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| By Karen aka Kalidris Alcyon |
Chapter 23. A Bottle of Wine |
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ouric rose and led her on through the thicket, picking his way gracefully through the mire while she floundered and hugged rough tree trunks. He finally waded to her and carried her to the shore. They walked in silence along a narrow track, she studied the way he watched their surroundings; never a movement without a thorough assessment of the swamp. She saw little in the way of any danger, but she imagined that after all of the years he had served the temple, he knew the landscape and its inhabitants perfectly. Well past midday she saw a few worn columns jutting out of the green earth. The ranger slowed, pointing to a few gaunt figures in the center of a clearing. Their spindly limbs dangled loosely as they watched the pathway. “Reed stalkers.” Kouric grunted, leading her around the edge of their clearing. “Look up there…” She looked up a gentle slope and saw the top of a statue pointing towards the heavens. Isida nodded, recognizing the wingtips of Dwayna’s shrine. They had finally arrived. Kouric loped ahead of her, and she managed to run after him as he passed between a cleft in the hills. She was not prepared for the number of people in the precincts, or for their preoccupied nature. Some knelt at the shrines and others loitered, selling supplies or treasures. Isida decided it was a very odd place. Kouric worked his way back through the crowd to take her arm and guide her through the throngs. “What are all the people doing?” “Adventurers…there’s been a disturbance in the rifts…demons roam the underworld and the fissure. So the avatars welcome them.” Kouric continued walking until they climbed a low hill to the shrine of Grenth. A dark figure standing before the smoking statue turned to regard them. “Kouric. You are looking well.” It hissed. The ranger dropped to his knees. “I smell blood…a bit of a challenge on your journey.” “I bring Isida to you, lord. She says she has something to return to you.” Kouric rose to his feet, Isida watched how his gaze shied away from looking at the avatar directly. The smokey figure reached out and touched the ranger on the shoulder and he shuddered under its cold touch. There was a bloom of green gray magic and she felt her guts ache at the odor of corruption. The bond had been renewed. “You brought me a monk. You never introduce me to your customers. How irregular.” The avatar turned to regard her, its shadowed face revealing for a moment a skull and then a skein of rot. She stepped back as another waft of putrefaction reached her nostrils. It poked a boney hand towards her. “You wish to donate? Another monk wishing to smite demons?” “I am not here to fight.” “What need do I have of you then?” Its cold breath huffed into her face and she wretched before regaining her composure. “Because I have the arrowhead. It was found again, I know not the full story, but such things of power never remain lost.” She reached down her shirt and brought up the gleaming talisman on a leather thong. She untied it and dropped it into the avatar’s palm. The creature turned it over and then wrapped its fist over the item. “At last it is returned to its rightful owner.” “Free Kouric.” “Him?” The avatar regarded the ranger for a moment. Kouric looked genuinely surprised at the turn of events. Isida’s spirits soared to see the joy lighting his craggy face at the very thought of freedom. “No.” “But the term was until the arrowhead was found.” Kouric said. “You said it.” “Seven years is not enough for the life of my servant. Your flesh is mine until I no longer want it.” “I confessed and atoned, I killed those who forced me to commit the act. I am repentant.” Kouric knelt at the avatar’s feet again. “Please give me some sort of hope…let me believe that the word of the gods is honest.” “We do not answer to mortal pleadings unless it pleases us. Get to your feet and go back to your duty, Kouric.” “You cheated me!” “Do you wish me to dispel the hex that keeps your soul bound to your body? Heed me, ranger, you are mine and I will do what I wish. If there has not been enough time, then I am correct. There is still a willfulness about you that should be extinguished. When you are properly humble I will release you.” “Then how can I know anything you have told me is true? How long is enough for you? I am humble. I have nothing…I efface myself at your feet and I take the beatings and insults people see fit to inflict upon me. How much should I suffer to please you, lord?” “You stole from me, and I shall steal from you.” The avatar rumbled, sounding increasingly angry. “You are still proud. Do you think I cannot read how proud you are of protecting this monk from your enemies? You deal death to others and take pleasure in your skill. You should instead thank Grenth that you are not in their place, because that is where you belong, butchered and delivered to my master. Only your goddess prevents me…” “You lied to me…” “Gods lie all the time.” The avatar snarled. “Especially the god of death.” Kouric crouched at the avatar’s feet again, rose and strode away. Isida stayed at the shrine for a few moments, watching as a few adventurers came and donated money to the creature to enter its domain. Sighing, she searched for and found Kouric in a niche behind the shrine of Melandru. He had bought a bottle of wine and was sipping it slowly, his glassy eyes watching the slow fall of water down the graceful statue of the goddess. “I’m so sorry.” “Sorry for what?” “That he did not keep his word.” “It’s not your fault Isida. I am glad you returned it. At least if I am killed now, it cannot be accounted against me that it is lost.” Kouric handed her the bottle and she took a tiny gulp of the cheap liquid. It tasted faintly of vinegar and was warm from being left in the sun at the merchant’s stand. She wrinkled her nose and handed it back to him. “I was thinking Kouric, about what I know about curses and spells…they did say it didn’t they? That your bondage was over when the arrowhead was returned to the temple?” “Yes.” “Then…why don’t I try to remove the hex?” “Its not just something an ordinary necromancer would put on you…its powerful.” “But it has a condition upon it…such things are ordained by divine law and cannot be warped to the whim of revenge. I am sure of myself. I can see the image of Dwayna from here and somehow I know I am right.” She pushed herself into the niche beside him so that they were both completely hidden from the view of the crowds and especially the sight of Grenth’s shrine. She put her arms around him, breathed in the odor of the hex engrained upon him and the underlying stench of the swamp and dried blood. She held him because he was shaking with grief and hopelessness. Miserable tears were in his eyes; she knew as he did that an avatar of Grenth would probably not be satisfied with just another year, but an entire span of mortal days. He would end his time running to the Temple of Ages and never be free again. “Isida, I cannot stand this anymore. If it backfires and kills me, say prayers for me at Serenity Temple.” He returned her embrace and softly kissed her cheek. “Try it.” “Alright.” She softly chanted the spell, the one that damaged those of unholy origins when a hex was destroyed. She closed her eyes as the energy built up and roared in her ears. It was a powerful hex and in the darkness of her mind it snapped and writhed as she sought to unmake it. Kouric struggled in her arms for a moment and then suddenly there was an arc of deep green magic that suffused into azure and gold. Above them the living statue’s leaves rustled and whispered. Kouric was unconscious in her arms, limp and heavy, his face pale and expressionless. For a moment she feared he had died, but his chest pressed against her as he breathed. “Kouric?” She kissed his forehead and smoothed back his graying hair; he looked so peaceful, but she dreaded what it meant. She was also shocked at her deep feelings for him, for the empathy and tenderness she felt for him. He was not entirely a good man, but he had not deserved all of the suffering heaped upon him. “Oh, come back…please.” She leaned him against the rock of the niche and stood, surveying the bustle of the plaza below her. There were other monks there, and a plethora of mages and warriors. Maybe someone could help, but she dreaded the thought of explaining what she had done. She had removed the hex of a god’s avatar. Probably no one would help her after hearing that. She looked up to the shuddering leaves of the statue, leaned forward and touched its warm living trunk. She always had given Melandru much regard, for what Dwayna could not renew, herbs could ameliorate. She knelt and cupped the water in one of the basins into her hands and carried it to Kouric, letting it dribble past his lips. “Wake up.” She felt her heart race when she saw his throat move as he swallowed. He stretched slightly and moaned. She returned to the fountain and brought him more water until, sputtering, he pushed her hands away. Isida drank the water from her hands; it tasted of sunlight and sweet earth. She felt bouyancy in her limbs as she went to him again and helped him sit up. Saying a few more prayers she searched him for more curses or bindings, but found nothing remained upon him. “You know I don’t know whether to thank you or ask what you were thinking. The waters from that fountain...” “What?” “If you have evil intent in your heart…it is the most potent of poison.” Kouric grinned at her. “It is why the avatar of Melandru saved me. She had me drink the water after I confessed what I had done that night. When I did not die, she knew I had been forced into the act. When I tasted it again I was afraid…I have such anger in me, Isida. I hate what I am and what I have done.” “You are free to make it right then.” He nodded at her, his dark eyes beginning to well with tears again. “Yes. Isida…is it…is it foolish of me to admit that I love you?” “Love is never foolish.” She responded, feeling a blush in her cheek. To defend herself from the feelings of her own heart she rushed to continue. “But you are older than I am…” “I do not mean in the ways of lust. I mean…gratitude. I love you…thank you.” He took both of her hands in his own. “Travel with me for awhile. We’ll find Dale and we will honor my master. I know you would like that…when you speak of the old man there is a light in your eyes.” “I am needed at the temple.” “I need you. Please…when it is all over I will go back to the temple with you. Surely your order could use a courier…or a guardian. I promise you…I swear upon Melandru, she who watches over us now…that I shall not drink again. Please Isida, I need your strength.” “Where are we going then?” “We should go to the Battle Isles. If there are any rumors or words of the bounty and how it progresses upon Dale, then we will hear it at the Temple of Balthazar.” “Then take that bottle of wine and break it on the column at the entry of the temple. I will believe you then. However, if you violate your oath to the goddess, I will leave you.” Isida responded flatly. At her words, he picked up the bottle and strode down the hill, past the knots of loitering adventurers. They passed out of the precincts of the temple to where a column stood half toppling. Kouric looked back at her as she followed, raised the bottle and shattered it on the stone. She came to his side, stood up on her tip toes and kissed his cheek. She did not resist him when he kissed her passionately on the lips in return.
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