hey moved on in silence, Kouric trotting ahead, using his battered old longbow to probe the mud and water. There was an urgency to how he moved and she struggled to keep her pace while still following him and being careful not to make too much noise as she had been repeatedly told. She saw a dark figure slide into the trees ahead of them. Kouric came to a stop, dropped his longbow and reached back for the other bow.

“Come out.” He called. “You risk us both sneaking around like that…the phantoms don’t take kindly to guests.”

To Isida’s ears there was a high pitched screech. A man was right at her side. His daggers flashed like cold stars as he turned to attack her. She gave a little scream and brought up her staff, parrying one blow as she called a protection to her aid. The second dagger grated against a shield of azure light as she ducked away. Kouric cussed loudly, an arrow swished past the figure, but it limbed in violet and vanished almost as soon as it had appeared.

“You are foolish attacking me. What do you want with us?” Kouric came to Isida’s side, a single glance from him and he had assessed the situation. He pulled her arm and ran beside her, occasionally encouraging her. Isida did not have the endurance or balance of the old ranger; he dragged her through the muck and carried her through the water when she became too tired. Yet as he said it was miles yet. In the trees beside them she saw the occasional flash of enchantment of the figure moving step for step, just as fast as the ranger.

“What is he?”

“Gods damned assassin.”

“Why would he follow us?”

“I am guessing its Dale, or the bow, or perhaps whatever it is you are carrying to the temple. Or he is hunting for the hell of it...some of them live for the art of the kill.” Kouric set her down on a sand spit and rested for a moment. She heard the sound again and said a different prayer this time. A glow of spiteful brilliance sparked from her body as the assassin tried to drive his daggers home. He fell down, startled as the holy energy smote him. Kouric took the assassin’s stunned moment to pound an arrow into his ribs. The man made a choking noise and disappeared.

“Damned cowardly…he knows it will wear us down, too.” Kouric summoned his fire and more or less posed next to her. She very much doubted the man would attack with Kouric looking so fierce. He took her hand again and they moved quickly again. She gave a scream but too late as the daggers sliced into Kouric. He tried to dodge away, but the small dark figure kicked him down and he pitched face forward into the mud.

Kouric kicked frantically at the agile man. She saw blood fly from the blades and uttered one of the few healing prayers she had. Renewed, Kouric scrambled to his feet, shouting a word that lit the assassin on fire. He had his bow in a moment and he managed to stop the man’s next attack with a well aimed arrow. Again the assassin snapped out of existence and was gone

She felt a blade slice into her back. She tried to say a spell but he knocked her down. Kouric summoned fire again and she saw flame arc towards the snarling figure of her attacker. One arrow hit home and the other passed through open air as the assassin disappeared once more. She rose groaning to her knees and healed herself. Kouric tried to help her up when the assassin appeared again. Kouric grabbed a handful of muck from the ground and slammed it into the assassin’s face. The man faltered, allowing Isida to utter a holy word that activated a signet. The assassin fell into the muck and Kouric shot him several times as he tried to escape.

The man scrambled into the shelter of some trees. This time Kouric was not to be denied; she watched him bolt into the trees, an arrow knocked and ready. There was a cry and flash of steel, Kouric was shrieking something very obscene. She saw the flicker of the assassin traveling in his occult fashion. She summoned her shield and his daggers glanced off uselessly when he appeared.

The man did not account for Kouric’s keenness; the ranger spun around, sighted and delivered a fatal salvo. The assassin smacked against the crackling holy energy of her shield and she smelled the sickly scent of burning skin as he slid down. The ranger dashed over, kicked the body on to its back and shot a last time, pinning him to the earth. The assassin twitched and was still.

Blood was streaming down Kouric’s legs and his muddied face with its mad dark eyes looked like the visage of a demon. He panted for a moment then dropped to his knees as the strain of battle overcame him. She let her shield drop and walked to him, placed her hand on his shoulder and stopped the bleeding. After a moment she had enough energy to heal him completely.

“Gods, I am exhausted.” Kouric coughed for a few moments. “I hope no one else wants to kill us today…”

She opened her pack and brought out some stale corn cakes and dried apple. He accepted the food gratefully as well as water. She took his hand, partly to comfort herself, and partly to assure he was alright; she could feel his racing pulse under her hand. He smiled slightly at her fussing over him, allowing her to cast a last healing spell just in case.

“I’m alright.” He said finally.

“We should stay here a little while longer…eat some more. That was a lot of blood.” She handed him another cake and he obediently ate it. “Is it always like this out here?”

“Only when I have you along.”

“While we rest, why don’t you tell me about how you came to be all alone here?”

“You remember Lewithia?”

“Of course I do…she was only a few years older than myself. Jael told me how he brought her out of the underworld.”

“So do you know about the arrowhead?”

“Yes.” Isida held back the urge to tell him she had it. Jael had been careful to tell her to keep it a secret, even from people she trusted.

“Did he tell you how he got it?”

“No.”

“Alright. So that summer when Lewithia was slain was the same when I married Lani, remember?”

“Yes…I do. I remember the wedding feast and Tel telling us about Jael killing all those charr. He went a little nuts.”

“Oh yes he did. He loved her like the daughter he never had. The thing is, Jael lost his love a long time ago…and he never found anyone else. Sometimes I called him the widower swan, flying so high he never saw a swan just as beautiful as himself. So it was that he took to helping children and sheltering those who needed help. We were his family. He had a store of gold from his adventuring days, and also as his students grew up there were always gifts and someone was always willing to stay awhile and fix up the house or plant the garden, whatever he needed."

"That included me. I was already a ranger in my own right when he found me in the north. Thing was my group got slaughtered exploring around the Dragon’s Mouth lakes, looking for some supposed hidden treasure. The charr tied me up and they were going to burn me alive. Well, Jael just came in there like a bolt from heaven. He was a mean bastard, hated charr like nothing else, never seen anyone fight like him before or since."

"Anyhow he brought me home and taught me the things I never learned on my own. I fell in love with the house…and the little temple down the way. So I determined to stay and falling in love with Lani helped out that plan. So when Lewithia died I went up to the stone cottage, the one on the cliff away from the house. You remember it? He liked to go up there to be alone. He was there weeping inconsolably. He told me he could not get her from his mind, and that he could only see her in death."

"I loved my master. So for a few weeks I went to priests and priestesses and all of them told me he would get over it. It was grief, but I also knew it was guilt. Jael blamed himself for letting her serve the king and also for not being there to protect her. I don’t think either was true…she was unlucky, these things happen to scouts and spies. She was more than able to do her duty. I returned to him a few weeks later and he was still inconsolable, but determined to make a pilgrimage to the Temple of Ages and enter the Underworld."

"I feared he meant to take his own life. I am guessing too that he lost his wife to the charr, though he never told anyone what happened to her. I was on an errand to help one of the younger students in Ascalon when I came across a woman. She was a foul thing, but one of the crazy things she said was that she knew how to bring the dead from the Underworld. I bought her some firewater and I spoke to her a few hours until at last she told me about a temple in the foothills of the Shiverpeaks. There, she said, was a priest of Grenth and around his neck hung a talisman that could return flesh to a lost spirit."

"I was in despair for my master and all he meant to our small community. I climbed up the pass near Nolani and I found him there. He did not expect trouble and it was a simple matter to tie him up as he slept and take what I wanted. I believe he never knew who I was. I met Jael on his journey and gave him the Talisman."

"The rest of the story I warrant he told you. It did work. He came back without her and I thought we had gotten away with it. However, it was a good story and it did not help that I was fond of drink and blabbed it out a few times in the crowded taverns in Ascalon City. People started listening, and there are those who would use such a thing as the arrowhead for ill things."

"So it was that one night staying in Nolani, I was taken by force. The leader of that little group…”

Kouric paused and met Isida’s eyes, moving his jaws as if grinding his teeth together. He quietly unstrung the little red bow and put it back in its case. He ran a hand across the ivory inlay on the box before continuing. She could sense his still raw emotions at what had happened next.

“She tortured me until I submitted to whatever she wanted. She spent a few
weeks at this, as I was not immediately willing to tell her the location or how to use the arrowhead. That is how I got all the scars. Finally, she did break me and I told her everything. She had my mind, and if she did not have my mind her companions would rend my body. I learned to be afraid. I learned to obey.”

“I learned that she wished to return her master to flesh. He was a foul man who had been executed for his crimes. With his help she wished to have revenge on their enemies and carve out a duchy of her own. I did not have the strength to resist her and so it was we arrived at the Temple of Ages. I knew one of the priests had the arrowhead, and after a little snooping I discovered which one. In fear for my life, and not wishing to be tormented again, I killed the priest and took the arrowhead.”

“You killed a priest in the temple?”

“Yes. Imagine if you will the blood of a holy man on your hands while running past the shrine of Melandru. I was taken with a terrible agony in my chest at the evil I had done. I was alone in the darkness with my goddess. I tried to explain what had happened, but she does not tolerate cowards well. I have never before or since suffered such pain or ecstasy. I asked her how I could atone. I did not wish to avoid death; only to bring myself back into harmony with her, for her anger at my deeds burned me to the core. I was deeply ashamed of what I had done from fear."

"I used my powers to flee like the wind from the temple. I was taken with the voice of the goddess and she told me that to have forgiveness I must destroy my enemies. She would protect me from the wrath of Grenth if I was successful, but I would still pay for my actions."

"In the end I killed all of my erstwhile captors. It took a few weeks to reel them in and end their plot. I didn’t know what to do with the arrowhead, and I was terrified of giving it to the avatar of Grenth…I was certain despite the assurances of Melandru that showing myself at the temple would mean a cruel death. So I put the arrowhead in a little iron box and threw it off the cliff at the lighthouse at Lion’s Arch."

"I spent a few years wandering the world. It seemed Cantha was a safe distance, so I lingered there for a decade or more. For awhile I was in a guild or I fought for money. Sometimes I would believe I was in love, but what I had done haunted me, and anyone I loved soon came to hate me and my occasional outbursts. At night sometimes I could feel blood on my hands."

"I was also an incorrigible drunkard. Drinking was a good way to forget what I had done. The last guild I was at I was supposed to be guarding the gates. I fell into a drunken sleep and we were attacked. I slept through the battle and when it had ended I was kicked out. When I tried to get other work, my name had been roundly slandered and only the dregs of guilds would even consider me."

"So I came to Bergen Hot Springs. A priest from the temple was there and I was deeply miserable. Frankly, I wanted to die at that point. I had no friends, no love and nothing to look forward to. I knelt at his feet and confessed everything I had done."

"He took me to the temple, and as my goddess promised me, I was not killed for my crimes. However I pay and I still pay. I must return to the temple at least every three days or I will die, until such time as the arrowhead is returned to the temple. My bound duty is to guide and protect those who seek the temple. They allow me to make a living from this, but anything extra that I do not need goes to the temple. That is why I cannot look for Dale…and that is why I do what I do. I have little choice, until the day comes that I am too tired or weak to make the journey.”