back at Aris, a sudden sharp flash piercing through veil. “You speak falsely of these savage invaders, mock their supposed ‘divinity’ when behind locked doors. Why should you trust these foreign brutes to keep their hands soft in dealing with you, especially if this treachery of your thoughts is revealed to them? You speak of them as a godsend but only so much as it serves this ‘miraculous’ muse of yours – a vision I struggle to see clearly behind this cell block of a tower.”

Aris did not flinch, seeing this as his ally’s try at asserting protecting his frail honor, rather than true threat. “As I said, the ear & tongue of Azarra is beholden to me. Outside of her word, Drakkon is not privy to believing others at face value. Meaning your words would be as empty as your death.” Gray orbs shower misty ambition. “I would infinitely prefer it for you to agree to a meeting of minds with their council. Help solidify a plan of attack and terms of success thereafter. Without lifting too much weight with our backs we can help bring down the reigning regime who would never fully accept your position awarded by Cassius.”

He slipped out his key from woven sleeve and indicated to the chain interlocking Argus’s arms. “I would ask you to see this dream we shared through with me. To wade through this dank mire to reach for the sun. But first, attend to Drakkon and his congress to consolidate this march and earn acquittal. You may recall this hold has the best baths below. Allow me to lead you there to bathe. For this filth you wallow does not become you, my good mate.”

Aris unlocked the last binds, let fall the iron shackles about hostage’ wrists. Argus scratched at marks left by fetters and gazed up at the man. Was he to be his prison warden or liberator? Dull amazement stayed any muscle seeking flight. The pair left the tower to descend Dul’Garon. Aris parted locks to show them to aqueducts & where heated springs brought melting of tension. “I will not keep you chaperoned long for there is more business for me to attend to this hour. If it is your whim to escape once left to your own, then so be it. I will not deter nor detain you from this choice. As unfortunate and wasteful a decision that would be.”

Argus went silent save for a sigh, from which emanated a deepening weariness of the world altogether. Stripping, he wades numbly into waters channeled into warm basin. Strands of steam borne of a secret spring from beneath earth’s crust conjure balmy fog through the bath portal. Aris made good on his word, exiting the room. Leaving him alone suspended in his confusion. Naked to the world and his disparaging doubts. The warmth of the pool did little to quell spinal shivers, sent of spiritual wind. Floating in dissociation, his soul’s color bleeds into basin. Vacuous: bereft of any sensation to awake from this dark dream so suddenly plunged into.