Chapter Nine, A Return to Form

First wake

Musky ambiance of lavender & myrrh invited him to awake. As his senses limbered up, the scent of the Echinacea flower permeated Drakkon’s nose alongside incense & simmering soup. The aroma blew a gust of life into his lungs and re-awakened his spirit. Vitality once more coursed through. Carefully he let his eyes open and expectantly wished Corinna to be there, basking in the fields of dream wheat. That flower of nostalgia & innocence in bloom. But the face of his savior was that of Delphine’s.

Delphine beamed with bright relief at seeing him stir. She pressed a maternal palm against his forehead and traced his lips with a soft finger to silence any anxiety he may have. Then produced a poultice to put on his bare chest where the dreadful wound could be seen and then summoned a warm broth to his mouth. He needed no encouragement to drink of this heated tincture, trusting this oracle of a broken order more than himself. “Shh, do not rise too quick, lest you tear these bandages and let loose your innards! I half joke; your wounds weren’t as grievous as they first looked. Rest though for your strength & forget stress. All will be explained in time. Know that you are safe here.”

Her words were coated in a melted velvet that enthused his ears. His eyes to dart about the room to explore where exactly it was that ‘here’ was. He found a log cabin of some kind with no ordainment or decoration covering the abode. Only items of pure practicality such as torches, knifes, rope, tools, pitchforks and some such objects. It was a sanctum of utility in all its bare simplicity. It seemed likely to be the home of a farmer or field worker perhaps.

Sensing his bubbling apprehension Delphine addressed him to gently assuage his confusion. “We are in the home of the keeper & tiller, Karrathas. He and his young boy, Barus, assisted me in carrying you here after I found you on that carrion hill. They were kind enough to lend me his hearth as a place to help you recover. Sleep… Let your worries fall away. I am here for you. All will be mended now.” In gradual compliance to Delphine’s care, Drakkon gave himself up to a dreamless sleep…

…Breaking through the waves of breathless oblivion an image emerged of the sea. Shores of latent reality. A small cabin. The scent of lavender & mending plants streaming to his nose. Murkroot & phoenix-feather flower churning in a cauldron. Candles burn around him, positioned in a pentacle. A woman. His healer. Her waning red hair still shining through gray compared to the sedentary & stale enclosure of the hut. She matured with grace; proudly wearing the lines of her cycles, while retaining shine of soul & nature more than alchemical ointment might aid. Among all the drear and dust scourging the earth and drawing black curtain of nihil, Delphine’s syrupy smile and the glint of warm green spheres inspires cheer. & feeling he could just barely muster from the abyss he cast himself in.

Delphine sensed his stirring & brought another concoction to his mouth. “This is a simple tea mixture, nothing too fancy nor tasty, but it will aide your body and brain in warmer recovery. I hath offered your body murkroot to clean those unsightly wounds & the flower of the phoenix-feather should start sewing those seams proper. Truly ‘tis good to see you awake and alive. Almost miraculous even. When I saw you out there, in the center of all that death and decay I feared I arrived too late. But alas, we are the both of us fortunate that our host is such a kind-hearted man to allow our stay. The storm raging out there would have swept us away by now. Be thankful for this quaintly simple hut.”

After a few tender sips of the tea Drakkon felt his concentration elevate above his bandaged frame. A hovering déjà vu and disconnect from physical plane. Delphine noticed his reaction and explained. “Ah, there is hannabis amongst the blend. A recipe once considerably coveted among the sisterhood of Sight, yet now I hope it proves salient now to your soul & battered body. Tis a substance to heal, yet you may feel a little ‘uplifted’, shall we say? Trust me this is far preferable than letting you feel all the grinding ache aroused of those wounds as they start sealing up – for they wouldst be driving even you to madness otherwise. But I believe you can handle a little bit of magick herb.”

Delphine’s iris expanded against the fed flame. “Did you use your sky-blade against yourself? Or did a heretic’s hand hold it? Seems the strange radiance seared off infection enough for my help. Yet there is hesitancy of the wielder in this scar…”

“The wind sliced me.” Drakkon’s head was still muddled in mire. As his mind dove into the mud of dismay, he caught himself and lifted a bit to address Delphine. “Why are you helping me? And how in all the world did you know where to find me? I told no one outside my war bands where we marched…”

Her palm brushed his brow in soothing motion. “Azzara sent me with a ‘final’ missive to the Grove of Silverwood. I was to deliver to our Empress a special cask of wine which she claimed was to serve as a gesture of peace. I knew it poisoned with a slow and measured killing toxin – oh do not worry! I never gave Corinna a glass though it was my task. We refused crack the cask at all. We knew it held a sluggish poison inside pristine layer. I knew that Azzara, in her paranoic spell, was willing to sacrifice me just to spite her rival. For petty vengeance, she would justify an agonizing death for me. She bid me, who thought myself closest to her, drink with Corinna that she would trust the gift and freely sample it herself.”

“Th-Thank you. It must have taken great resolve to turn against Azzara’s command like that. I know how close you to were as friends and Sisters. But before you go on tell me. You must feel such churning resentment for her, though High Mother, for attempting to dispose of you like that do you not?”

“Sadly, I struggle not to relinquish all faith for her character. I wish that it were not so, that she stayed true to shape of love. Yet she poisons herself as much as others.”

Drakkon intruded, biting his lip with loathing. “My mother degenerated into unhinged and psychotic delirium. Designed machinations against everyone who was not her, including yourself. Should you be so surprised to have given her service for so long only to be cast aside as common pawn in raving game?”

“Even if you look upon her memory unfavorably in this moment I prithee some reserve of politeness. She fed you since birth, after all. Clothed you on those early nights of frost & fog.” Delphine countered, promptly and impassionedly. “Revenge was not mine to give. Nor would I want it, even so. I would wish her forgiven. But surely you must have heard what fate has befallen her?”

“I hath received no news since I began the doomed march. Indulge me. What happened?” He lied curiously. Carefully noting that she had not instantly branded him as her murderer. Wondering what story she believed, and if his frenzied memory could be trusted.

“They claim she departed from our plane by her own hand. Or some serpentine subterfuge, if not suicide. The Azarine found her, lifeless, in the bath shared by her familiar viper. Alas, that rabid & frightened congregation who intercepted me said when they went to dress her body upon the altar it had disappeared. Her cult of souls is scattered. They flee the tower and wander aimless. If she is not truly dead, perhaps I shall seek out what remains of her; ask apology and offer some aid in absolution of taming these Helwinds.”

Drakkon’s muscles tensed with perplexed lines dissecting his forehead. Delphine read his expression and assumed that it must be sourced from his confusion at his mother’s sudden departure. But inward he breathed a slight sigh of relief that the truth was not yet uncovered or else that she had endured his regretful fit. “I had no idea...” He feigned no tears for her passing, however. “May her soul find rest in a plane far from our troublesome earth. Alas, no grotesque show of grief shall bring her back. So, please, do go on with relaying the rest. There are many pieces of this trap yet unknown to me. What of Corinna?”

“Yes, well when I arrived the disciples of Corinna’s coven said that she was not to be disturbed for any reason. She suffered one of her trances circled by convulsions and touched of astral material. This round, they cried, lasted longer than any before. They feared to interrupt her channeling, but I offered oracular aid. I pressed on, not sure to follow Azarra’s ill command or that of my core.” Emerald eyes beheld cauldron steam. “As I entered the circle, her trance dissolved. Banished with the curse of catatonia. She clasped me with hands heaving breath, caught between worlds as she spoke. Divinations burning through eyes. I-I could feel the Fates in her voice. I knew then that she is key to restoring those threads from glum portends…”

“In her visions,” Delphine went on, with him entranced by her impassioned retelling, “she witnessed Mordaunt’s betrayal. Felhenge bloodied. Silver shadows against bleeding moon. Then glimpsed a broken blade and one that kept itself from the bard’s throat. Saw you maimed; beneath charred, skeletal limbs of an Andrasil. That is how I knew you were there, by trusting her sight! She gave to me a satchel of her most potent potions to ensure your health. Her foresight carries that very grace which kept you among the living. I should hope you will soon find means to thank her.”

Drakkon’s posture crumbled, dropped a vulnerable opening as he leaned in to confess. “But surely she must have seen what else occurred. The things I have done and dark steps of the road I pave! She should have no reason left to care for me. Not anymore! I can no longer deny what I truly am: Accursed abomination, unworthy of a shred of sympathy from one so great as she. I deserved to die there among the carnage of my failures. I find it impossible to believe she, you or anyone else should harbor tenderness for this pathetic & monstrous husk you hath saved in me.”

“Shhh. Speak not such sordid poison! Such spittle is less becoming of you…” She turned from him to the boiling cauldron. Delphine spoke to him in a dour manner unlike her, but still tried to reel in just a bit of old charm & encouragement. “We are all guilty of unspeakable sins that would make the gods weep, yet they favor us still. Or at least they love us for our mortal follies. Their entertainment perhaps, ha. We have all done things that we are not proud of in the name of a greater good. That good that you once represented and for which we-”

He cut her off. “-nay! We represented nothing! All that good which you attest to in me died long ago. Even when it was there it was but stillborn. The superficial creation of a surreptitious scalpel. A hero only in the mask shaped for me when my true mold was of malice. Nothing we worked to build will last. Soon it will crumble and crush us all beneath its weight. I am a walking ghost. You merely prolonged the survival of a pitiable villain. Every innocent who suffered beneath my banner and starved for the sake of my delusion – this greater cause you boast!”

His self-loathing rant rambled on. “What ‘good’ was served to them when their god declared them unfit to live?! I hath nothing left to show for my reign save scars. Mordaunt knows that it is might that makes the mountain of justice stand, not tiny baubles or fleeting kindness. All he need do is return to the capital and declare my death; Announce himself as successor. In an instant he will possess the remnants of my legions and join them with his scoundrels & Drakes to have the largest army left in the land. And what core belief binds his men to such service? They bend to his bow the moment someone bold enough takes hold of the drawstring and aims higher than servile station. Promises of plunder and petty come-uppance are all that move the hearts of men. This world hath become but a theatre for tyrants and fools… and I, yet another meager plaything of cruel tidings beyond mine capability-”

“But what is an army against a god? Why bow out before bringing out thine teeth and gnashing one last roar to rally those few still willing to seek a higher song for their swords?” She tried at least. “Why not reset the stage and recast your role? Sign a greater sermon in the last lines?”

He sneers at her insistence. Turns his scorn upon all that ever existed. His eyes narrow around the base of the cauldron. Persists the cursing of the world. “This veil of a ‘greater good’ is as empty and devoid of truth as my claim to Divinity. We both know what I am. Baron was not putting out defaming propaganda to serve his own ends, as I convinced myself – as mother helped convince me – he purported the truth. For that I tried to give him to the ground. He may yet rally arms to prevail, but I am a dethroned emperor whose reign was one of madness and cruelty. This world should sigh relief to hear that I departed it; that the pretender to stars & storms made the descent into dirt.”

Delphine considered this for a while, choosing words with care. “Think of Corinna. Focus on what love still looms between thee! The only woman I would dare claim worthy of being empress. The muses and sprites speak through her spells! Is she not a shining example of ‘the good’? Of what makes life worth affirming? Of someone to protect and grow with, even as the elements beat us down? Is not the simple treasure of kindling a smile across her warm face to jolt your heart into action?”

Drakkon only bowed low his chin and soured his scowl. But Delphine caught that miniscule moment, seeing an inner scream he could not speak but which shook through his sinews. In that beat she bounced onto her impulse and let flow her lips. Speaking to him with harmonious till. “Your love can burnish even in the dark which unwinds the strands of our society – this blood & sweat forged cauldron – but only you can tie that string together again by hearing her out plea.”

“What plea may I yet fulfill? What oath that I should not fail?” He simpered. “I felt the brunt of snares from sicked seidr, as the sages may phrase. Witches’ magick stitched my eyes blind. I fear the winds of Fate shall ne’er again blown in my favor nor sail me to her shore. Or else tis the curse of mine idiocy.”

Delphine denied his plunge into fatalistic nihil. “The Fates are feminine powers. Their whims are more subtle than capricious, despite what grazing glance might deign to see. They do not bow to demands of mortal men who make to command them. The louder one shouts, the coarser the struggle to force their course. Yet you may yet serve them. Just as the Sight expands for your beloved, my faith stretches with their breath. I feel through their whispers ways which you may prove their ally and herald. You can be one last gale to blow against the gathering dark.”

“Tell me then what this wind-whipped coil might do to unwind the Hels’ threads. What vision did Corinna share that might not cast me as a shade upon her starry sight?”

“In her spell of True Sight, she witnessed a harrowing premonition of a path where Mordaunt prevails: A land blighted with worst storm of pointless suffering. Town roads adorned & desecrated with the heads on towering spikes, forming trees of bodies impaled dividing the pines. Forests of death. Pillars of skulls. Masses screaming from the ills of plague with no cure save the finality of a mass funeral pyre. Mordaunt will turn against his own, concerning himself with prospects of his amusement. There is another shade of betrayal The snake of Vizzari...”

As Drakkon absorbed these auguries, the cauldron flickered steam of serpent spit, coiling vapors. “From past the Chimer pass red legions ride over the Elorian. Serpent chariots sling at us from the East. Signs of wanton domination. To challenge-”

Her patient grew impatient. “Challenge the successor of a ruined empire? Mordaunt develops an insatiable appetite for power. I indulged his ambition too much and now his rancorous complex shall spare no quarter for the indiscriminate masses he will punish. More than me, even, he sees them all villains & obstacles in way of the climb. Perhaps a trait he always possessed, with the chance to shine in broad daylight. And now those we cast to exile in the long march long ago lurk about the edge of the desert, hungering for our necks? Serpents coil about our crown and defile our court. From inside and out. But the treasure they pilfer is soiled already! I am king of barrows, no better than-”

“You must summon one last storm to best these bleaker winds! You can & she needs you! Mordaunt pays you no heed though, thinking you a defeated foe. He’ll concentrate on consolidating brutal authority. But he inspires no loyalty besides that which can be bought with coin or forced by fear. Listen, rally the monster in you to tail this frost drake and prove the fiercer!” Delphine pushed on as she swathed his chest with ointment. “The continent will be plunged into greater darkness. None of our clans will be spared from infighting. It will be disaster upon disaster. Alongside the constant warring and insurrection, the plague will spread. This, the annihilation of the populace who will die without discrimination in unbearable agony as the tumors and boils overtake their bodies and minds.”

“Corinna hath seen herself chained to the red moon. Evil effigies in the shadow of coming eclipse when the sky burns bright with blood to swallow the tides. He shall die reaching out across the steps of the Summit or else ascend in the waxing gloom if you do not halt his seditious plot.” He sipped his tea to soothe his self-directed rancor and humored her speech. Listening to what visions she revealed. “The waning of the world and of our gods will be upon us. Should my love’s death shroud not have been stolen and she lives, then Azarra is proof that the ‘dead’ are rising. As will the fires. If you let this occur by sitting idle when you are needed most, then you allow doom to take us. You would be far less a man than these beasts. You would be infinitely more loathsome in seeding our destruction as a people if you remain seated!”

He gave a pained glare at her but knew that every word she spoke was true. That he could not deny it only simmered discontent. Something lurched in the pit of his stomach, and he sat up. Delphine grasped his attention, had him on the verge of finding hope again. “I never deserved godhead, even as my mother never deserved the sin of my birth. How am I better than they?”

“All those seeds we planted that were to bear the fruit of our dreams wilted, the harvest we reaped returns to us rotten. If such dark storms accumulate to batter us into oblivion, is the shelter of another’s arms – even Corinna - worth persisting in inevitable tumult & tragedy? Perhaps so if there is any redemption to be led by her wisdom. Although I feel I am not wont for forgiveness. Likely, to ride with her against the calamity that has seized this world with terrible finality is to ride to my own death. But suicide in the name of love and higher ideal is the best fate I could own, among the multitude of dwindling destinies…”

Delphine lured his faith as best she could spindle. “Not a death charge but a ride to regain the reins enough to lend them to the children of the future. That generations may yet grow, unstained by storm’s shadow, and you may feel the one who has loved your heart without the garb of godhood!”

But he was not convinced, fighting against hope more than he would admit. “Why do you believe that the first familiar companions or former subordinates that see me will not take up arms in wrath to destroy me? For I thought myself, a wretch, so high above them. And am now exposed as mortal beneath masquerade. Surely, they will drive a pike through my stomach and hollow out my innards, that I am as empty as my promises to them?” Drakkon speculated to Delphine solemnly. She surmised that he wrangled back the full release of his heart from the steam of cinders sewn into it.

Delphine draped a consoling arm across his shoulder and cultivated the right wording to drive inspiration into him, deep enough to last when needed. “As dubious as this advice may sound to you, old friend, I feel that it is best if you do not reveal the full breadth of the truth to all. In sooth, you would indeed be prone to ruination at the hands of once loyal followers who would feel betrayed and abused by the mass lie. Yes, they would seek vengeance on such a pretender. As that would be a terrible enough fate on its own and would only further the fall of our lands into divisive conflict without foreseeable concord to be sewn, it is better for us all if you retain the guise of godhood. That way you may willingly influence the mass mind to re-direct the course to both safety & liberty. Beat back the brutes. Lend the people more power as to learn how to wield their independence properly. Ever so slightly at first that they do not falter in their attempt to grow.”

“While the lantern you present to them may be fraudulent, that glow is all that can keep the shadows from converging on our last light. At least for now. This way you may cultivate an evolving consciousness within the people through the mask that the wisdom you endow them with is divine insight from celestial realms of thought which is all the better to motivate them in a positive and unifying direction as they are not yet capable on their own to stand up as they are for their own rights without becoming rivals to one another and easy targets for despots who would take advantage of their conflict.”

“Azzara’s surely abandoned her schemes, even if she lives. With no more bullish advisors to undermine what we put forward now that the leap to the front as foes, there can be true progress. This realization of self is painful yet can serve as the catalyst for a great metamorphosis. That you are low need not keep you there. You and Corinna will be free to paint a canvas for a better world once you wipe the slate clean by removing the corrosive stains of all those who seek to stab the realm with their talons & beaks. Rid us of those who will pluck the prospects of every person still enduring. How can you sit to see the wormy rot scourge our marrow? How can you simply shuffle off the cloak of responsibility & weight of guilt? What worth doth your love for her if you wilt away when the midnight flower of dismay blooms in the longest hour of her distress? I am doubtful that Baron can free her of the manticore’s captivity, she needs you.”

Agitation filtered through Drakkon’s every cord. He felt the full clasp of all the crumbling lies that he had so long embraced fall away to demoralizing stasis. Only emptiness lay beneath those illusory layers. It appears his true self had slipped into nothingness where he belonged, that forgetful void before birth & after death. To cling to those shattered pieces of this ‘divine’ delusion only made his spirit bleed more but since that was all that remained, he sifted on through the serrated shards of his distorted ego. Trying to pick and sow them all to some sort of unity, any form of identity no matter how fragile. It all felt so futile without that spark to free him from the tendrils of existential terror.

And then, through that fatiguing fog, Corinna wove her way into his thoughts. With her arrival came the lucid remembrance of those golden hued memories. But the phantom virtue of her love only taunted him. For her embrace lingered beyond conceivable reach. Yet her holy chord reverberates in that beating instrument in his breast, now a harpsichord with renewed melody. But that small light slipping through to glare, though it felt as if his innards were set ablaze, kept Drakkon from simply tearing off the matted gauze about his wounds.

“Corinna... she-she… Why should see – knowing me as fallible, foolish & arrogant - seek an active seat in the show of a pretender’s downfall? For what sake should she risk further danger?” Thoughts of his Empress, his love & his friend swelled about him until ruminating on her surfaced to a soft sob, a cry of debility with the tender plea of a rupture heart. His healer almost added her thoughts to his yet decided it best to let his run. “What would she say now of my defeat? What need could she have of an obsolete war monger who ignored every word of wisdom she spoke? I am empty vessel once brimming with mendacity. I-I would only lead her further into the doom that I walk beneath. Surely, a better fate would be for her to escape from this rift I tore in the fabric of our ruling raiment. Find a distant haven to dwell in serenity, without the stench of my memory or vanquished form?”

Delphine was distraught and heartbroken at the pathetic sight of this once proud man drowning in tears and wallowing in defeat. She pumped vigor into her psyche and feigned a voice firm with purpose. “Corinna would never wish for you to lie in shambles like this feeling sorrow for yourself. She would not want you to be buried in sepulchral fashion by your own decree while the people she cared for with an undying tenderness, nearly as avid as her compassion for you, are to be forcibly subjugated by a man she loathed from the onset. Her reading of Mordaunt as an untrustworthy cur proves accurate and so too was her predilection towards you; not as figure of marble of adulation but for the person you truly are beneath it all. Perhaps she can see through to those depths more of the goodness in you than your eyes can detect in the reflection pool.”

“To those who follow you, you were as a living legend glimmering before their eyes and divining the path for a better future. Although that ardent veil of belief has been torn from your eyes that does not make you any less capable of achieving as great, if not greater, feats as those you have done in the past. She would know with her foresight that with a little more kindling, your spirit shall fly forth to its mark and reap justice upon those who have wronged the land to gratify their vanity.”

“Should that wrack of penance not befall me, as the emblem of such vanity?” Posed the disgraced imperator. “Is not my legend vanished as ash amid the breath of dragon fire?”

Delphine’s dying red strands of hair fell over with a darkened shadow that made them appear a sudden shade of dark burgundy. Her visage too reflected this dusky change. “To assent sad weight of truth behind the Lady’s divinations, whispers on the wind tell of a Summit in sight of the coming Eclipse of blood. Foul tidings are afoot by the olden mound of Felhenge, where I am sure Mordaunt will make his grand declaration before the world there. Acclaim himself in deifying sight of ruby diamond’s astral eye.”

“A winged herald halted his ride by here. A day back, maybe, while you were out. He asked for bread and ale from the hearth before racing the tides above. He had not the time to be curious as to our other visitor in you, for he was off to sound the Summit to the chiefs.” Delphine let out a careful sigh, as natural as a shift in the winds, going on in grim tenor. “Tis most unsettling to know the steep pace at which this yellowed madman treads to ensure ascendency to that throne of misfortune. He sets the stage at the Summit. Knowing that to seize the reigns of the world legitimately he will need Corinna’s hand, to chain it. With so public a stage and open an invitation he seeks to tie the threads of the old Imperium to him or else sever them and redefine his reign with brutality. Slay the old empress and display to his ‘new subjects’ his merciless approach to those in defiance of the ‘Divinity’ or mortal might he claims a crown with.”

The coals & charred residue kindle within, stronger in their smolder. The cauldron of being burned anew, and painfully so. Searing through his apathy and dismay with spitting hate for Mordaunt and a fervid flame, reaching for Corinna in yearning. “Alas, while I fear that I do not have the wit or will to keep up a false pretense, the sight, the need & soul of Corinna sets my path alight again. Her loveliness and her plight return me to a resemblance of proper form.”

“I still cannot claim to be fully convinced of my ability to wield ruse or sword to save the day – when I hath so long been that shadow in the sun plaguing its rays - I know I must try. Tis that or die now and waste your tender care, sweet Delphi. I am hauled onward to whatever end this desperate impulse drives me towards. Too much at stake for me to run, tail-tucked, from the monstrous face of mine own mistakes. ‘Tis time to be forthright again. Perhaps for the first time, truly.” Though the dull ache persisted even with her miraculous attendance Drakkon set up with some struggle. He tested his shoulders, swinging them. Showing to himself, or at least trying, that he could save this body enough to perform one last marvel.

“Let us ride to the Grove when chance arrives, weather wise… those snowstorms drift even into my dreams, or maybe swept them away with frosty hands. In any case past these fields the goal must be Silverwood. From there depending on the state of our reunion and that of the world’s affairs I shall know whether I ride to death or redemption. At the very least should I fall against my former supporters my death would serve some purpose in teaching men to no longer trust those who claim some superior stance. Let them become suspicious of those who claim heaven’s ear and wield clout over their heads as holy right. Alas, anything is better than being trapped in this crushing prison of a sick bed unable to affect one thing or another.”

A warming smile spread across Delphine. Her hope lifted by his willingness to trust in her, even if he doubted the course. She brought more of the broth to him and pressed a hand against the poultice, testing the wound. He winced unwillingly and let out an unconscious whimper as the pain cut through the protective layer of the hannabis root. “Excellent, well. Words cannot match the pleasure your bravery affords me. But I bid you to rest for now and let soft guidance of the Muse deliver you into the healing embrace of sleep once more. The storm seems to be letting up and I must confess I am low on herbs needed to perfect another batch of this. But I shall be off to the woods on the outreach of Karrathas’ farm. With a little extra help enlisted from Barus we might grasp what we need for fair concoction between bouts.”

“We are fortunate that rare miracles and their leaves bloom beneath the sight of the Andrasil. Pray, be thankful, that the man who sliced you up had some reservations about it. It looks worse than it is; nothing vital is torn past stitching & alchemy. But you must be sturdy enough to wield sword & mind again. After a good rest and more remedy, you should be in fair enough health to make the journey to the Grove without falling apart at the seams of your stitches. I shall accompany you there when the time comes. I pray Corinna will know what to do for our next move. Though if you fall into worse shape, she should have the right means and better healers than I to rightly finish your rejuvenation once we arrive.”

“If she will have me…” the lost lord grumbled. “I will no longer force any course.”

She turned her hand to rest the back of it softly by his brow, feeling the heat of his forehead and sensing for lingering fever. “Gird your spirit, Drakkon. No amount of herbal healing will fully restore you – and allow you to find that lost love & prodigal promise in our Lady Corinna – if you do not pump vitality through your veins. Fight for a new day, even under the brooding shade. Know that I believe in you, still. Not as a lord but a capable lad! But you must find belief for yourself. I cannot aide you there nor can you reach Corinna without it. That you can reflect the pained shards, pry past illusion into insight may allow you to shape self into something true. True enough to lead us to another day.”

With this she let him stew on his thoughts and sip at her broth. Gazing out the threshold of the humble hut at wrinkled sky.

Ashen Waters

7Th of Vintersfel, 19AD, Karrathas Homestead

The winds’ outcry stifled. The snows, pacified in the early hours of the morning as Delphine stepped out of the cottage with young Barus beside her. The boy had an enthusiasm in his eyes that resisted waning despite years of having to care diligently for his father and looming clouds of constant war. This lad, the sort of soul who took pleasure in the smallest aspects of life, would offer help to almost anyone without any expectation of reward for kindness.

He spent nearly his whole life at that farm and knew little of the world beyond the fields he tended, frozen over by the tight grasp of winter. He was, therefore, full of questions to unload on Delphine; crossing the board from subjects such as her magick art and the gods to what it was like to travel to different regions and interact with so many varied people. She kindly answered his questions, indulging his curiosity while he guided her through the woodlands. They went on in search of murkroot and bark of the Borean pine, which even in winter could yield sap to perfect restorative formula.

They gathered most the reagents with relative ease, piling them into the pouch. The forest slept under cool blanket, and they feared no animal but the hungriest. The pair reached the outskirts of a wintery lake. Its surface, frozen over and its shore lined with an odd arrangement of boulders. The circling gloom of the storm threads broke by gleaming beams from above. A silver stream of winter sunlight warmed their corner of the lake.

An air of serenity amid the darkness. It called out to Delphine and compelled her to set aside a moment of peaceful reflection. As though the moment conveyed a sign of heavenly favor within an atmosphere of looming despair. She told the boy Barus of her inclination for augury and bid him continue gathering the rest of what was needed while she followed this sublime whim. As she’d taught the curious boy to differentiate the right herbs from other plants well enough on his own, she felt confident enough that this was the right moment for rest. Walked out to the rock formation before the lake and seated herself in trance of meditation.

Stillness. Tranquility. Surrender. Delphine’s conscious mind dissolves into formless void. Far removed from all the turmoil encroaching on her soil. She slips into an empty expanse where thoughts could not invade nor supplant themselves. Her focus drifts deeper & deeper into a submerged sea of peace, beyond words & images, where nothing could pierce the cocoon of transmuting accord, she veiled herself in. Innumerable hours pass in seconds until through this mindful renewal deep visions project across the span of her subconsciousness, drilling in. A burning flame. An array of ancient stones. Gargantuan trees with arms outstretched to sky. Corpses amassed on slab of a desecrated temple. Broken tablets & stone structures. A vast ocean. Volcanic eruption. A well of life flowing freely to those amassed. Sky opening to unveil return of solar light.

Abruptly her peaceful prism of insight & reflection rebuffs stiffly by approaching footsteps. Harsh and hasty steps, crunching through the dead leaves and dirt beneath the snow about the lake. And with them whispers in the back of her brain warn of peril. Her eyes open to view the arrival of five strangers. All men garbed in Drakoni standard; tabards tainted & dirt ridden. Bearing expressions of antipathy to all that their sight fell upon, including her. Delphine stood as these bandit deserters came up, glaring with distaste.

“Welly, welly, well. Hels, looky what we got ‘ere friends. A bleedin’ witch!” Said the rather pudgy one who bore the countenance of a pig.

“Aye, brother. And the ‘high’ sorceress’s favored advisor no less… What brings ye here, witch? Casting curses on the land?” Said another, lanky yet no less disparaging fellow. “Can smell the sulfur from this succubus stronger than the rankest of meats on a foul summer’s noontide!”

Delphine’s heart races. Veins flaring, she could not resist the urge to spit back at these lowly beast-men. She could not look weak nor relent to scorn of such untethered helots. “None of your concern, dog. I may be a seer, a weaver, but your sort seems to ever incapable of understanding higher causes & the order of nature. I will not waste breath by explaining to the likes of you. Tis ye, fighters, who should be answering inquiries of my rank. Wherefore are you not with your commander & Lord?”

The eldest of their number laughs a treacherous cackle. “Ha! As if we would stand and rot beneath his blight. Or any pretty little Lord who thinks he can slave and break my sodding back for that fuckin’ matter! Drakkon lays dead on the field! I witnessed his maiming, ‘is fall! Got right to a clear distance. Chose not to die for a lost cause that sown nothing good for me nor any bastard still livin’ ‘neath bloodied boots!”

“He fell. Blown away in smoky cloud. Proven a pretender & thief who the true gods finally smote in wrath. All of us cursed! For following a man, we encased in godhood we are damned. I spit on his memory, and on your ‘mysticism’, witch. It seems none of your divinations and readings could foresee or prevent all this. Lot of good those visions ‘ave. You good for anything else?” the first one derides Delphine. Spitting globs as gross as his tone. Then steps at her with clenched fists. “This ‘ere is a realm with no law left! We are free men now under the soddin’ sun – aha! There ain’t no spears to stop us from takin’ what we want! And it just might be we want a little Justice for all that blasphemin’ bile yew witches spewed into our ears for so many years!”

But Delphine, though daunted, dares chastise. Refuses to beg before rabid mongers. “I see. So, since ‘yew’ fear death and cowardly flee from the face of war you find it more fitting to… what? Hide in the woods and prey upon unarmed women who pass by to satisfy your craven disappointment? Never had a wife at home you could satisfy so you would bully passersby instead of returning to something meaningful?” She battered back at these barking dogs of war. “Truthfully, I am almost relieved to hear you hath abandoned your task, for the realm is in no need of feeble scoundrels who turn heel in terror the moment the tide goes ill. Nature rewards courage, while it punishes cowardice.”

“Oi, weech! What would you know of the natural order? Yer ilk cast black spells and chant rites before the cauldron and bend dark spirits to do your bidding! That is as unnatural as it gets! They say your coven profaned the gods, drew some daemon into Azarra. A Helseed that stole the form of the Great God for the netherworlds. Plotted so that you could get your filthy claws on the land’s ‘art and rend ours.” Descants the tall, gaunt one again. “Drakkon and his mother were once pure till you sold of their spirits!”

Two twins among the motley crew, the youngest of their ensemble, shuffle up. One of them, whose only distinguishing feature was a scar across his forehead and left eye decides to chime in. “Aye! That is the truth I tell you! Even the Empress herself is possessed by some nether wind. A spirit that controls her through seizing spells. Everyone knows it they just dare not speak up against one who holds so much power, evil though she is with her diverting the kingdom’s efforts to her secret covens. I think it is possible that this here witch be either a vile succubus herself or is among the perpetrators of this unholy corruption. We ‘eard what happened there at the ivory Tower. Azarra’s body ascended from bloody bath water. There was something eerie in the air at the evil monument. A specter, a serpent came in and drained her. Yet the shadows conjoined for communion, that she lives on in their shade!”

The plump but hardy deserter snorts. “Or mayhaps the whole witchery was a sham that those sodding broads came up with. And their treachery finally came and bit them on the arse. Could be as the fled bard said, that our dead commander is mothered of tyrant branch of birth. Methinks ye seers come at a high cost yet grant no real craft. I went to yer like lookin’ for a castin’ of runes and signs to help dice away my debts. No blessing nor fates aided my hand, after spillin’ tributes to ya. Lost the wife for it. You ain’t nothing but a fraud and harlot, stealing money and hope from good men like me!”

He ate up her space with his mass, pushing her against the rocks of the shore as he chewed his loathsome declaration. But Delphine stood still defiant against the hard face of circumstance. “The Fates cannot be courted by weak men. If it was not your lot to reach beyond your worth no ceremony might change that… Besides, from but a glance my sense of you tells me you louted about while awaiting an audience. Trying to cavort with chaste sisters while paying humble tribute of lip service to a loyal wife, no? Ha! Indeed, ye all are more a scourge of sin than any else in these parts. Why not admit to your evil? Realize your own hand in the desecration of fields and violation of empathy?”

This ignited the brute’s fuse, inciting him to strike. With his gauntlet he moved to hit her face, but fumbled in the air of her dodge, denying him. Yet with his elbow he then pinned her to the arctic boulder. Struggling against his blubbering rage to form a cohesive curse in his defense as he brought his fetid mouth to her ear. “Y’know you winched wench? I feel you owe me for those scornful lies that cost me coin and a spouse. Don’t give much a rut to hear thy defense. Tis right to take penance from thee! As it seems you have no coin purse to, uh, reimburse me methinks I you must pay with pleasure. A bit weathered for me, but I’ll get ya to scream for me!”

The putrid gang, with faces as foul as their pits, surrounds the lone woman. Behind the massive shoulders of the brute pressing against her Delphine spots a rustling in a thicket by the edge of the lake. Barus pops out wearily from the cover. Pleads for direction with panicked and petrified expression. He humors tossing a rock, serving a distraction but Delphine narrows her gaze, interlocked with his and pumps all her intent into channeling warning to the frightened youngling. “It is not worth it… Flee! Take flight!”

She slashes a sly sign with her hand and steers her eyes to send him away before her fingers are wrestled by the wretches. The boy darts away from the lake. But the young twins catch concern by the gesture she’d made. Perturbed by the sight of her eyes rolling back and forth, assuming she cast some binding spell, One drags the fat pig off her while his brother protests, speaking as one mind. “You fool! She invokes some dark magick! If you enter her, she will try to do the same to you! Crawl into your mind and possess it as her own! Do not touch her as a lech! She might bite some evil witchcraft & curse your pecker off!”

“I mean think a minute, mate… If these ‘ere types of wicked women hath cursed the countryside with plague then imagine what malicious magick she can conjure and cast over we mere men, y’know? Why risk it for some ashy-flame haired harlot?”

“Aye they are right, ye waggin’ buffoon, if you harm her, she is ought to spill some sort of terrible curse with blood and tears to cover us all! All I want is to find a warm bed and some good mead before the next storm drenches us all. I do not wish to die by the hands of witchery. Nor unkind weather.” The thin one stated grimly before cracking a wicked chuckle. “Not till I’ve got a few pints of sometin’ in me belly that is! A-ha!”

“Pfft! She is nothing but a swindling con! All the villages ‘round here have been burnt down! So, unless this witch can conjure up some ale and summon a few whores to fill my appetite I have no use for keeping her alive. I would rather see her hung as charlatan than run away with my tail between my legs, just because this wench frightens you lot.” The grossly corpulent brigand blabbers spitefully.

“Oi mate! Think about how the plague reared once that infernal ‘Empress’ got crowned. When the witches started Drakkon propped a whore up on a pedestal and let the witches take center stage to do those blasted ceremonies. It all seemed eerie to me like they caused the plague to ravage us…” offer the twins. “They got demon blood in ‘em! The likes which assure me ‘tis not to be fucked about with for a pointless, godamn fuck – especially with your tiny pebble of a pecker! ‘cause she’s close to that scary sorceress, Azarra, she is!”

“Even in death her ghost haunts us?!” Gasps one twin with his fellow chiming behind. “She never fled by red rivers but lives to curse us, voiceless, with the winds as her agents!”

“So, which is it then?” Snaps Delphine, starting sardonic defiance. “Am I some awful witch guilty of summoning plague and disaster? Or am I a fraud that could do no harm? Make up your mind will you, you indecisive bunch of rats! Why not test my nature by settling the matter by taking arms up against yourselves? One side ‘witch’, the other ‘charlatan’. It would be more efficient than clamoring on without end.”

The wizened defector’s face, all gnarled up in thought, suddenly broke out in a declamatory fever. “That is for us to find out! Let us tie her to this boulder and cast her with it into the lake. If she is lying about her power she will sink to the bottom and be no more, thereby ridding the world of one less poison-bloom. How’ere if she can invoke any sort of sorcery she will survive to return to the surface of the lake, and we may burn her for a true death. Aye, burning witches at the stake was the only thing the Vizzari magisters had right I say!”

He took the lead over his pig-snouted brethren. “The gods cast dreadful a rain of judgement upon all of us for falling in line behind pretenders to the throne of heaven. Let them signal resounding praise unto us for catching one of the conniving magicians who sought to pull down the great pantheon. The death of this witch shalt echo through the sky and clear away the storm clouds. Cure the plague & feed us plenty. I say mates: get the rope and let us solve this accursed mystery! & one way or another rid the world of this bloody wench!”

In a dreamlike haze the ragged defilers vehemently arrest Delphine. Bind her to the furthermost rock, before the frigid surface. She tired of the ceaseless running and the abandonment she patched by aiding others, welcoming flight. She steers up to the firmament, staring straight into the placid holes cleaving the somber spirals of ashen clouds. She funnels all her conscious being, propels her spirit’s aim up to the narrowing light. Screeching through Sight of soul, that her last whim be carried across on the winds; be given form by the storm.

The deserters heave her tethered boulder into the lake. The bulk of it shatters the icy surface, plunging her into murky waters. Her last breaths given in honor of hope that her last living friends be delivered from the malevolent gloom and awake to rejuvenating peace as her lids lift past life’s gate. Wings of absolution stretching over suffocating lake abide prayer that the clouds part long enough that the living see change in the world which flung her from it to astral shores.