The first thing your frazzled mind becomes aware of is softness and warmth. You can barely remember anything but bone-numbing cold and bone-cracking pain, but here, now, you are warm and comfortable.
You are also as weak as a kitten, such that it takes a nearly superhuman effort just to open your eyes. After a few false starts, however, you succeed. Lazily, you look around.
You've been tucked snugly into a bed and covered in homespun blankets. Around you the walls seem to be made of earth, held in place by webs of aging tree roots, with the furniture shaped from similar material. Bundles of dried herbs, tubers, and animals hang from the ceiling, letting out a variety of aromatic, medicinal scents. A roaring fire fills a grate in front of you, filling the-
Fire! With a start, you remember! The burning city, Nautilex's victory, Tri'lanna and Ceinwyn left alone and struggling, the Shining Stone-
You immediately try to throw off the covers, only for every bone and muscle in your body to howl in pain. Slower and more carefully, you lift part of the bedding away, arm screaming in protest, and examine your torso.
Ugly, deep bruises and painful cuts cover your frame, souvenirs of your passage through the cold, rocky deluge, wherever expertly applied bandages don't hide your skin. You realize too that you are completely naked.
Stubbornly, trying to block out the pain the same way you would a nasty cramp after a day spent cutting wood, you manage to at least sit upright.
As you do, a door opens in the wall. In steps a strange woman, with long hair as black as charcoal and piercing, hard eyes whose color you have trouble remembering. "Had a little run-in with the traitor, did we, little runaway?" she asks, speaking in a way that is... off. Off in a way you can't quite put your finger on.
Her appearance is similarly strange. She doesn't really strike you as old or young as much as... ageless. Her clothing is a patchwork mess, seemingly made of bits and scraps of cloth inexpertly whipstitched together to make a sort of dress and cloak.
She sees you sitting up, and moves over to you, moving in a way that seems more like gliding than walking. You realize that the distance she covers seems out of sync with the steps she takes.
"Lie back," she whispers, and her voice, however strange, contains a note of genuine care and concern. At her touch, your exhausted muscles relax. "Ever a friend of runaway slaves from the elven capital, and twice over a friend of the Traitor's enemies, are those who come to this house."
You try to speak, but your throat, you suddenly realize, is as dry as a threshing-mill. Seeing your discomfort, the woman produces a bottle from under her cloak and holds it to your lips. A teeth-achingly cold drought of fresh spring water fills your mouth, and you swallow carefully, not willing to risk losing even a drop of the stuff to coughing.
"Who?" you croak out, barely. The woman smiles, and while this too seems strange and off, it fails to unsettle you in the way that the alraune did.
"This bone-cage has had many names, for the elves call me Lyriel and Brynstrae, the who-men call me the Witch of the River, and the minions of Vanaheim call me names not fit for thy ears, little runaway."
"Not," you rasp. "Not... slave..."
"Not anymore," she tells you, ruffling your head with a hand whose strangeness eludes you.
"Who... Traitor?"
Her face turns cold and stern. "Once, he was war-priest of a proud people. Six priests ruled over the Folk of the Scale, and they, like the others, were free. But theirs was the lot of fighting the minions of Vanaheim, the primitives that worshiped him and swarmed out of the mountains.
"In his time, they lay siege to the great capital of the scale folk, until he, even then cruel and opportunistic, offered to parley with their daemon-captain. He betrayed them, betrayed his people and his maker." At the mention of this last bit, you feel her hands clench into your bedding.
"For immortal life and mastery over death and war, he gave up his people into the hand of the Great Pretender, to live as slaves to that monster's immortal hunger."
You stare at her in shock. "Name?" you croak, desperate.
"You know," she tells you, her angry expression unchanging.
Nautilex, you think, and shiver.
(contains some writer's notes, if you're interested) |