Windows shattered as dead ‘things’ flooded out of them. Who knew there were so many dead animals hidden in nooks and crannies?

An ivory waterfall gleaming in the rising moon's pale white light.

Mireille gasped as her leg brushed against a plank buried in the snow. The wight she had seen Vanessa fight exited the gatehouse and looked around searchingly before its gaze came to rest on the Nordmark soldiers that had climbed the wall. And with a crack, the whip unfolded, and more screams joined the chorus. She was worried about Alyssa but she did not seem to be in pain.

Alea glowed with pale light as she finished healing the flesh wound to her thigh before first crawling, then scrabbling hurriedly to where Alyssa was lying. The ground was saturated in shadow that moved like it was a liquid or perhaps even alive. Eyes open, flesh sunken and sallow.

Vanessa hissed and gathered power to transform into mist- her horrific wounds bordering on her final destruction.

“Shhh. Don’t move.” Cool hands gripped her face, and she saw the face of Iseret above her. She was kneeling behind Vanessa's head, knees touching her hair, while bowing over her body. As the transformation into mist began, a terrible weakness gripped her mind, and she nearly slipped away. Her body was a sieve, and the darkness was no longer as attached as it needed to be. “Don’t!” Another admonition. With one hand, Iseret gently raised her dagger before kissing the blade. Black blood bubbled from a deep cut into her tongue. With a decisive movement, she pressed her lips against Vanessa’s, funneling the life-giving elixir into her mouth. Only a twitch of her eyelids belied her pain.

The greatsword was still stuck in the pavement pinning the vampire. Her arms rose to push Iseret back, but then she embraced her head, nuzzling against her while her stomach slowly grew back around the metal blade.

The sensation of falling, no sound, no light.

A rainy day in the foothills. Behind them, the town was swathed in a cloak of mist and cloud. The mountains beyond mere hints of green and grey topped with white. The world faded into a foggy nothing.

‘Like cake.’ A half-forgotten but familiar woman's voice echoed from somewhere, soft laughter hidden within the words. It sounded like a saying a personal joke.

Why was it sad?

A shivering hand pressed into the grasp of a large bearlike paw, hairy and...warm.

The way was not paved but strewn with gravel, neglected more often than maintained. Grasses grew from patches of loam unearthed by the ceaseless rains.

Wet leaves and earth pressed against her senses, and she raised her head, letting the rain fall into her eyes. Blinking.

The big man beside her had to slouch for her to reach that big warm hand.

But that was not difficult, he was bowed and broken already.

An errant thought supplied a word.

Father.

The men and women around them were faceless and pale, ghosts cloaked in greys and blacks. Drifting along with them, in front of them, beside them. The gates of wrought iron topped with inscribed and silvered spikes enfolded them, and the procession walked on.

Somewhere behind them, a bell tolled. It was not often done for someone of low birth. But someone who had lost or perhaps not lost so much because...mh...why exactly?

Someone had gifted the sound of the bell for this occasion.

It was the lesser voice of the tower of Gesserach. A bit tinny but still audible far into the mountainous hills.

And then they were there.

The great person beside her sobbed quietly, and she patted his hand, not understanding what was happening. The sobs were broken things, so small for such a big man and he did not feel her little hand at all.

An old, ornately robed man came from behind some tall stones carved with the likeness of people and beasts of legend, a dragon, a fair-folk, a merman. She thought she recognized the faces they seemed familiar.

A gaping hole in the ground swallowed the endless rain in rivulets and small streams that meandered through the grasses and low bushes. Some trees, gnarled and twisted by the storms on this flat hilltop shadowed little houses, much further in. There she saw angels, their wings spread against the greying sky.

The old man raised an old silver cup and began to sing. The ghosts around her did the same. She would like to sing too. But she knew not the words.

The hole in the ground was very large and frightening. It was black and deep and silent. To the right of it, four men carried a platform on which stood a pretty chest built of warm wood and carved with vines and herbs.

The song entwined with the voice of the bell and rose into the clouds. Listening closely, the clouds drifted lower, and wisps of fog flew along the trees and taller stones.

Lightning flashed and threw the stones into sharp relief. Then came the thunder, and the rain got stronger. Drenched and shivering, she pressed against the large leg to her right.

A woman stood beneath a tree further up the hill her form morbidly thin a hand caressing a carved plinth of stone. She split the world where she stood, and everything she was, was only her, never a part of something else. Her head turned, and a face as white as bone with eyes like chips of ice on a midwinter morning looked in her direction. Flinching before that gaze, the child pressed her face against the sodden fabric of the leg beside her.

The pretty chest was put on boles above the large gaping hole, and the man with the cup put his finger in it.

‘That was dirty!’ The child thought indignantly.

Sprinkling clinging liquid silver onto the wood, he sang once more, and the ghosts around her followed.

There was darkness in the ground, a cold pervasive presence. She had felt it when her mother had to close the eyes of one of her patients. She had said that it was so they could sleep. But here, the darkness was old and deeper than she had ever felt before.

It felt good.

Stumbling, she was pulled along as the great man beside her moved forward with the ghosts. And soon, they stood at the side of the chest, and someone pulled it open. Flowers and herbs, wreaths of it covered a slight female form. Only the face was left uncovered.

It was a face she never remembered and always wanted to. Gentle but sharp, beautiful but not pretty, a mouth that could be pinched into a thin line and then curve like a rainbow.

“Mother!” The child pulled toward the chest and stretched her hand. The large man, her father, simply held her hand and looked at nothing.

The rain ceased to fall, and strings of pearls reached for the heavens. Everything stilled and became a painting, and the canvas was the whole world.

And the face was no longer what it had been. Wide-open amethyst eyes stared sightlessly at something beyond the darkness of the clouds, youthful features drawn with pain, emaciated from leeching energies flowing just beneath the skin.

It was her own.

How it had all gone to hell, Zygmund could not fathom. He had all of it, every last thing, well in hand before the blast of void magic had nearly overwhelmed his mind. All of the undead under his control had been ripped free and set upon his troops. Everywhere skirmishes without rhyme or reason flared up when men and women in the Nordmarks’ colors were driven back into the woods, where still emerging undead put a swift end to many of them.

“Ivyander!” His bellow cracked like a whip across the open plain.

Amber regarded the chaos with bleak scrutiny. “So it failed. It did more than nothing; it helped them.” The last was screeched at him.

Wincing and covering one ear, he turned and backhanded her with a crack. “Shut your damn mouth. Help defend us, or so help me the outer dark. I will make it my mission to chain you into a buried tomb for all eternity.”

Snarling more from humiliation than pain Amber drew upon the void, and tendrils of it flashed from her fingertips before getting a hold of herself. “You will rue this day, Zygmund. I’m neither your minion nor your subject. Watch your back.” Grabbing Lilly, she drifted back over the ground and into the tree line. Her vigilant gaze never leaving the fuming vampire.

A crack of lightning and a flash of light were soon followed by shortlived thunder as a horde of newly risen undead was split and thrown asunder. A pale figure in an ice-grey robe dashed between the still-befuddled corpses and sprinted up to him. “Lord Zygmund. What was that?” Ivyander the frost elf grimaced, exhaustion was written on his face.

“That…” Zygmund paused and finally ground out, “...was the sound of failure. We leave. Gather as many of my men as you are able and leave the rest. We have to retreat and consolidate.”

With a sigh, the elf nodded. “At once.”

Concentrating, he wove a spell and drew a sharp hissing breath as the glyphs flickered and strained against something before becoming more stable. A good dozen undead turned and stood still. “Whatever spell that was, it is hellishly potent. I will not be able to enforce my will on more than this paltry few. If Milord would perhaps lend me his strength?” The gaze thrown at the vampire was inscrutable in the bad lighting, but imagination supplied the sarcastic sneer.

“Don’t overstep, servant.” Each word was enunciated forcefully. Then Zygmund began to gesture, taking much longer, and the glyphs seemed a bit lopsided. They gave a brief flare before winking out. Concentrating, he began again.

Meanwhile, two contingents of Nordmark troops were organizing a fighting retreat peppered by missiles from the suddenly victorious town defenders. The ranged fire from the walls was nonetheless sporadic as many of them still targeted the ‘allied’ undead still. Scattered cheers rose as the retreat became obvious.

“Alyssa!” Alea shook her friend hastily, patting down her belt before grabbing a handful of potions. Cecily inspecting each before she poured a reddish-brown concoction into her friend's slack mouth. “Swallow!” She massaged Alyssa’s neck as tears streamed over her cheeks. But for all her efforts, the liquid simply pooled and then dribbled to the ground beneath. “No, no, no.” Pressing her lips together, she focused and began an incantation light energy gathered in between her hands.

“What are you doing?!” Mireille shouted at her, using her summoned lightning spear as a crutch to lever herself on her good leg. “You will hurt her!”

Alea did not pause in her efforts.

Vanessa clung to Iseret with all her being. The kiss deepened as she began to feel and think clearly again. The terrible pain was at least somewhat muted. But the cold and the fluttering heartbeat of her friend alarmed her sufficiently that she pulled away, her arms still wrapped around her friend’s head. Realizing the origin of her newfound vigor, some fear stole into her gaze, and she shouted, “Iseret! Are you alright? Answer me! Don’t you dare sacrifice yourself!”

With a wry smile still dripping arterial blood, the snake-woman grabbed a potion from her belt. “I will be.” She lisped before pulling the cork with her teeth and spitting it and a healthy dollop of her blackened blood into the snow, where it sizzled and foamed. Drinking down the potion, the cut on her tongue began to heal rapidly. “I will survive.”

Still upside down in relation to each other, Iseret still kneeling behind her head, the vampire girl focused and turned into cloud of mist only to reform while frantically looking around to get a sense for the situation at large.

“What happened? Alyssa!”

Calvin exited the gatehouse at this moment. “Alyssa! That was you, wasn’t it?! How could you?!” As his gaze fell on the still form, he gave a deep sigh dragging his hands through his hair. “I knew it had to happen.”

Cyrus fell from the sky, landing beside the prone girl, his movements uncertain and confused.

The energies of light began to radiate through Alea’s hands everywhere they met with the shadowy pool surrounding Alyssa both evaporated and the darkness seemed to deepen for a moment before the light of the stars and the moon became sovereign.

“Don’t use light magic! That can’t work!” Mireille shook Alea’s shoulder, and the spell broke and fizzled into drifting motes of light.

“But I cannot do anything else!” Alea sobbed.

“She only looks dead. When she put that jewel-thingy in her wrist, she looked much more dead than now.”

The broken amethyst eyes slowly filled with darkness, and with a crack, the right arm ripped free from the ground where it had frozen solid, sending ice splinters tumbling through the air.

And then it grabbed Alea’s throat with a vicelike grip. With a groan, the mouth opened, exposing pearl-white teeth.

The little girl on the hilltop pulled again and stumbled as the father no longer held her in his grip. Tumbling forward, she skinned her knees, and tears sprung unbidden to her eyes. But she was a big girl and would not cry. She had promised Mother. But Mother had cried first, so it couldn’t be so bad.

Stumbling to her feet, she pulled herself onto the platform and looked into the coffin.

Words and memories slowly filled the void of ignorance that had held her in this tiny form.

And the pale woman was beside her looking down into the open grave.

One hand slowly caressed her hair. And with a toss of her head, and the memory of elderly aunts down the street, Alyssa patted the hand away. A hand as smooth and cold as ice.

“Am I dead?”

“You know you are.” A voice like the drifting rain given voice flowed back to her.

“Does everyone meet you then? I never thought about it, honestly. That would be a lot of work.”

“No. Most people and nearly all animals will never see me. Either in life or in death.”

“What do you do then?”

“There is still much of the child in you, is there?”

Blushing, Alyssa pouted. “It’s too late to change now anyway.”

“I lessen their suffering.”

“You are Charys, the drinker of tears.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“What is the one thing that everyone has when he or she dies? What is there in one form or another? For all of them?”

“A desire to live?”

“No. That is not always the case.”

“Hatred for those that killed them?”

“No. Most of those that die do so without malice. Even those you would not expect it from. No, it is regret.”

“Why not desire to live, but regret lives passing?”

“Some don’t regret much. A mere passing thought for how things could have been different. A nostalgia for a time that never was and never could be. A dream.”

Eyes like clouded ice focused on her, and she felt the weight of sorrow and regret of all the wishes and dreams, the potential unlived. All that ended and could have been. And she was on her knees and crying before she realized it.

“I apologize. It has been some time since I talked to one of you. And I never got good at it.” A fleeting smile lit her bone-white face. It reminded her of Vanessa, a little bit like the blade of a pointed arrow. Hair like black clouds of fog flowed from the crown of her head, fusing seamlessly with the strange black robes she wore. And, of course, there was a silver chalice.

“And what do you do about it?”

“When the soul drifts into the void on its journey toward the maelstrom, I gather the regret and sorrow and make it my own. So they can reach the end of their journey without that burden and be free of the darkness so much sooner. It might seem nonsensical, but pain prolonged is pain heightened. And it does not take much for me to do so.”

“I think it sounds like you are a good person. I never thought about it, but you have quite a bad reputation. Drinking the tears of the departed and strengthening yourself on the sorrow of the lost.”

“That is what they say. But even as we can gain strength by worship, us elder gods do not need it. The young ones, yes, they fade and grow with the tides of faith. But not us.”

“Why are we having this conversation? Not that I don’t like that!”

“My brother asked me to.”

“And who is that?”

“You know him as Jaros.”

A lengthy pause ensued.

“And did he say what he wanted from this...here?” Alyssa turned and took in the whole scene. A graveyard on a hilltop near Firswending. The graveyard where her mother was buried. And now probably her father too, if he was not lost to the mountain. She swallowed. Rain and low-hanging clouds still hung from the sky like props in a play. The ghostly funeral procession and her father had vanished, but she, her body at least, was still lying in the coffin.

“You could resolve an old evil and bring a bit of peace to this troubled world.”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“We made an oath not to.”

“And that is…”

“I will not tell.”

“And so you will return me to life, and I can continue to fumble my way to the Heartstealer before she then kills me?”

“No.”

“To which part of what I said?”

“I won’t bring you back to life. I can only keep your soul and mind from dispersing. You killed yourself when you invoked the fëa Vand. And there is nothing I will do to cheapen your sacrifice and make your life and death meaningless.”

“I don’t think it works that way?”

“But as always, there is a choice. I will gift you the decision. As much as my brother would like you to, he is not the keeper of souls. Either you return to your dead body, a spirit bound to flesh in truth with your mind at least temporarily shielded, or I return you to the ocean of souls and hasten your return to a better life, loved and cherished and without want. For your destiny was played with and subverted, your very self formed of the ambition of a dead people. And you never had that choice.”

“I did not lack in this life. I had my friends.”

“You are sixteen years, and you won’t get to be seventeen. You died to the magic that should have been your boon and only isolated and harmed you. I don’t think it unfair to give you that gift. Don’t think you are the only fate I meddle in. There is such a thing as karma. However, you put it. And in its essence, it is the meddling of fate and gods.”

“Are my friends alright?”

“They are in danger, and they suffer but should survive.”

“And if the lich queen is not defeated?”

“Their survival becomes tenuous. But no one knows the future. At least not with certainty.”

“I will go back. It is not for that long, is it?”

The gaze of the goddess was blank as a mirror, and she only saw herself reflected in the clouded ice.

“So you have decided?”

“Yes. I will go back and help them.”

“Then you will have to drink.” With graceful movements, the pale woman took the chalice and put one hand on the back of Alyssa’s head before putting the rim of the silvered vessel at her lips. The girl's eyes pleaded for a last question, and with a sigh, the white woman answered. “Yes, it will be very bitter.”

What she drunk was not liquid. It was more like a fog, a taste without substance, like drinking a cloud, but it was salty and very bitter, as tears are known to be. The taste was like smoke drifting over the ocean and left the need to cough and hold your breath.

And contained within were sorrow and pain.