Chapter 28. The Banishing

rekke wished she had never boarded the Mermaid and come to Cantha.  Not only was she feeling cold and nauseated, but the atmosphere in the room had become distinctly unwelcoming.  She was a guest in room full of people she hardly knew and those people were absorbed in some drama beyond her comprehension.  The injured man in the big rattan chair was very distraught and crying out in pain now that the monk who had been tending him had wandered away and let her enchantments lapse.

The blonde woman who had been placidly holding his hand was trying frantically to soothe him while the empath who had calmed him earlier was trying to restore order over the howling sobs rising from his throat.  The little boy sitting across from him was weeping silently, alone.

“Brigit, find Lemony and haul her back in here,” Teleri cried, “I can’t believe she would do this to him.”

The tall muscular woman with flame red hair rose quickly to her feet, amazingly agile given her size, and bounded out of the room.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Orick asked, his face pale with shock and confusion.

“Actually, if you can carry Pendaran back to our room,” Teleri said, her voice breaking under the strain.  By this time the Canthan monk who had been sitting near Brekke was working frantically to wrap the wounded man in enchantments.  The other two men looked on grimly.  Orick hurried to do as he was asked, lifting Pendaran’s shuddering form easily from the chair.  The little boy clung to the blonde woman and she paused for a moment to hold him tenderly and kiss his brow before urging him to come with her.

Brekke watched them leave, feeling awkward and out of place with two strange men standing behind her.  She glanced at them and smiled anxiously, trying not to look too hard at the hunched figure with the scarred visage and one blue staring eye.  The other man nodded tersely at her before departing.

“Tea?” asked the necromancer, pouring himself a cup calmly as if nothing unusual had happened.  Brekke decided they were all mad.  She shook her head as the hunched figure scrounged what was left of the soup and strode out of the room clutching a steaming bowl and teacup.

She dropped into a chair and sat there, her finger absently tracing a small puddle of spilled tea.  Thank the gods that at least someone had offered to help her.  Brekke was exhausted but she feared closing her eyes and resting. 

A rustling of beads and medallions drew her from her gaze to the doorway and she saw the dusky woman with kohl-lined eyes standing there, her gentle face strained with sadness.

“Please, follow me,” she said, her voice melodic as she beckoned, “My husband is ready for you now.”

Numbly, she followed the lithe figure in the turquoise gown down a long corridor and up a flight of stairs with a landing basking in the glow of stained glass windows.  Shikai turned the metal latch of the door and held it aside as a strong odor of burning resin strayed outside the room.

Brekke glanced at the walls lined with shelves of books and a desk pushed against the far wall untidy with scrolls of paper, ink cakes and brushes.  The floor was of a smooth dark tile, laid bare so that a pattern drawn in pale sand or salt lay at its middle.  Oddly, there was a copper basin at the center of the circle, one that might be used for bathing.  At the four cardinal points lay a smoking censer where the resinous incense was curling softy from the brass throats of stylized dragons.

“Remove your shoes, please,” Zhou said, his hands folded behind his back as he stood beside the basin.  Clad in a long black gown that was belted with a matching sash, his flesh glowed as faded autumn sunlight poured down on him from the high windows.  A long thin sword gleamed behind his back where it was tucked into his sash.  He seemed distracted and did not respond when Shikai moved to stand beside him.  The two of them conferred softly in Canthan, apparently unaware that their Tyrian guest understood their tongue.

“Is this wise, my love?  You are not focused and you do not know the strength of this being.”

“I have prepared adequately.”

“Let me ward you.  You are being stubborn.”

Zhou’s dark eyes locked onto Brekke and she blushed, realizing he was aware of her eavesdropping.

“Come, stand in the basin.”

Without a word, Shikai nodded to him, their conversation muted as she turned and left the circle. She paused in the doorway to glance upon her husband plaintively and then departed, closing it behind her. 

There was a fine red powder in the basin and Brekke was careful to step onto it.  Zhou placed an expressionless red mask over his face and began chanting softly, his form glowing with chaotic energies as he focused upon her, pausing at each point of the compass to finish each piece of the incantation as he circled her counterclockwise.

He was graceful and confident, but nothing stirred within her as she stood there, watching and waiting.  Long minutes passed but the coldness lay heavily within her gut, refusing to budge.  And now she was beginning to feel ridiculous as the man picked up a bowl of golden chrysanthemum petals and showered her with them.  This was certainly not the kind of magic she had grown up with.  Canthan mesmers seemed far more ritualized and she would be picking flower petals out of her hair for the rest of the evening at this rate.

“Cease the mind chatter, Brekke, it is a bad habit of Tyrians.”

She blushed, feeling exposed by his keen mind.  He drew the sword from his sash.  The long stylized blade flashed in his hand, capturing the sunlight and bending it into prisms.  He sliced the air before her with a final shout.

Suddenly she was drowning in the embrace of the watery being, gasping and choking as it crawled over her face and pouring bitterly through her.  Panicking, she choked and gasped, clawing at its nacreous substance.  But it was falling away, ebbing and sliding over throat and shoulders, raining down in chill cascades until it crashed with a tinkle of brittle glass into the basin, churning the water blood red.  Zhou held out a hand to her, drawing her away from the seething water and kneeling now to dry her feet with a pale cloth.

Clearly he thought the thing contained for he did not duck aside as the water burst violently from the basin and struck him harshly upon the left side of his face.  She pulled away instinctively as the man grew still, his eyes dull.

“Shikai,” he whispered.
 
Brekke rushed for the door, crying the woman’s name as she entered the corridor.  Terror gripped her as the room flared violet and chaotic energies burned brightly around the man’s hunched and kneeling figure.

“No,” Zhou moaned softly, his jaws tensing as he fought an invisible force that battled for control of his mind and flesh.

“Ashekoroth,” he rasped, “he seeks for you.”

Shikai bolted into the room, her eyes wide with alarm.  Dropping to her knees, her arms rose up, drawing pale energies from another realm about herself.  A swirling column of white wrapped her willowy figure and a chained spirit rose shrieking before her.  It howled and struggled as Shikai seized the sword and pressed its tip against Zhou’s heaving breast.

“Leave him!” Shikai screamed in Canthan, “I will cleave his flesh before I let you take him.”

Brekke looked on in horror as Shikai’s visage became fierce and deadly.  She meant every word.

“We need this one,” Zhou choked, growing slack as Shikai pressed the sword harshly against his belly.

“I will do this!  Release him now.”

“Ours.  He belongs to us.”

Brekke gasped in horror as Shikai plunged the sword into the man’s gut.  His head jerked back and a cry emerged from his jaws.  Water flowed from his mouth, mingling with the blood pooling in his lap.  The chained spirit howled and faded away as it absorbed a portion of his injury.  Sobbing once, Shikai cast the bloodied sword aside and grasped Zhou’s arm, hauling his wounded form away from the seething puddle. 

“Help me!” Shikai shouted and Brekke hesitated only for a moment before racing to the man’s side and pulling him free of the circle.  He moaned in pain upon the floor as Shikai knelt beside him and suffused him with the cold healing energies of the spirit realm.  Gasping for breath, Zhou rested in Shikai’s arms, his eyes closed. 

“Such evil and hatred,” he whispered.

“I am sorry, my love,” Shikai murmured softly.

“You did the correct thing.  I should listen to your instincts about spirits.”

“Your anger and pain blinded you.”

Brekke stood beside them, deciding this was now the safest point in the room.  It was difficult not to overhear their conversation but she felt awkward doing so.  What was that thing?  What did it want?  She gazed back at the center of the circle where blood and water stained the floor.  The basin, once empty, was now brimming with placid water. 

Zhou rose stiffly to his feet and retrieved the sword.  Gazing back at Brekke, she thought she saw the faintest flicker of fear in his dark eyes, for that was all she could see of him behind the red mask.

“Go from here, there is no need for you to be endangered and the demon is parted from you now.  The servants have already prepared a place for you to stay and I bid you rest.”

Shikai knelt behind him, swathed in swirling energies from the spirit realm as she chanted, her eyes closed.  Brekke sensed their combined determination and anger.  Two were needed to drive the thing off, but she sensed it could not be slain, only defeated.  It was not alive.