C.T. Avis's Blog

It's here! Blood Falls: An Inquisitor Damulis Novel is now available for purchase on Amazon. Nook link to follow.

Damulis, investigator, adventure, and magic-phobe infiltrates the backwater fiefdom of Indalisa Falls. His erstwhile partner, the demi-giant Kilgore, molders in a cell, blamed for a heinous crime that he did not commit. But what starts as a simple jailbreak quickly unravels a dark magic plot with its roots in the Silence wars. Damulis and Kilgore will need the help of all of their companions, Kiilgore's demi-giant people, and a race of people not seen in fifty years...the Elves.

Here is the third and final part of my attempt to run The Mandalorian through the Hero's Quest/Journey/Monomyth. I say final, but I should say final for now. Until the series concludes, we won't have a final III. Return. However, the same can be said for all of this quest. Until we see the totality of Mando's story, we can only work with the quests within the larger story arc.

D. Ritual Death of Dismemberment

i. This is a critical component of the hero’s evolution. It symbolically, and perhaps literally, shows the hero conquer death (at least temporarily). The hero loses some element of him or herself that was the final fetter holding them back from achieving the ultimate boon.

ii. Star Wars is famous for its dismemberments. Off-hand examples are Anakin and Luke (see what I did there?).

iii. Does Din die or get dismembered? He almost dies in “Chapter 8: Redemption” and he is unmasked by IG-11, so this could qualify. Does he loses something significant here? Not living being has seen his face yet.

iv. Perhaps a more symbolic but more impactful “dismemberment” is Din removing his helmet in “Chapter 15: The Believer”. Din tries to keep his face hidden, even when forced to wear a stormtrooper helmet, but must make the major sacrifice of revealing his whole face to living beings in order to locate Grogu via the computer terminal. This was arguably the most “holy” tenant of his sect of the Mandalorians. Migs Mayfeld challenges this tenant during their ride to the Imperial base, asking “so what’s the rule? Is it that you can’t take off your Mando helmet, or you can’t show your face? Cause there is a difference […] everybody’s got their lines they don’t cross until things get messy […] if you can make it through your day and still sleep at night, you’re doing better than most.” That last part speaks to morality over dogma. Mayfeld earlier claims that Din changes the rules when the latter is desperate, but a better way to understand this is as Din’s evolution; his spiritual strengthening progresses until he is able to face the test for the Ultimate Boon. For Din, its breaking free of dogma that would restrain him from doing the right thing, in part.

E. Atonement with the Father

i. The “father quest” is often a motivation for a hero because he or she must either set wrong an evil done by the father, continue the father’s unfinished quest, or reconcile with the father.

ii. We do get glimpses of Din’s biological father and mother. We could say that Din has a sort of atonement with them by paying forward how they saved him. His quest to secure Grogu’s safety honors this.

iii. His adoptive “parents’, his sect of the Mandalorians, also saved Din and adopted him into the tribe as a founding, whom the raised and trained. Din’s quest to save Grogu, his own foundling, honors this tradition while at the same time forcing Din to confront the restrictive elements of his upbringing. I find this the most compelling thing personally. We all try to understand our upbringing. If we had happy childhoods, we tend to try to make our parents proud. However, since we do not live in our parents’ time, we cannot do things 100% the way they did. We must adapt the rules and interpret them to achieve the heart of parental values. It is following the spirit of the law instead of the letter of the law.

iv. The real "father's quest" may involve Grogu showing back up for Din.

F. Apotheosis

i. The challenges of the Initiation create a powerful hero who can be idealized.

ii. In some cases, the hero literally attains the rank of a god.

iii. Din’s no god and I don’t think we’ve seen his final form yet. However, Din does achieve a level of heroism that not only seeks to protect Grogu, but is also able to let him go for the child’s own benefit. Both of these things are necessary, unless the heroism is turned to villainy.

iv. The spiritual strengthening is usually the most important aspect of the hero’s development. The successful completion of the Ultimate Boon doesn’t depend on the talisman or the other equipment the hero brings along. While Din’s Mandalorian armor is certainly a force to be reckoned with during the series, what leads to his final success in getting Grogu to a Jedi is his strength of character. His spiritual journey took him from a path of rigid dogma (his sect of the Mandalorians) and strict ethical code (bounty hunters) to one where he makes moral choices for the sake of love and through a willingness to self-sacrifice. That last part is key, lest Din end up like Anakin. While Anakin let his attachments (arguably love for Padme) lead him to the dark side, his choices for “love” are selfish and possessive. Din Djarin, on the other hand, is able to let go of his loved one for Grogu’s own benefit. He’ll accept the pain of loss if it helps Grogu to be safe and properly trained.

G. The Ultimate Boon/Magic Elixir

v. This is the goal of the entire quest, the solution to the problem, and what the hero was supposed to be looking for at the start of the quest. It is the end goal.

vi. Ultimate Boon is the final and most important good thing to happen. The idea of the magic elixir, or potion, symbolizes this. This is the Holy Grail of a particular hero’s quest.

vii. For Din, he achieves the Ultimate Boon when he is able to safely and lovingly give Grogu to Luke Skywalker.

viii. However, as this is a serialized story that has not reached its conclusion, a new or hidden Ultimate Boon may (will) emerge to give Din something to keep moving toward. Perhaps this will be the re-establishment of the Mandalorians on their home world.

v. The Return
The third key phase of the Hero’s Quest is the Return stage. We haven’t seen this yet for Din, though “returning” Grogu to the Jedi is a form of it for this point in The Mandalorian’s plot. Essentially, the hero must return to the home world to apply the Magic Elixir. This can be seen as a symbol for bringing knowledge from the outer world home to help the ailing home society. This is why I think Din’s next step might be entwined with Bo-Katan’s quest to restore Mandalore. We’ve sort of seen a part of the Return, the refusal, when Din was willing to just give up the dark saber to Bo-Katan. It should be noted that not all returning heroes are accepting by their societies. Sometimes, they are too different from the folks at home and are not afforded a freedom to live.

Other Mythic Elements
Two Worlds:
As previously shown, the hero has a known “home” world or village. While this place might not be entirely safe, the hero is familiar with the dangers and can navigate them mostly successfully. The second world is the world of the quest, the place where the Ultimate Boon lies. It is more dangerous and unknown. Din’s old world was that of the Mandalores living in the culvert and that of the bounty hunter guild. His outer world took him beyond both and had him facing greater dangers, like the Imperial remnant and Jedi.

The Mentor:
Sometimes the guide from I. The Departure, sometimes someone else. The mentor trains the hero in the ways of heroism. Din has many encounters that shape him during his quest, but not a true mentor…yet.

The Prophecy and the Oracle:

Anakin was destined to bring balance to the Force. That was the prophecy surrounding him. It didn’t really play out the way the Jedi expected, though, did it? That’s the problem with prophecies and the oracles who give them: they are necessarily cloudy and amorphous and never a step-by-step guide to achieving heroism. The Oracle is the person giving the hero information about the Prophecy. The closest we have to this for The Mandalorian so far is a combination of Ahsoka Tano telling Din about the Jedi and Grogu place with them, and Bo-Katan expanding Din’s understanding of Mandalore.

Failed Hero:
Someone tried the quest before and was turned aside. Does Ahsoka count here? (Don’t hate me, I’m just asking!)

Wearing the Enemy’s Skin:
This sounds like something from Hannibal Lecter, but it’s not nearly as gruesome. The hero will don a disguise to look like the enemy. This allows the hero to infiltrate the enemy’s ranks and learn how the enemy operates. Clearly, Din wearing the gray Stormtrooper armor allowed him and Migs Mayfeld to get inside the Imperial base. Not only did this achieve their goal of using the computer to locate Moff Gideon and Grogu, but during their sit-down with the Imperial officer, they learned more about the Imperial’s value system.

Shapeshifters: we have a number of them.
Greef Karga’s own name indicates that he’s going to cause some trouble, or grief, for Mando. Initially Mando’s boss as the leader of the bounty hunter guild on Nevarro, that relationship sours when Mando violates guild code by rescuing Grogu. Later, however, the relationship changes again to an allied one, after Grogu’s healing touch reaches Greef’s compassionate side.

Toro Calican appears in “Chapter 5: The Gunslinger” to be a young and untested hunter that Din could mentor. However, he is immoral and ultimately untrustworthy.

The Imperial-employed Dr. Pershing seems to have some humanity to him, claiming to keep the child alive during Grogu’s initial capture. Later, he helps Din Djarin during the Season 2 climax “The Rescue”. It should be noted that Pershing was a captive then, and may have had little choice, though he did volunteer information to help the rescue team when he didn’t have to.

The entire crew in “Chapter 6: The Prisoner” cannot be trusted. Perhaps they are not so much shapeshifters as a whole, though we see some redemption in “Chapter 15: The Believer” of Migs Mayfeld, the former Imperial sharpshooter.

My novels


Works Cited

“Bounty Hunter Code.” Wookieepedia, Fandom. starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bounty_Hunte....

Bucher, John. “The Mandalorian and Dangerous Origins.” Joseph Campbell Foundation: a Network of Information—a Community of Individuals. https://www.jcf.org/the-mandalorian-a...

Favreau, Jon, creator. The Mandalorian. Disney+, 2019-2020.

This is the second of three parts of the Hero's Quest/Hero's Journey/Monomyth for Din Djarin, The Mandalorian. See Part 1 above.

We haven't see Mando's full journey yet, as we know we'll have a least one more season. However, the main quest over the first two seasons is for Din to get Grogu to a Jedi, which we see at the conclusion of season two. Therefore, we will treat that as the Ultimate Boon for now.

II. Initiation
The Hero is on a cycle of leaving and returning. Think of Heracles and his Twelve Labors. Each of these is its own miniature hero’s quest with a particular Boon at the end, but no one quest itself solidifies the hero as being capable of attaining the Ultimate Boon. Luke blows up the first Death Star in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, but doesn’t defeat the empire until two more movies take place.

The hero must prove him or herself worthy of hero status by facing challenges or trials on the journey.

The initiation develops the hero in two ways, physically and spiritually. While both are important, the hero’s spiritual development is ultimately what will solidify the heroic qualities of the protagonist and allow him or her to win the day.

A. The Road of Trials

i. Brother Battle:

1. This is a physical or psychological battle with either a literal blood brother, or someone who is symbolically a brother.

2. A fellow gunslinger in Mandalorian armor, Cobb Vanth clashes with Din in “Chapter 9: The Marshal”. However, this situation is overcome not by violence, but by cooperation. This is interesting because Vanth certainly aquits himself as a competent and moral character who used the Mandalorian armor (Boba Fett’s armor) for good, yet he still cannot continue to possess the armor as Vanth himself is not Mandalorian. This makes a statement establishing a tenant of belief for Din Djarin, even though he reconsiders other tenants later.

3. Interestingly, Din does surrender the armor to its former owner, Boba Fett. Fett is not a Mandalorian, either. Things get tricky here though. Boba’s “father”, Jango, was a founding and did fight in the Mandalorian civil war (“Chapter 14: The Tragedy” 24:33).

ii. Dragon Battle

1. An actual, outward dragon or large monster, or an inner doubt or fear. The dragon must die for the hero to complete the journey. The treasure the hero claims from this battle is often important to later success.

2. Sometimes, the writers help you out. “Chapter 9: The Marshal” serves up the krayt dragon. When the dragon dies, Cobb Vanth relinquishes Boba Fett’s armor to Din who will, in turn, relinquish it to Fett. Fett proves to be a key player in the success of the mission in “Chapter 16: The Rescue”.

iii. Abduction/Sea Journey/Night Journey

1. The hero or someone close to the hero is abducted. The hero is transported elsewhere, or the hero chases the captors. The journey may take the hero over the sea or on a long night journey. Arrival at the new place is disorienting.


2. Arguably, night journeys happen all the time in Star Wars, as travel through space resembles travel through night.

3. However, the key abduction is of Grogu by Moff Gideon’s forces in “Chapter 14: The Tragedy”. Din gathers his companions and chases after Grogu. He doesn’t experience real disorientation, however, being fully briefed on the layout of Gideon’s ship.

4. Another possibility here because it does have a clear element of disorientation is “Chapter 10: The Passenger.” More than just making me hungry for deviled eggs, Din and Grogu’s sublight journey takes a long time and their pursuit by the X-wings leads them to crash land in a cavern where they are essentially lost.

iv. Entering the Belly of the Whale (Entering the inner-most cave)

1. Drawn deep into the journey, the heroes face their greatest fear or greatest evil.

2. The cavern mention just above from “Chapter 10: The Passenger” could qualify here. We’re not sure how Din feels about spiders, but lots of viewers are fearful of them, especially spiders that are the size of the Razor Crest.

3. An earlier possibility is in Chapters 7 and 8 of the two-part finale to season 1. Din and his companions are trapped inside the bar and are faced off with the Big Bad Evil Guy, Moff Gideon. Not only does Din face the Big Evil here, he also almost dies. Further, when they escape into the culvert, Din comes face to face with his greatest fear, the loss of his clan of Mandalorians.

B. Meeting with the Goddess

i. (I know some scholars combine Goddess/and Sacred Marriage into one step, but I do not. I see them as more often than not being very distinct from each other.)

ii. A woman of great power offers the hero wisdom/supernatural aid.

iii. This aid helps the hero at the greatest challenge on the journey.

iv. This one is tricky, but Bo-Katan Kryze could qualify here, at least until the consequences of Din holding the Dark Saber play out. She gives Din the location of Ahsoka Tano, a (former) Jedi. Also, Bo-Katan provides direct help during “Chapter 16: The Rescue”.

v. A better choice is in “Chapter 13: The Jedi”. Din and Grogu’s encounter with the Force-empowered (i.e. supernatural powered) Ahsoka Tano. She gives Din the information he needs on how to help Grogu contact a Jedi. This contact leads to the Ultimate Boon (thus far in the story, at any rate) of uniting Grogu with the Jedi master.

C. Sacred Marriage/Sacred Bond

i. This is a bond the hero has with one other character that serves as motivation to continue the quest.

ii. Obviously, Din’s bond with Grogu qualifies here.

Part three will conclude the II. Initiation stage with some commentary on III. The Return.

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Inspired by a post Joseph Campbell Foundation and my own thoughts as I started re-watching the series. I decided to run Din Djarin, The Mandalorian, through Campbell’s Hero’s Quest. Other scholars will have slightly different names for these stages and their order, but this is what I learned a long time ago in a college far, far away.

The Hero’s Quest, AKA, the Hero’s Journey, AKA the Monomyth is a structure that Campbell created as he found commonalities in all of the world’s mythology. The structure persists today because some writers have studied the Monomyth and lean on it as a guide for their writing, where other writers incidentally incorporate it because the structure, motifs, and themes are so woven into western story telling. If you have an interest in both The Mandalorian and the Hero’s Quest, you may find the following engaging. Feel free to drop a comment or an idea of your own, below. As this got rather long quickly, I’m publishing it in parts, starting with Departure.

I. Departure
A. Call to Adventure:
The hero receives a formal invitation (think Hogswarts letter) or an informal invitation to begin a quest. Some heroes attempt to refuse, but will eventually accept.

The Mandalorian, Mando, or Din Djarin accepts the bounty on the child from the Imperials;

However, this isn’t complete, as just finding the child is not enough or going to lead to the true Ultimate Boon. The call comes from The Child (Grogu) when Din Djarin saves him from the droid, IG-11. Grogu calls back to Din’s own beginning with his tribe of Mandalorians when he was a foundling.

B. Supernatural Aid--Guide:
Although the hero is ultimately the one who must face the challenges, he/she generally does not do so alone. In most stories, the hero will have a guide, someone who is wise in the ways of the world, and someone who will offer the hero guidance and wisdom as he/she progresses through the journey. In addition to the guide, the hero will often have some kind of a talisman, some symbolic item that offers power or strength to the hero. Most heroes also have companions on their journey. The companions can serve a variety of functions. They may offer balance for the hero, they may help the hero in battle, they may help the hero learn valuable lessons.

Though Mando seems to seek many guides along his way, his first is Kuiil, the Ugnaught mechanic, moisture farmer, and blurrg wrangler. Kuiil is a good guide as he has experienced indentured servitude to the Empire and thus has some insight into how they work. As the remnants of the Empire become Mando’s primary antagonist, this is good insight.

However, we don’t see Kuiil give particular advise on the Empire. His primary guidance is literal, how to find Grogu in Chapter 1, and in how to do things beyond the Mandalorian rigidity that has served Din so far. First, he insists that Din learn to ride a bluurg and not depend on a mechanical conveyance. This was uncomfortable for Din and somewhat painful, but he mastered it. Second, Kuiil shows Din a “way” beyond the narrow tenants of his religion. When told to put down his rifle and talk to the Jawas who had stripped Din’s ship, The Razor Crest, Din counters with “weapons are my religion.” Din puts down his rifle and blaster pistol (though still holds and uses his flame thrower). He then experiences success through negotiation and questing (something that is important to Din’s heroic development. They’re not just video game side quests; they are moments where Din expands his powers, knowledge, or mentality in order to be a better hero. In “Chapter 2: The Child”, Din’s perception of his bounty, Grogu, is significantly altered when he experiences the supernatural (Grogu using the force to levitate the Mud Horn monster.)

Being pragmatic, though, is what Kuiil teaches Din in this moment. This emerges as a key theme in the series, where the rigid tenants of Din’s off-shoot clan of Mandalorians is successfully challenged by necessity (removing his helmet in “Chapter 15 :The Believer” ) and contact with others, especially more mainstream Mandalorians (“Chapter 11: The Heiress”). Beyond pragmatism, though, is love; Din compromises the strict tenants for the sake of Grogu, exemplified when Din finally shows his face to The Child in “Chapter 16: The Rescue”. (Unmasking also has some powerful meaning in the Star Wars stories.)

C. Companions:
Din does not initially keep companions with him, but does ally himself with others during his cycle of quests. His only companion at the Departure phase is Grogu, with whom he forms the Sacred Bond.

Din encounters another type of strength and mixed morality in Cara Dune, the former Rebel shock trooper.

Din encounters Toro Calican and Fennec Shand as companion and quarry, respectively. However, as the episode and series unfold, these roles change.

Many other companions come into Din’s life. However, only Grogu is his initial companion.

D. Supernatural Aid
This is somewhat unclear to me. Whereas Luke Skywalker clearly had The Force within him on his quest, we don’t see a clear supernatural force for Din. Perhaps his uncanny gunslinging qualifies?

E. Talisman
Clearly, it’s initially the Beskar armor Din wears.

Supplementing this are the many weapons that are a part of the armor.

Later, he aquires the Beskar spear, but this is not part of his Departure phase.


F. Crossing the First Threshold and Threshold Guardians
I always find this first threshold debatable. For instance, when does Luke Skywalker take his first step into the world of the quest/adventure? Is it when he follows R2-D2 into the desert wastes? Is it when Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen are killed? Is it when he enters the cantina at Mos Eisley spaceport? I’ve tended to argue for the last one, because the first threshold marks a point where the hero takes a clear step forward into the unknown. The hero is of two worlds: the known, home world and the outer world where the quest must take place. The cantina scene is Luke making a conscious decision to cross into the unknown with his guide (Obi-wan) and talisman (lightsaber), but without two companions, C-3PO and R2-D2. The establishing shot takes great care to show us how alien and possibly evil this place is, including a shot of a stereotypically devilish alien. He encounters threshold guardians, the criminals at the bar, who would have stopped him had Luke not been properly equipped with his guide, Obi-wan.

For Din, he crosses his first threshold when he blasts IG-11 and saves Grogu in “Chapter 1: The Mandalorian”. This is fitting, as the hero should probably start his or her journey at the beginning of the story. This also qualifies because Din had to break with a tenant of the Bounty Hunter’s Guild, which forbids the slaying of another hunter (“Bounty Hunter Code”). This will begin Din on a path that breaks other rules of the guild, essentially creating ethical violations in the name of morality, such as asking what will happen to Grogu after he’s already turned him over to the Imperial client, and then more boldly when he attacks the client and his Stormtroopers to reclaim Grogu (“Chapter 3: The Sin”). Indeed, the episode title is a double meaning: is the sin turning in Grogu in the first place, or is it Din violating the rules of his guild? Perhaps both. Retribution, or the attempt at retribution, is swift, as the entire guild turns against Din and tries to take Grogu.

(More to come!)

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Works Cited
“Bounty Hunter Code.” Wookieepedia, Fandom. starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bounty_Hunte....
Bucher, John. “The Mandalorian and Dangerous Origins.” Joseph Campbell Foundation: a Network of Information—a Community of Individuals. https://www.jcf.org/the-mandalorian-a...
Favreau, Jon, creator. The Mandalorian. Disney+, 2019-2020.

They awoke the next day in each other’s arms, lingering in the dawn. When they finally dressed and descended the stair, Ander stopped briefly for a change of clothes from his quarters. He did not notice at that time that all of Sevrin’s things had been packed up and removed.

The new couple danced together through the spring and summer, adventuring now by day and in the open together, seeing the city as it had been intended to be seen. At night, they still explored, but usually it was with each other now that Ander shared a bunk with no one. Ander’s performances improved again, perhaps better than ever now that he could fully understand the love he sang about. Esmeralda never missed a show. That is, not until autumn dropped its long shadows on the city.

The difficulty of relationships was not limited to two young lovers. The Kingdom of Mahn found itself at odds with its neighbors. Most of the lovers and dreamers in the city paid it little attention, their youth and innocence lying to them that it would work itself out. But when one lover is the daughter of the General of the Army, certain truths couldn’t be ignored. War was coming to the kingdom, and it would need the sword arm of one of its best warriors in the campaign ahead. Esmeralda and Ander parted in the blue-black predawn air, tears in both their eyes as Esmeralda, in her shining plate armor, rode away on her charger at the side of her father Juan Carlos. Ander stood in the dust, watching the many ranks of the army snake away down the road and up into the mountains.

Though his heart ached for Esmeralda, Ander had no interest in joining the army. He was a fair hand with a rapier and had learned combat as part of the Society’s training, but he saw army life as drab and regimented; not something the free-spirited half-elf could accept. Esmeralda had never offered it to him, knowing then that it was a bad fit for him. She still loved him too much to subject him to that lifestyle, though secretly she yearned for the battle. It was what she had been born and raised for, at her own insistence. She proved herself adept, so much so, in fact that when officers ahead of her proved themselves foolish or ended up dead, she ascended the ranks as fast as she charged her horse into battle.

Ander traveled. Sometimes it was with the Society, sometimes on his own in search of his elven mother. He had wanted to learn the ways of that side of his heritage, and at eighteen, he was set to do so having made a contact amongst the elves who could very well bring him to his mother.

Sometimes, even, he searched for signs of what had happened to Sevrin. The two had not gotten along well in their last few years together, but he still felt a kinship towards him. He’d find a clue here or there, audiences describing a sad, haunted poet who had moved them to tears or enraged them with the injustices of love scorned, but Ander never found Sevrin in his travels.

And then, the war broke out in earnest for the Kingdom of Mahn. Ander found himself conscripted and stuffed into the marching ranks of fodder. The army had no need for entertainers, and his fledgling magical powers were no match for the great battle wizards on either side of the conflict. That the war was “In defense of their kingdom!” did nothing to mollify him. He knew that old story from the many plays he’d read. Not the ones performed for the palace, but the ones written by the foot soldiers who’d somehow survived and found a scribe to dramatize their stories. Those plays were not popular, for they were far truer than anyone wanted to believe. Ander only felt trapped, certain that doom awaited him on every battlefield. Yet, somehow he survived. His officers were competent and did not waste troops foolishly. He built kinships with the men and women he fought beside, but only after they’d shown they could survive a few battles. It was no use getting close to some fresh meat, just to lose him or her a day later on the battlefield. And with every loss, Ander felt his own doom creeping closer.

On the eve of big battle, a messenger came into the camp. Ander had been reassigned. To his delight, he found that Esmeralda had arranged for them to be together.

The joy did not last long. General Esmeralda Villa Lobos Garcia had been changed by the war. Now in command of a third of her father’s army, she wore a stern face and ashen skin. Her green eyes had grayed and sparkled with little of the mischief of youth. Ander wasn’t even sure it was really her when he saw her again, riding in full armor upon her horse. Esmeralda did soften in private later that night, when she called Ander to her tent. She embraced him and asked him question about how the city had changed since her departure. Ander returned the questions with his own about her battles and life since leaving. Esmeralda danced around the details, but convinced Ander that she needed a personal confidant, someone she could trust from the old days to check her motivations. She confessed to feeling pulled by the necessities of war into something dark and sinister, a warlord instead of the general in an army of the people and for the people. When she offered, Ander eagerly agreed to be her aide-de-camp.

The job was not as he’d imagined. To his horror, he realized the sinister aspects of being a warlord were slowly gaining purchase on Esmeralda, and that his counsel devolved every evening into pleasures of the flesh. A young man bedded by his beloved every night shouldn’t have had anything to complain about, but Ander couldn’t shake the feeling that he was more accurately her concubine than a confidant and lover. It wasn’t the worst duty to do in a war, but it never truly pleased the good-natured Ander.

The feeling only grew worse when Sevrin reappeared. When Ander first saw him, Ander was on the other side of camp. Sevrin had just left Esmeralda’s tent. Ander tried to catch up to talk to him, but Sevrin disappeared into the ranks.

“Did my eyes deceive me, General?” Ander asked that night in the soft candlelight of Esmeralda’s tent. He still felt awkward calling her by her rank, but she’d insisted it was only proper when they were amongst others. A guard held open the tent flap as servants brought in the general’s dinner. “Did I see Sevrin here earlier?”

“Your eyes did not fool you, Andy,” Esmeralda said. Ander had once questioned her that, if it was only appropriate that he called her general, why wasn’t he called by his rank, lieutenant? She’d explained that in the army, respect rolled down hill. “Sevrin was here earlier. And much earlier, too. He joined this army of his own free will, you know. I have been seeing him ever since I learned of it.”

“Seeing him?” Ander felt the flush of anger on his face.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t think to tell me about that?”

“Did you keep chaste after I left, Little Singer?”

Ander’s mouth shut.

“I thought not.”

“Well, is it at least over between you two?”

“Over? Not exactly. Suspended would be a more accurate word. Sevrin serves me in important ways. He is often a liaison for me to the other generals.”

“If it’s not really over, what am I doing here?”

Esmeralda stood up from the pillows she’d been reclined on. With her armor off, Ander had an easy time seeing why he’d lusted after her. She sauntered over to him, stopped with her hips set, not so unlike that first day at the theater, and bent down to him.

The punch she laid on his jaw toppled Ander over and made him see stars.

“What are you doing here, indeed, Little Singer? If you would prefer to join the ranks of the pikemen, I know of a particularly deadly gambit I may run in the future. I could have you back there in an hour.”

Ander held his jaw, trying to clear his head about. It wasn’t just the after-effects of the punch that dizzied him.

“I don’t want…” Ander started to say.

“You don’t want what?” Esmeralda demanded. There was no heat, no passion about her, just the same coldness that lay on the steel she wielded in battle. Ander could not sort his feelings, though he felt a burning in his face. Later, in the dark after she’d used him for lovemaking, he placed the sensation. He was a damned coward.

During the days Ander’s talent for music and a magic flourished. He poured himself into his arts, both mundane and magical, as the only escape the damned war allowed him. The only escape Esmeralda allowed. Their love making had not normalized and Ander did not particularly care for the forced physical encounters. This was not the only distasteful duty foisted upon the young half-elf.

Esmeralda’s affection for Ander made her lazy in maintaining proper barriers between what happened in the tent and what happened in the war. Ander learned more than he ever wanted to know about how leadership functioned, often in the shadows and sometimes by the side of the general as she planned her strategy. Worse, he’d been called to play his drum when the general “interrogated” captured officers of enemy orc forces. He had no particular sympathy for orcs—they all were evil incarnate—but that didn’t mean he could stomach their torture. Especially not, when it was done by the woman he loved.

Once loved, he realized one day as he rode by her side. Esmeralda’s army marched to battle to the rhythm laid down by Ander’s drum. Long gone were the days of his lute playing. The army needed a sterner instrument. Ander chaffed at the irony. If he was stronger himself, he could have found a way out of his predicament.

His shot of iron came not on the battlefield, but in the town liberated by Esmeralda’s forces. The Army of Mahn wasn’t particularly kind to the towns, villages and small cities that it occupied. Ander, despite the changes he’d witnessed in Esmeralda, couldn’t believe that this was intentional. Surely, the general was just too busy to notice the appalling condition her troops left the townspeople in. He called her attention to the sorry state of affairs in a town the army was occupying:

The night had grown cold in the deep dark, despite the general’s elaborate tent and despite the heavy furs on top of their bare bodies. Esmeralda had been selfish in her lovemaking, drawing out the session painfully. Ander ached and shivered underneath her. He shook his own feelings from his mind. Men in the field had it worse, and the townsfolk, whom the army was supposed to be protecting, had it much worse.

He remembered the pain in a small elven boy’s face and his distended belly from earlier. The mess chef had caught him stealing a bowl of rice and had threatened to flay the lad. Ander had intervened and saved him, impressed at the boy’s stealthy arrival in camp as much as he was moved to save a child whose only crime was starving to death. The kinship he’d felt stirred him, despite his own distressed situation. Ander had fed him and then saw him back to the makeshift orphanage he’d come from. Ander had been shocked by the number of elven children amongst the underfed waifs. Most elves had pulled out of the city before the army had arrived, retreating to ancestral forest homes. They wouldn’t have left their young behind.

Esmeralda had a war to fight, and that occupied much of her mind. The situation with the townsfolk must have flown under her notice. It was the same excuse Ander gave Esmeralda for her lack of consideration as a lover. She just had too much on her mind to notice the small things. That had to be it. Ander had to try to help the townspeople. Hadn’t he gone to the general’s bed with a fully belly? If the worst thing that happened to the half-elf that day was Esmeralda’s wicked version of ecstasy, he was still leagues better than the hungry boy.

“General, these people, the townspeople, are starving. They’re not just hungry, they’re on the verge of death. I’ve seen the records of our intake. We’re taking far more than we need. I know you’re busy, but we must alter our intake.” The bard’s voice was strong, despite the weight of Esmeralda’s body pinning him down. The general was a warrior and had built muscle underneath her beautiful skin, so she was not like the city maidens Ander had cavorted with before his conscription.

Esmeralda’s lifted her head. She’d been laying directly on top of Ander, careless to the fact her hair was on his face or that the pressing of her breast into his sternum made it hard for him to breath. She placed her hands on his shoulders and leveraged herself up on him, causing him to grit his teeth as her nails scratched his skin. The lone surviving candle in the tent danced light off her green eyes.

“Yes, Andy, I know,” the general said, curling up a naked thigh so that her kneecap brushed his nether region. “You see, these people did not initially support the Queen during the initial days of the war. Now, not only do I punish them for this, but I supply my army.”

“General, Esmeralda, I beg you. Their children had no say in this, and the townspeople flew flags and banners as we arrived. They’ve learned their lesson. Surely you can—”

“I can what, my little plaything? Have you forgotten your place?” Esmeralda’s knee pushed painfully up and into Anders groin. “Have you forgotten to give me your unconditional support?”

“No, General. I only—”

“That’s good, Andy. I’d hate to have to punish you again,” Esmeralda said. A cold shiver ran down Ander’s spine, despite the painful fire from his groin. The general’s words said she’d hate it, but the sadistic gleam in her eye told another tale.

The lie that Ander believed cracked that night, a fragile vial of hope that could not contend with the rapid change from hot to cold. The next night, it would shatter.

Ander was brought into the black tent, carrying his drum and sticks. The guard had told him to come and had not said why, only tapping the handle to his rapier when Ander had asked. Ander nodded, his face darkening. Though skilled at many instruments, Ander played his drum with pride when he rode next to the general and laid down the rhythm for the army to march and fight. Though he was ashamed to not be fighting himself, he felt he could at least do his duty in a small way by playing the drum. The other use for the drum, to lay down a painful rhythm during the general’s “interrogation sessions”, nauseated him. He hoped the poor orc she’d torture tonight would not show too much stubborn pride.

“I never cared much for the drum,” Sevrin said as Ander entered the tent. Ander recoiled, not having expected to see his former mentor in music. Sevrin had greeted Ander with joviality when they’d finally met again. When neither was needed by the general, Sevrin had helped Ander’s magic and music by sharing his own bardic power. He has also offered advice on dealing with Esmeralda’s appetites. That relationship had soured, though, when the general had favored Ander with her physical “affections.” Though it was a gift Ander desperately wished to exchange, Sevrin had apparently enjoyed his time with the general and hadn’t much liked being replaced. Esmeralda had granted Sevrin’s request to work primarily in another part of the camp, the one where the camp followers could be found, and left Ander to absorb the totality of Esmeralda’s unkind passion.

“Sevrin, what are you doing here?”

“I mean, I can play it better than you,” Sevrin continued, ignoring Ander’s question. “But it’s just so… common. Any lout with half of a sense of rhythm can bang sticks off it. That’s why I recommended you when the general called for a drummer boy.”

“Who’s the poor sap tonight?”

“Behold,” Sevrin said, raising a toned arm to point at a curtain in front of them. The curtain fell away. Esmeralda held the cord that released it. In a chair, bound and gagged, was the boy Ander had saved from the mess chef’s wrath yesterday.

“Ander,” she began, “you’re such a joy to me in many ways. But you’re no soldier. Mainly, you lack discipline.”

Ander’s eyes, wide with concern, moved from the general to the boy. Tears left muddy trails on the boy’s face as they cut through the grime caked there.

“Yes, General. I’m sorry,” Ander said. He tried to keep his voice level, realizing sympathy hardly mattered to Esmeralda these days. “Please grant me your discipline. But spare this boy. I humbly submit myself in his place.”

“Oh, Andy, there’s more than one kind of discipline,” Esmeralda said. “And more than one kind of way to teach it. Sevrin.”

The older concubine pulled a knife from his boot. Ander himself had been forbidden weapons in the presence of the general, but Sevrin had long gloated over the fact that he was trusted enough to be armed.

“What are you doing with that?” Ander said, the fear rising in his voice.

“I’m going to start cutting on that boy. How much is up to you,” Sevrin said. His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he was stating that the pending clouds would likely lead to rain. They boy screamed against the gag in his mouth.

“None at all!” Ander shouted.

“Andy, he has to lose at least some fingers,” Esmeralda said. “It’s how we discipline thieves.”

“I was a thief once,” Ander said.

“And look how well I’ve disciplined you,” she said. Her smile revealed that she had been well-aware of her abusive lovemaking. She hadn’t just been stressed or distracted or simply selfish.

“Fine! Punish me more, then. This boy’s seven if he’s a day. Don’t hurt him for being hungry! Not when we made him that way!”

“That’s the weak elf-side of him talking, General,” Sevrin said.

“The general’s half-elf, too!” Ander shouted. A faint hope for that day on the steps of the theater bubbled up, the day Esmeralda had revealed her own heritage.

“Aye. To my great shame,” Esmeralda said, her voice dripping with false sorrow. “Sevrin worked hard to show me that it was no blessing, only weakness.”

“Weakness? The elves are responsible for many of the wonders of the world.”

The general spat on the floor of the tent. “The elves hide away in their trees, unable to bloody themselves fighting the orcs. They can’t be bothered to dirty themselves. They call on the Army of Mahn like we’re servants. They’ll see the truth, eventually.”

“What are you saying?” Ander gasped. She couldn’t possibly mean to bring the elves into the conflict, and surely not as enemies.

“I told you he was soft as he was pretty,” Sevrin said. “We need to cut that softness out of him, Esmeralda.”

“Sevrin, you can’t surely be fine with this?” Ander said.

“Pretty half-elf, keep talking,” Sevrin said. “Each word is more cutting for me to do.”

“General! Esmeralda! Have mercy on this boy!”

“Ander, you’ve been passing this war in the warmth and ecstasy of my tents. It’s time you faced the bloody side of what we do,” Esmeralda said. She walked over to him and yanked his head backward by his long hair then grabbed his throat in the other hand. She pulled him by the throat, fingers digging into his Adam’s apple, over to in front of the boy. She kicked her boot into the back of Ander’s knee, forcing him down.

“Play!” the general demanded of the young bard. “Beat time to this torture session!” She twisted and yanked Ander’s hair. Still, the half-elf would have resisted had not another idea come to him. He tapped his drumsticks against the stretched skin of the drum, starting a soft beat.

“You may proceed, Sevrin,” Esmeralda said.

“My pleasure, General.”

Ander saw the blade lift into the air, lantern light bouncing off its polished face. A fraction of a second later, it would begin its downward arch and cut into the boy’s fingers. Ander wanted to scream, to shatter the moment.

Instead, the words that left his mouth were soft, the first notes of a lullaby. The drumming changed to a soft roll. Magic infused the rhythm.

Sevrin, always weak-minded despite his similar training, felt the effects right away. The blade tumbled from his hand and he fell face first to the dirt floor of the tent. The guard that had led Ander to the tent, sensing something amiss, managed to draw his rapier before he collapsed.

Esmeralda, powerful in her will, loosened her grip anyway. She fell from Ander sideways to slump against the tent’s wall. The boy, too, snored lightly in his bonds. Only Ander remained awake. He snatched up the knife and cut the boy free of his ropes. Using the curtain that Esmeralda had dropped, he wrapped the boy up so that he could flee the camp without the elfling being seen. Ander couldn’t retrieve his drum, too, and carry the boy. He paused for only a moment before realizing that he no longer wanted it. The drum had become the instrument of a war he’d never wanted anything to do with. It forever would be connected to the torture session he’d adverted. The drum, like Sevrin’s saccharine poetry, only sickened him now. Still, he’d need a weapon. He paused a moment longer to take the belt, sheath and rapier from the guard, then buckled it around his own waist. He hoisted the boy on one shoulder and fled from the tent and into the night air.

During the days they fled, Ander learned that the elfling, Jan, was an orphan now, his fathered killed in battle and his mother fallen to an illness that her starved body could not fight. Jan did not know why his parents had stayed around. He, too, had expected to flee to the forest. He had no siblings and had no idea where his other relations lived, if they lived at all. Not knowing what else to do with the boy, Ander made their way back toward the city of Khord. He fixed up a damaged lute he found in the rubble of a burned out house and played for their dinner in the towns outside of the army’s narrow march. When he couldn’t earn their supper with his music, he stole food, or the coin for it, as he could. Tyr would forgive him, he hoped, for Ander stole only to set right the injustice that had been done to Jan in the first place.

When the walls of Khord loomed before him, Ander waited until nightfall before he and Jan entered. Tyr was with him, he thought, for his father was at the Magic Lantern Society. Zane cried when he saw his son Ander for the first time in years, and then again when Ander relayed his war stories and Esmeralda’s descent into darkness.

“I can’t stay, Dad,” Ander said over the warm mug of tea. “Just tonight. Es will know to look for me here.”

“She’ll look for this one, too,” Khord said, motioning his own mug toward Jan who slept for the first time in months on a bed with clean linen. Ander had done well by the lad in the food department, and now that he had been bathed and placed in bed with warmth and laughter around him, Jan looked healthy and at peace. “He can’t stay in the city.”

“Surely Esmeralda won’t remember what one orphan elfling looks like. He looks completely different, now that he’s not starving.”

“If the general is as wicked as you say, she’ll send wizards with her bounty hunters and track Jan to the door of this theater.”

Ander swallowed, suddenly realizing he may have brought trouble to the last place he’d want it. “Of course. I’ll gather supplies and be gone from here with Jan by sunset tomorrow. We’ll keep moving at night, keep the shad—”

“No,” his father said, holding up a hand. “Esmeralda will be aiming for me, too. I’ll tell the other troupers to be wary, be ready to flee if it looks like the general’s wrath will be brought down on them, but I’ll be gone. I’ll take Jan with me. I know of a woman who should have a second shot at motherhood.”

Ander’s eyes widened as he realized who Zane meant. “My mother? You know where she is?”

“I believe so, or at least how to make myself known to her.”

“Take me,” Ander said, but choked off the words as he said them. The sadness in Zane’s eyes told him that would not be possible. “Why not?” Ander’s voice was a tight croak.

“I know you’ve wanted to see her again, that you’ve looked for her. I can’t bring you to her.” Zane stood and went to a cupboard. He pulled out a glass bottle filled with brown liquor. “This is going to require something stronger than tea, I fear.” He uncorked the bottle and poured a shot into his mug. Ander hesitated, then nodded for his own snort.

Taking a pull on the spiked tea steadied Ander’s nerves. “Why can’t you bring me to Mother?”

“Do you know why your mother left you?” Zane continued.

“You’ve always told me that she was a princess of her people. She needed to return to take her father’s place and rule there.”

Zane nodded, his sad eyes cast down into his mug.

Ander continued: “I kept waiting for that to happen. I knew that once she had the throne, she could change the rules about banning humans from the forest.”

Zane took a shot of liquor from his mug. He set it down carefully, studying it before looking into Ander’s eyes.

“There’s no rule against humans in the forest,” he said at last, the sorrow of his soul in his voice. He looked away from Ander then, pouring himself a new shot of liquor.

Ander eventually closed his slackened jaw. He couldn’t find the words.

“She loved us, son,” Zane said. “Don’t doubt that. But she couldn’t stay. She was 200 years old when we met, and had maybe thrice that left in her life. An elf’s lifespan might as well be infinite to us humans.”

“I’m half elf,” Ander protested.

“You know it doesn’t work that way. You might get a few more years than my half would give you, but nowhere near your mother’s lifespan. She’d have to watch you grow old and die. No parent should have to do that. I—” Zane’s voice choked off. He cleared his throat “I kept waiting for the messenger to come tell me you were dead in the war. It’s been so long, Son.”

“Esmeralda wasn’t big on correspondence, Dad. I suppose she didn’t want me to tell the world about the truth of the Grand Army of Mahn. Seems like everyone has their secrets to keep.” Ander couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice.

“It’s not easy to hear this, I know, Boy. It’s not easy to tell. It’s not like I stopped loving her. It’s not like I could…I could have forgiven her earlier if she had left just me. It would have hurt like hell either way, but I wouldn’t have wanted her to go through the pain of watching me wither and die.”

“You’re not ill, are you Dad?”

“Not hardly! You didn’t get all your grace and good looks from your mother, you know.”

“Sure, Dad. You were saying?”

“I was saying that I was mad at her, too. It’s a damn sin for a woman to leave her boy like that, least for a human woman. I…I was mad for a long time. But being mad at her wasn’t going to help you grow up right. I gave up my anger, Ander. I hope you can, too.”

Ander sat back from the table, eyes searching the long shadows of the candlelit room. “That might be a long time coming.”

“You’re a good soul, son. Don’t ever forget that. You’ve seen more than your share of ugliness in the world. The war, Esmeralda, and now this. Don’t let it consume you.”

Ander nodded, hearing the wisdom of the words, but not feeling them in his soul.

The next day, Ander spent his time with Zane as son and father gathered supplies. Zane would leave with Jan under the cover of the troupe heading east for an engagement in the desert city of Newsham. Ander would travel a way with them, before splitting off in his own direction. Sadness hung in the air around the family. Zane not only felt his son’s pain, but had some of his own. He’d never imagined that Ander would ever leave the troupe, the one family they’d both been able to count on. But the continent was vast and many kingdoms lay outside the reach of even the Army of Mahn’s grasp. If Ander would ever have a peaceful life, he’d have to do it far and away from his family.

Ander felt his father’s sadness and interpreted it as disappointment in the way Ander had let his life unravel. He felt ashamed to leave, but knew he’d only risk the well-being of the troupe if he stayed. In his heart he resolved to become a great bard, to achieve for his troupe secretly what he could not do with them. He’d make Zane proud one day.

On the road where they parted, Zane reminded Ander once again of who the young man really was.

“You’re not some sad-sack. That was Sevrin’s deal, what with that poetry of his. Surprised his audiences didn’t drink themselves dumb, listening to his tripe.”

“A lot did. I think that’s why he got a lot of tavern work.”

“Ha! And there’s the wit I know in my boy Ander. Hold on to that. Life isn’t always going to batter you. Reach out to others. Make new friends. Make a family, even.”

Ander nodded and hugged his father. “Who knows? One day, maybe I’ll be able to come home again.”

“I will pray to Tyr that the day is soon, Boy.”

Ander walked away, but stopped, a cold thought striking him. “What if my mother doesn’t, you know…with Jan?”

“Well, if I can’t convince that bitch to do the right thing this time, I guess I’ll just have to raise the little bugger myself. Didn’t do such a bad job with you, eh?”

Ander smiled as Zane ran to catch up to the caravan moving east. He watched them grower smaller in the distance, feeling his heart go with them. Then, steeling himself, he turned to walk his own road.



# # #



“I had some small adventures after this,” Ander said. The last notes of the lute faded and the magical imagery that enhanced the story left the companions in only the light of the campfire “Nothing compared to the way his life changed in Ellery the evening I met the Leffe and Dalvin, and Mordo.”

“You worry about Esmeralda and Sevrin?” Dalvin asked after some time passed. The companions had been struck silent during the story.

“Not much,” Ander said. “We’re not even on the same plane of existence with them now.”

“Right,” Enolo said. “I got questions swimming around my head, but I gotta know, how do I protect you should we run into them again?”

“I’ve got fake mustaches!” Nedwyn said. “We could disguise you!”

A tension-breaking chuckled rolled through the party.

“That will depend largely on how we meet again,” Ander said, looking the goliath paladin in the eyes. “I suspect, though, that one day I’ll have to deal with them myself.”

“Friends don’t let friends die alone, mate,” Enolo said.

“I wasn’t planning on doing the dying part,” Ander laughed.

“You don’t have to do the alone part, either,” the kobold wizard Snow said.

“Aye,” Tyrael said. “When you’re not hitting on every lass with a pulse, you’re not so bad.”

“I—thank you, friends. I hope you all don’t think less of me. I was afraid you might think of me as a coward.”

“Coward?” Nedwyn said. “No way!”

“You saved that boy,” Enolo said, placing a large hand on the bard’s shoulder. “How could you think you’re a coward?”

Ander thought that maybe he could have helped feed the people of the town, or really took a stand against Esmeralda.

He looked over the refugees. He’d see to it that they were fed, that they made it to safety. Esmeralda and Sevrin could stay shadows in his past.

For a time.



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Esmeralda: An Oddlot Tale, Part 1

In a rain forest deep in the Feywild, the Oddlot made camp for the night. Their destination was the safety of the Seelie Court, but that night the only safety they had was what they could provide for themselves. Their charges were refugees fleeing enslaving hobgoblins, goliaths and humans who have been driven from their homeland. The companions got their charges settled before taking a rare moment to relax around the campfire.

Ander, the strikingly handsome half-elf bard, sank wearily to the ground and leaned against a fallen log. They’d been on the road without stop lately, and he was feeling the weariness in his bones. Still, his friends, even the new ones, got him through it. He wasn’t comfortable with the mantel of leadership that seemed to default to him, but he’d always do his best to help them.

The party’s newest and smallest member, Snow, pulled out a spell book and starting studying his spells. The little kobold had endeared himself to the companions, despite their history fighting his brethren months ago in Ellery. He compared notes with fellow wizard, the mechanical 2zard, while the halfling Nedwyn took her time surveying the perimeter of the camp for dangers. Tyrael, the tiefling sorcerer practiced his casting rituals, determined to make himself more potent in battle.

Not all of the companions remained. Westendorf, the wizard they’d brought out of Ellery, had departed the group, choosing to explore a personal issue. His replacement claimed to be a monk of the drunken master variety, the group’s second goliath member. He called himself Northwind. Ander had seen flashes of his prowess in battle, but thought maybe the alcohol played too strong a role. He snored loudly, already asleep. Still, he had his charms, and wasn’t unlike another strong personality the grouped missed. Ander felt his heart hurt when he didn’t see Mordo’s hulking metal form around the fire.

Ander looked over at Enolo, the party’s original goliath. The bard had come to count on the huge paladin over the weeks and was happy that his friend had become smitten with one of the female goliath refugees. Truth be known, Ander had helped out Enolo with a little magic to soften his rough edges when he talked to the female. Those two were sitting next to each other chatting, Enolo as happy as Ander had seen him. The sight gave his heart hope that even in a world that had been so hostile to his own romance—real romance, not simple evenings of pleasure—love might have a chance. So caught up in his feelings, he didn’t notice the group’s gnome druid approach him.

“Say, Ander,” Dalvin said, louder than he needed to. The difference of three vertical feet from Dalvin’s mouth to Ander’s ear wasn’t the issue; Ander suddenly realized Dalvin had already tried to get his attention once. All the companions had turned to regard them.

“Sorry, Dalvin,” Ander said. “I was lost in my own thoughts.”

“I can see, that, old friend. It’s not the first time lately. The other night, you reacted very strongly to the thought of confronting that sorceress sister of the loxodon we saved.”

“Oh, that…” Ander felt a hot flush on his face. “She, she certainly sounded formidable.”

“She did, but you’re not one to let that stop you.”

“You overestimate my bravery, perhaps.”

“You’re cautious, but no coward.”

Ander’s eyes shifted away. He wasn’t so sure.

“Anyway,” Dalvin continued, “that night, in your sleep, you called out the name ‘Esmeralda’.”

“I did?!” Ander’s flush face was threatening a cold sweat. “I—I…You must be mistaken.”

“It’s not the first time you mentioned her name. Back in the elven temple, at the Test of Poetry, you mentioned Esmeralda and Sevrin, and claimed to dislike poetry.”

“Well, you know poets, with their berets and everything.”

“It occurs to me, old friend, that for as long as we’ve been together, I don’t really know where you’ve come from.”

“Does it matter?”

“Not completely, but recently I’m thinking it might be significant. Who is Esmeralda?”

“I don’t wish to talk about it!” Ander leapt from the log he’d been sitting against and took two stomping steps toward the forest. Then, realizing he had nowhere to go, and realizing Davlin was only asking because he cared, he turned around and looked at his small friend.

Ander took a moment to wrestle his emotions. This was the one story he didn’t want to tell. His friends had a right to know, though. He took a deep breath.

“All right, it’s time you knew. All of you.”

The rest of the companions, looking rather awkward at the outburst, had started to look away or to feign menial tasks. Enolo, though, had broken off the conversation with the goliath woman. He stared steadily at Ander.

“The truth is, I’m a phony,” Ander said. He sighed, picked up his lute, and took a seat on the fallen tree trunk. He took a deep breath to begin his performance. “It’ll be easier for me to sing you story, as a narrator to events that happened to someone else. I may assume thoughts and motivations of others, which may not be entirely accurate.”

The friends nodded they understood, even Enolo, concern on their faces.

“Very well, then,” Ander said. He took another breath and began.



# # #



Ander’s vanity, humor and love of insults is all a façade. In his youth, he was indeed a lighthearted young half-elf, the child of a human bard named Zane and a missing elvish mother. He grew up in the city of Khord, the Crown City of the Monarchy of Mahn. Specifically, Ander’s family was a troupe of performers called the Magic Lantern Society. The troupe had its own theater and also toured the realms. More than just a professional entity, The Magic Lantern Society was an unusually stable and caring extended family for Ander.

Still, not all family members get along. Ander understudied for an older boy named Sevrin. In troupe parlance, an understudy wasn’t limited to just knowing the script for a role in a play, but for learning the rules, mores, and traditions of the Magic Lantern Society. Sevrin had been a good “big brother” and mentor for Ander, but that changed as Sevrin progressed further into adolescence. He became more selfish, cocky, and cruel toward Ander, though not quite reaching the point of out-and-out abuse. That is, until one fateful day when Ander was ten years old and Sevrin sixteen. On that day, Ander and Sevrin saw Esmarelda Villa Lobos Garcia.

The first time Ander had laid eyes on Esmeralda Villa Lobos Garcia, he’d been a boy, four years her junior. He sat on the steps leading into the Magic Lantern Society Theater, a building as close to a home as he ever had. Ander watched as the teenaged Esmeralda made her way down the aisle of merchant stands in the open market. Esmeralda’s namesake emerald eyes eagerly darted from shop to shop as Ander watched her. Her long black hair, cascaded from her head in loose curls and rivulets, framing a face born with the darker skin of the southern coastal kingdoms. It was a skin she shared with Juan Carlos Villa Lobos, her father and General of the Army.

Ander had known about her father before he’d ever seen Esmeralda, though not many knew the true story about the general and his family. Ander’s father Zane was a learned bard with his ear to the pulse the royal city and knew such secrets. General Villa Lobos had carved a glorious and bloody path for himself as a sell-sword, a mercenary hired by the Mahn royal family. Eventually, due to some convenient battlefield deaths, Villa Lobos stepped in to guide the army to victory when all seemed lost. Ander’s father might have said that it was a little too convenient, but only in a whisper.

Ander, in contrast to the exotic beauty of Esmeralda, was pale and lean due to the elven half of his heritage, though already showing that his childhood cuteness would blossom into something extraordinary when he matured. Esmeralda stood a foot taller and dozens of pounds of muscle heavier; strong, fast, and talented with a sword. Ander preferred a lute, and with it, caught the teenager’s interest. Like a fisherman who accidentally hooks a shark, Ander didn’t know what to do with his catch. He had only known that the girl was pretty and in his immature mind, had acted on it. As she sauntered up to him, he felt hot and confused as something stirred within him for the first time that wasn’t in a dream.

“Hello, pretty boy,” Esmeralda said. The accent of her homeland played in her words, mesmerizing Ander. “Do you play that lute for me?”

Ander nodded, the capability for speech suspended even as his jaw drooped.

“Well, do you have some other tune for me, pretty boy, or was that it?” Esmeralda’s tone teased softly, a juvenile flirt that she only partially understood.

Ander had been born with musical instruments in his hand, and the reminder that he held the old comfort stirred his faculties into order. Zane, his father, entertained audiences with music and magical effects as part of the Magic Lantern Society. Ander hadn’t yet managed any of his father’s magical effects, but had proved himself a prodigy early on. He strummed the lute and listened to the notes he had produced at random, and found his song. He couldn’t fully remember afterward what he played, but he knew he’d moved Esmeralda. Her teasing playfulness had fallen away. She stood transfixed, her mouth parted. A single tear rolled from her eye and down her cheek.

“Beautiful,” she whispered when Ander finished. The boy still could find no words to speak, despite the power of what he’d sung.

“Yes, he’s quite a singer, our little Ander,” said a voice from the stairs. During the song, neither singer nor listener had noticed the door open. A lithe boy of sixteen leaned against the doorframe, his small but chiseled arms exposed by his leather vest. He wore tights and no codpiece, for he was confident he needed none. Soft leather boots slumped over his shins and his sandy hair had been carefully disheveled.

“Quite the singer, yes,” the teen repeated. “But not much of a talker. Now, if it’s cunning verse and stirring word you wish, m’lady, allow Sevrin to be at your service.”

Esmeralda blinked, remembering who she was. “Ah, a poet. Yes. When I become General of the Army, I plan to have them all flogged for wasting ink and paper.”

“You wound me, dear lady.”

“Not yet.”

“Please!” Sevrin said, unwinding himself from the doorway. He made a grand sweep of his hands, imploring Esmeralda. “Perhaps you’ve heard only the limericks of fools before. Give me but a moment of your time to save my skin. The future me would be ever so grateful. Perhaps I could move you in ways that little Ander can’t, if you catch my meaning.”

“Go on, poet,” Esmeralda said.

Ander’s head moved between Sevrin and Esmeralda. He felt a burning anger for the older boy, but swallowed it back. He’d never really felt jealousy before, but one of the rules of the Magic Lantern Society was to never act on jealousy toward a brother or sister in the troupe. If he felt slighted, he could bring it to the elders, who would deliberate. Still, he didn’t have to let Sevrin have an easy go of it.

“Would you like me to accompany you, Sevrin?” Ander asked in a stage whisper. “You know, to fill in should you forget the words again?”

Sevrin’s fair skin blushed red. Esmeralda hid a giggle behind her hand.

“No, I don’t need any help from a pretty boy like you,” Sevrin said. With the bottom of his boot, he pushed Ander off his step. The younger boy twisted, his instinct to preserve his instrument instead of himself. He’d heal, but his lute would require precious coins to fix, should it break. As a result, he landed awkwardly on the cobblestone street next to the marble stairs, and the wind blasted out of him. He sucked air in ragged gasps.

Esmeralda looked at him. Concern flashed for a minute, but it was chased away by disdain. She’d had an instant liking for the Ander. He was innocent and beautiful. Her father, the general, ignored such things. He had told Esmeralda that if she were to ever achieve her ridiculous goal of being a female General of the Army, she’d have no room for sentiment in her life. Esmeralda worshipped her father, partly because she feared him, but she had not quite been convinced that he was right about innocence.

Sevrin began his poem:

“An elven maiden fair, from a forest deep and green,

Fell in love with a traveling man, an actor raw and green.”

“Sevrin!”Ander hissed. The older boy paid him no mind.

“Their loved bore her far away, and one night a mistake was formed,

In her belly grew a piteous thing, one with brain deformed.

Upon birthing this terrible child, the elven matron cried,

And flew from the human man, for the comfort of the countryside.”

Two tears ran down Ander’s face. Sevrin had teased him about his half-elf heritage before, but to bring up his missing mother burned tears of anger, and a long hidden pain, out of him.

Esmeralda giggled again. Perhaps she didn’t notice Ander’s pain.

“Aw, look at him,” Sevrin said. “The halfie’s getting angry.”

“Halfie?” Esmeralda said. She held her grin, but the amused light died in her eyes.

“Look at his ears, m’lady. His mother was an elf,” Sevrin said, meaning it as an insult.

Esmeralda’s eyes flashed as hard as her father’s steel. “Ears like these, you mean?” she said, pulling back her wavy black locks to show the point of her own ears. She stomped up the stairs to the stunned Sevrin. "You may have a nice way with words, Sevrin,” she said. “But you should know when to keep your mouth shut.” She grabbed his vest and planted her hip into his midsection, flipping him over her and down the stairs to lay gasping next to Ander. She descended the stairs like and empress and stood with leather clad legs wide and hands on hips.

“Little boys, both of you. Mother said boys matured later than girls, but I didn’t know what she meant. I’m disappointed to learn for myself.”

Ander by this time had managed to scoot himself into a sitting position. “I’ll do better next time,” he croaked, his first unsung words to the girl.

Esmeralda bent down until her face was an inch from Ander’s. “And who says they’ll be a next time, little singer?”

“No next time?” Ander asked. “Then I better get it this time.” Quicker than Esmeralda could have expected, Ander lifted up and planted a kiss on her mouth.

“How dare you!” she said when she pulled away. She raised her hand to slap him down, but stopped herself short. She touched her lip instead, then smiled. “Perhaps you are not as soft as you look, little singer.” She grabbed him and planted her own kiss on his lips, far more mature than the peck he’d given her. “You can’t be soft and be with me,” she whispered, then pushed him flat on to his back. She stalked off on the hard heels of her boots.

Sevrin had seen it all. Recovering his breath, he planted a punch on Ander’s jaw.

“Hope it was worth it, runt,” he said before stomping back into the theater.

As the door slammed close, Ander held his sore jaw. He looked after Esmeralda. “Absolutely,” he said to her retreating form.

Time passed. Ander grew into a stunningly handsome youth who became a special feature at the Magic Lantern Theater. Sevrin did not. Thought the Society had roles for everyone, and profits were shared evenly, it never did sit well with Sevrin. He was handsome enough and his poetry was good, but the oddness of his topics alienated some audiences, while a strange theme of cruelty and sorrow undercut most of his poems. Esmeralda, though, turned up regularly for Sevrin’s recitals. She understood the pain in the poet’s words. Still, Sevrin played to small audiences, while Ander’s seemed to grow every performance, especially amongst the maidens of the city.

Esmeralda attended Ander’s concerts, too. The theater was the one of two pleasures she allowed herself in her adolescence. By eighteen, she’d built herself up to become a lieutenant in her father’s army. Though many assumed she benefited from nepotism, the opposite was the case. Juan Carlos Villa Lobos threw every obstacle he could at his daughter, at first to dissuade her from an “unwomanly” career. He did not relent even when he was convinced of her skill and resolution to succeed. Esmeralda never stopped trying to please her father, though in sullen moods, she questioned why it had to be so much harder for her. She never understood that her father silently grew to support her, and that his obstacles, though sometimes cruel, served to strengthen her for a command role.

The second pleasure took place in the dark of night. Esmerelda twisted her notorious rivulets of hair into a bun and hid it under a hood. A mask went over her face, black as the night she prowled in. Her body she hid under flowing black silks and trousers. Dressed this way, she danced through the alleys and upon rooftops, seeking adventure. She did not walk alone.

Ander awoke near midnight, his mouth dry. It had been a long hot day in the theater of moving out old scenery and building new to replace it. He sat up into the cool breeze, feeling it wash over his bare chest, a chest that had finally filled itself with tight cords of muscle. He often slept on top of the Magic Lantern Theater when summer’s heat made his regular quarters too unbearable, or when Sevrin’s snores ripped him from slumber. Or, gods help him, when thick-bodied Cort had gotten into the beans at dinner. That lad could rip a deadly one, and Ander had actually camped on the roof in the dead of winter before, rather than inhale the noxiousness. Now, though, the gentle sea breeze came off the coast that the city of Khord abutted. It was a magical night, with the stars piercing the inky veil above. Cricket sounds were pleasantly muted three stories below, providing just enough of a gentle drone to lure him back to sleep. But first, Ander cast round for his canteen. Sleeping on the roof had its drawback, especially being far from the water pump—and the privy, he suddenly realized. He briefly considered the rain gutter down spout, but decided against it. He pulled on his trousers and made for the winding stairs leading below.

Ander’s elven heritage blessed him with darkvision, but he wasn’t fully awake and banged his hip against a prop vase left in the corridor next to the privy. It rattled loudly on its base, wobbling around. Ander caught it and reset it, but used his elfish ears to listen for movement. Sevrin would be a right bastard if Ander awoke him, and the room he shared with the older youth and Cort was right next to the privy. Hearing nothing, Ander went about his business and returned to the roof of the stairs.

Ander had just stripped back down to his skivvies when he heard a familiar sigh. He jumped and exclaimed, turning to see Esmeralda perched on the edge of the roof.

“Aw, I’d hoped you had nothing on underneath,” she said. “I wanted to find out if what they said about elven boys is true.”

Ander, despite his heart pounding faster that his drum during the Chaos Dance, answered. “I’m only half elf,” he said picking his trousers back up. “But yes, it’s true.” He smiled.

“Perhaps I’ll see for myself,” Esmeralda said, not missing a beat. She sprang from her perch to land lightly in front of Ander. The sea breeze rippled her black silk blouse tight against her body and Ander was surprised to see she was cold despite the warm night.

And unintelligible phrase fell out of Ander’s mouth as Esmeralda grabbed the waist of his trousers and pulled Ander toward her. “What was that, Little Singer? And here I though you bards were silver-tongued. Or does that have a different meaning?”

Ander was suddenly aware of how hot his face felt, despite the goosebumps rising on his bare chest. He knew she’d fed him and easy line, but for the life of him, couldn’t figure out how to turn it into a cunning linguistic reply.

“What’s going on here?” Sevrin barked, jumping up from the winding stairs. He held a cudgel in his hand, and a lantern in the other. Unlike Ander and Esmeralda, Sevrin had no elven blessing to see in the dark. “What?!” He gasped, seeing the two before him practically in an embrace. It did not help that Ander had his shirt off and Esmeralda still pulled at the waist of his trousers. His face reddened.

“Ah, my poet,” Esmeralda said. She slid smoothly from Ander to Sevrin, running her fingertips down the cheek of his face. “I had hoped to see you, too, on this hot lonely night.” The comment only served to deepen the crimson on Sevrin’s face, though now it was for different reasons.

“Tell me, my beautiful boys. Are you ready for an adventure this night?”

“With him here?” both boys said at the same time.

“Oh yes. I need you both.”

Ander and Sevrin shared a bewildered look.

“Come boys,” Esmeralda said. With that she danced away from Sevrin, to the edge of the roof, and dropped down.

“Esmeralda!” Ander and Sevrin shouted together. Ander with his elven eyes saw it first, the clever grappling hook and fine silk cord. Esmeralda dangled by one strong hand from it, staring back up at their slack jawed faces as they peered over after her. Her green eyes danced with mischief in the starlight, and her laugh invited them down as much as it mocked their concern.

Sevrin pushed Ander aside, grabbed the cord, and lowered himself down. He already wore tunic, trousers and boots, so he had quite a head start on Ander, who had to quickly don his clothes. The older boy stood on the ground next to Esmeralda by the time Ander got himself over the edge of the flat roof and he shook at the rope, playing at dislodging Ander.

“Knock it off, Sev!” Ander called. The half-elf had no problems with heights, but the vibrations up the rope were no joke to him.

When Ander finally got to the ground, the three embarked on what would become a regular routine for them. Each would take a mask and cowl, and scurry over the rooftops, scale walls, and sneak past guards to see the unseen. Largely, the worst of their crimes was trespassing, but Sevrin grew restless and saw the possibilities their stealth and disguises offered them. One night, Sevrin used his honied words to tell the other two about an artifact of the Gi’malti clan that had been stolen years ago. The artifact was a wooden hunting mask, said to be blessed by the nomadic Gi’malti’s dwarven ancestors. The theft had been a high crime and a great injustice for the tribe, and he sold Ander and Esmeralda on the idea of setting things right. Sevrin told them that the mask was on display of a particular merchant that was unloved in the city, a man named Horiel that was said to have obtained his wealth by exploitation and corruption.

“It will be fine justice, then,” Sevrin whispered on top of the theater. The three had gathered for their weekly outing. The nights were cooler now, as fall shortened the hours the sun marched across the sky. “We return a relic to its people and punish a wicked man.”

Sevrin had chosen his words carefully, as the whole caper depended on Ander, their most accomplished burglar. The Magic Lantern Society were forthright performers, but that didn’t mean that every playhouse and theater shared their honor. A fair number of unscrupulous stage owners tried to screw performers out of their share of the gate’s proceeds. Accordingly, the troupe knew how to take payment when they’d been ripped off. This included “collecting” what they were owed in some cases. Sevrin smirked at the distinction with adolescent scorn, but to Ander it was important. The younger teen was a devotee of Tyr, god of justice. He’d never willingly steal what was not righteously owed.

Sevrin inwardly sneered at Ander’s sense of justice. He’d passed by halls filled with fine art and jewels during the companions’ night-time exploits, all because Ander would have tried to stop him. Sevrin had been sorely tempted to push the issue, confident he could have beaten Ander physically, but he wasn’t sure how Esmeralda would react to such a fight. He decided to play the long game with Ander instead, and slowly put into place the details that would force Ander to his side, for once.

Esmeralda often found herself in the middle, torn between the appeal of Ander’s goodness and Sevrin’s boundary-breaking. Ander kept them from vandalism and untoward robbery, but the thrill of Sevrin’s ideas tempted the young warrior in ways that delighted her soul. They’d never stolen anything. At least, anything that Ander had known about. Esmeralda suspected that Sevrin had helped himself to carelessly unguarded trinkets here and there during their nocturnal missions. Esmeralda found such acts dishonorable, according to the warrior code she’d been brought up in, but thrilling nonetheless.

That long night in Horiel’s house changed everything for the group. The nature of what they did switched from harmless fun to something else. At first, Ander thought it was a sort of divine justice, and had felt swollen with zeal for Tyr as they worked their way through the merchant’s extensive mansion. Sevrin, despite his words, was quiet. His eyes, if his companions had been wise enough to read them, flashed with excitement, but also something more sinister. Esmerelda’s green orbs, though, shone with exhilaration. The three avoided guards and dogs. Ander even defeated a trap in the room where the mask sat perched on a pedestal. They’d slid the mask into a sack and left with it before dawn had pierced the horizon.

“Where do we meet your friend from the Gi’malti?” Ander asked, once they had returned to the top of the theater. “Is he in the city, or do we have to travel to their hunting grounds?”

“First things first,” Sevrin said. “Let’s have look at that mask in the light.” Ander pulled the wooden mask from the sack he carried. It was a two foot oblong, a stretched and grotesque version of a Gi’malti face.

“Hells, this thing is hideous,” Esmeralda said as Ander passed it to her. “Stretching out a dwarven face, you’d think it make it look more human. This thing looks like an ogre stepped on it.”

“I agree,” Sevrin said, taking it from her. “Accordingly, it can’t really be worth all that much gold.” He took the mask and spun it like a discus off the roof. It was a good toss, and the mask landed in the flowing brown Hesper River that ran a block from the theater.

“Tyr’s stump!” Ander cried out. He had shot to his feet and stood mouth gaping as the mask had gracefully arched to the river. “What in the nine hells did you do that for?”

“Like I said, it’s worthless,” Sevrin said, sitting back down. “This on the other hand…” The older teen pulled a green jewel, an emerald, from a pouch on his belt. “This is worth a fair fortune, I’d wager.”

Esmeralda’s eyes locked on her namesake jewel. “It’s beautiful,” she said in a hushed tone.

“Did you take that from the merchant’s home?” Ander said, suddenly understanding Sevrin’s true motivations. “Did you lie to us, just to steal this?”

Sevrin’s cunning eyes smiled his answer.

Ander fell speechless, slumping to lean against the parapet of the roof. He hadn’t performed Tyr’s will at all. He was nothing but a common thief.

“He’ll find out,” Ander said at last, breaking the other two from ogling the jewel. “Horiel will call the constabulary. He wouldn’t have it was just the mask, because he would have known he had that illegally. But for this jewel, he’ll go to the Watch. Did you forget how rich and powerful Horiel is?”

“Oh, but have your forgotten that you, too, have a powerful friend?” Esmeralda said not breaking her gaze from the emerald. “The daughter of the General of the Army can offer her friends protections that none of your street-trash maidens can, Ander.”

“You, you know about the girls?”

“Aye, but I’m not mad. Have your playthings. I have my own,” Esmeralda said. Ander did not like the thought of that, though he had not been holding chaste while he waited for Esmeralda to notice him.

“Protections?” Sevrin said to Esmeralda.

“For a price,” she answered.

“M’lady!” Sevrin said, dipping a low bow. He held up the emerald. The young warrior took it from him and cradled it in two hands like it was a baby bird. Then, it disappeared, tucked into her cleavage as she gave the boys a sly grin.

Ander’s disappointment with Esmeralda was only exceeded by his own. He stalked down the stairs from the rooftop, batting away the girl’s attempt to caress him.

Ander pursued other romances in his youth, as Esmeralda had guessed. For a while, he lost himself in a series of girls, keeping himself in bedchambers for the night and away from the rooftop. He wouldn’t say a thing against his former companions to the authorities, but he didn’t have to associate with them either. Both the theft and the promiscuity tarnished the teen, and his performances suffered. It didn’t help that Esmeralda was no longer in attendance. While he no longer wished to swing from the rooftops with her, a tender part of his heart had hoped that she would choose to come back to him and leave behind Sevrin’s cold exhilarations.

When spring arrived, Ander once again found himself on the roof of the theater. A romantic interlude had fallen through and he couldn’t stand the idea of sharing his old bunkroom with Sevrin, especially now that Cort had moved out. He set up his bedroll on the roof once again. Sleep did not come to him, though, and he sat for an hour staring over the city, a city that had seemed so thrilling not that long ago.

“It’s lost its luster for you, yes?” Esmeralda said from behind him. Ander did not startle as she had hoped. The boy was getting better at knowing his surroundings, a trait developed in part by his fear of Horiel’s knee breakers finding him.

“Luster is for jewels, Es,” he replied. “You should know that.”

Esmeralda slumped a bit. “I was hoping we could talk, Little Singer.”

“I’m not little anymore. I’ve had to grow up recently. You know, we do the coming-of-age plays as part of the theater’s regular run of shows, but even when I was acting in them, I didn’t really understand the pain they showed the audience.”

“I’m a warrior, Ander. I thought I knew pain, too. But the pain of the heart is something my training did not prepare me for.”

Ander looked up at her wiping away the pooling of one eye. Esmeralda’s eyes, too, rimmed with tears.

“I had the emerald returned, Little Singer. I hated it after a while, once I realized it had broken us up.”

“Truly?”

“Aye, Horiel has it back. My father’s agents have also convinced him to not look into the matter any further, or to try for vengeance against whomever might have stolen it.”

“I’m relieved,” Ander said, “But I meant the other thing. Have you really missed me?”

“At first I thought I just missed the nights out, the exhilaration of it all. Sevrin and I went out a few times, poking in here or there. But he became less about the thrill and more about what he could…take.” She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself and fighting a shiver.

Ander stood up. “Did he hurt you?”

Esmeralda shook her head. “He made advances. Some, well, I welcomed them at first. Without you around, too, I was lonely. I thought fate had decided things for me, that Sevrin must be the one. He could be rough, though, like it wasn’t about me, but how much he could get me to do. I see that I made no choice in the matter, and that satisfied me less than Sevrin’s indelicate hands.”

“You made a choice, Es. When you accepted that emerald, you made a choice.”

Esmeralda stiffened, a shot of truth to her spine. She started to form a hot retort, but looking at the pain in Ander’s face, she felt her shame.

“Ander. Forgive me.”

The young bard stood torn, emotions warring in him. Some part of him wanted to forgive her, but not let her back in. Another part, the one that had sparked to life on the steps of the theater when he’d first seen her, had greater sway. He’d fed that fantasy for years, and it did not die to harsh reality as it should have.

“I forgive you.”

Esmeralda took a slight step toward him, then another. She rushed to him a moment later, pressing her mouth against his. Ander returned her kiss and the two stood locked in embrace. She seemed smaller to Ander, though he knew she was as tall as and stronger than he. He could feel the strength in her body as he pressed his into her, holding her in his arms. Her kisses fell on his mouth, his face, his neck, surging with their urgency. He returned them in kind, tickling the nape of her neck as she pulled open the silken blouse. They slid down, pushing against each other to fall on his bedroll. Their lovemaking lasted deep into the night.

Below them, under the trapdoor to the roof, Sevrin seethed.

{End part 1}

Author’s Note: This episode of The Oddlot concludes the plot for the first volume of The Chronicles of the Oddlot. Last time, I had promised two more episodes remained. I had originally planned a dream sequence for the twelfth episode, a foreshadowing of Volume II. For various reasons, this will not be presented at this time. However, I do hope to present it in the near future.

As to the future of The Oddlot: Like they say on Facebook, it’s complicated. First and foremost, I’m well-behind where I wanted to be on the fourth book in the Inquisitor Damulis series. Originally, I had planned for The Chronicles of the Oddlot, Volume I to end just as book four was ready to release. With my day job starting back up, I have less time to write. Book four takes priority for what time I have. Second, the Oddlot is based on a weekly D&D group I’m a part of and I found myself taking more notes than actually playing and enjoying myself. That’s not good. I am hopeful to capture the second volume with a little help from my friends. Third, well, third’s the most complicated and personal of all…and perhaps a tale for a different time.

For now, I hope you enjoy the conclusion to volume one of the Oddlot. Thank you for reading.

12: The Dracolich

We woke the next morning with light streaming through the eye sockets of the skull cave. I looked at Enolo and found him staring hard at me.

“Did you dream—” he began.

“Of a desert city,” I finished.

“Wot you think it means?”

“I’m not sure, my large friend, but perhaps the wizard Westendorf will have answer once we return to Ellry.”

“No normal dream, though.”

I nodded. “At least I found out what my new cloak can do.”

I looked the cave over to see if some magic could have linked our dreams. I didn’t see anything, nor did I expect to. Something from within the cave wouldn’t explain how the wizard back in Ellry had been in the dream too.

“What’s all this about a dream?” Nedwyn said, back to her usual chipper self. 2zard had worked until his spells of healing were spent, rested, and began again. Aside from the damage to her leathers, she looked unmarked from the beating she’d taken. “Was it a dream about cats? I love cats! I have this one dream where I’m just covered with kittens. It’s so warm and furry.”

“No,” I said. “It definitely wasn’t about cats.”

“There was an orc though,” Enolo said.

“Oh, I think I’d rather dream about cats, especially kittens. Puppies are all right, too, but I’d rather have kittens. Like, one time in Sharn we rescued a whole bunch. It was really cool!”

“Cool? I thought you said it was warm. You know what, never mind. We shouldn’t linger here.”

The skull cave seemed innocuous enough without the hags vile presence, but it had been a place where’d they crafted their evil spells. Considering a dracolich still inhabited Mordo, we felt it best not to linger.

Mordo seemed himself this morning. As we slogged through the swamp, Enolo walked alongside him, and Tyrael walked behind him. I didn’t like the implications of this. I kept near all of them. If Mordo fell into darkness again, I was sure I could bring him out. I wasn’t about to let the newcomers act rashly, arguments about the greater good be damned. Mordo himself seemed not to notice, though he and Leffe chatted as the warrior carried the maimed dwarf on his back. Neither mentioned their afflictions or ordeals when they thought we could hear, but I suspected that the two could commiserate and help heal each other’s emotional wounds once this was all over.

We returned to Ellry by mid-day, having caught a stroke of luck along the way. The horses hadn’t actually made it home, and we were able to ride most of the way by doubling up, Enolo excluded. This time, not great kerfuffle awaited us, though Hawken Bramblebraid and his daughter Jessa awaited us.

“Good news!” the elder druid said, seeming genuinely happy to see us as we entered the Waltr’s inn. I saw that Bramblebraid shared another trait with the younger druid Dalvin; a small army of tankards had collected on his table. Yet, the elder, like Dalvin, showed little effect. Must be all that clean living and forest air. “I’ve arrived at not just one way to cure the warrior, but four!”

This seemed like news that couldn’t wait, though I had intended for Dalvin and Leffe to be there. The two had gone off to find Carla the healer and see what she could for the amputated dwarf. Tyrael had been pulled aside by Westendorf[AC3] and, while both Enolo and wanted a word with Ellry’s resident wizard, we made our way to the tavern with Mordo, Nedwyn and 2zard. The latter had pulled his cloak tightly about him. We didn’t need a repeat of the town’s reaction to Tyrael.

“Four?” I said. “That’s unbelievable, considering you didn’t think of one before.”

“I had a lot on my mind,” Bramblebraid said, nodding to his daughter by the window. The girl played happily with a doll, seemingly none the worse for her experience with the hags. “But tell me, did you deal with the hags?”

“Mordo and friends crush,” Mordo said. “Kill nightmare too.”

A ripple of sadness passed over Bramblebraid’s face. He nodded it away with a resolution to his bottom lip.

“Did we do somethin’ wrong, then?” Enolo asked the druid. The sight of the nearly eight foot goliath stuffed into the booth of the tavern reminded me of a time I’d sat at tea with a group of pixies. Enolo, even sitting, felt the need to hunch over.

“You made new friends, of all sizes,” Bramblebraid said, looking first at Enolo then at Nedwyn. His gave finally fell on 2zard, who had tried to remain in the shadows of the tavern. “And types.” His gaze lingered on the warforged as he tried to make sense of him.

“But no,” he continued. “ It had to be done. Weren’t no coming back from it, I knew that. It’s just,” the elder druid’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Remember how I told ya the hags reproduce, by corrupting a woman?”

“I do,” I said. I shot a nervous glance at Jessa and her doll, fearing for what might have happened.

“Jessa’s mom was one of them hags. They grabbed her when I was tending to a forest fire one day, probably started by those vicious horrors to distract me. I tried to get her back, but there’s no comin’ back from the hag-ritual that I know of.”

“Mordo is sorry for druid’s loss, sorry had to crush wife.”

Bramblebraid nodded. We were silent a moment then, letting the druid mourn.

At length he cleared his throat. “At any rate, I figured four ways to stop the dracolich Grixmax from taking over Mordo.

“First, the Mathias tree root grows in a small grove in the forest. When boiled, it produces a fluid that looks like blood. It’s presence within Mordo would drive out the dracolich. Unfortunately, it would probably wipe clear all of Mordo’s thoughts, memories and personality.”

“Next,” I said.

“Second, and I mentioned this one before to you, Ander, is to bring him to a city where they got a grand old temple to one of the goodly gods. You might find a priest there who can cast out the dracolich. Problem with that one is, ain’t no city big enough within a week’s ride, and I don’t reckon Mordo’s got a week.”

“Can bard cast fast walking spell on Mordo again and again?”

“Maybe, Mordo, but I’m not sure I could do it enough to get you there in time.”

“Third,” Bramblebraid continued. “You can kill Mordo.”

“NEXT.”

“I didn’t think you’d like that one. I saved the best for last.”

Bramblebraid looked quite happy with himself, but all I could hear was my molars grinding.

“Well, spit it out man!” Enolo said. This broke Bramblebraid’s mute act.

“Ah, yes. Forgive and old fella for his dramatic pause, but this is a good one. On the mountain side north of here, above where them stinkin’ kobolds live, is an old shrine. I never knew much about it. Wasn’t to any god or goddess I’d ever heard of, but the kobolds have taken an interest. I think the shaman means to use it in a ritual to bring back Grixmax.”

“How in the nine hells is this a good thing, Hawken?” I asked.

“Cuz the shrine originally belonged to the Raven Queen.”

“Yes!” Mordo bellowed. “See! Mordo tell you she exists.”

I admit that I the news surprised me. I had begun to think that the Raven Queen was a product of Mordo’s imagination.

“So, wot we got to do at this shrine?” Enolo asked.

“You’ll need to find a way to remove the kobold’s stink from it first. Chances are, the little buggers have profaned it. Then, make a suitable enough sacrifice on it to summon the Raven Queen herself. If she favors Mordo as much as he thinks she does, she should life the dracolich right out of him.”

Nedwyn had been remarkably quiet through the whole conversation. “A real honest-to-goodness goddess? Really? How cool is that? I bet she’ll have a terrible beauty, you know. Most of the goddesses you hear about in the legends are describe that way. But what does that really mean? How can you be both terrible and beautiful? I figure that maybe’s she’s so pretty, she scares lesser folks, you know, like Ander here.”

“I prefer fetchingly masculine,” I said. “And, do I scare people with my beauty?”

“Focus, bard. This not about Ander. This about Mordo,” Mordo said.

“Sorry.”

“Wot happens if we summon this Raven Queen? I mean, will she kill the dracolich for us?”

“Heh-heh. Let’s just say, big fella, that you’ll get a chance to prove yourself as a paladin.”

“Mordo crush dracolich? Epic!”

I sighed.



* * *



We stayed overnight in Ellry, resting our beaten bodies and gathering our strength. The next day we left at dawn with the hopes to arrive while it was still light out. The configuration of our band had changed, though. Whatever Westendorf had told Tyrael, it was enough for the tiefling sorcerer to debate staying behind. I couldn’t imagine what could be more important that dealing with a dracolich, and eventually neither could Tyrael. Still, he looked trouble as he left, and it wasn’t just from the impending doom of the fight ahead of us.

Leffe, of course, would be going nowhere for a while, and his days as an adventurer had ended. The best he could hope for was some enchanted prosthetics someday, though he made a joke about being a sailor with two peg legs.

Enolo, of course was in. His oath against evil compelled him to help us fight the dracolich. Even if it hadn’t, he would have gone along anyway. While his brain may have had a lot in common with the stone of his rocky home, his heart was as big as a mountain.

Privately I went to 2zard and Nedwyn before we left, offering to let them off the hook. This wasn’t their fight and I didn’t want them to feel obliged to help. Nedwyn, though, thought it sounded “cool” and “fun”. I couldn’t read 2zard’s reaction, though his eyes seemed a bit smaller. The “robot” would follow Nedwyn anywhere, though, so once she agreed, so did the warforged.

We gave kobold lair a wide berth and came at the shrine from a pathway Hawken Bramblebraid had told us about. He claimed that the kobolds would have no knowledge of it and from what we could tell, he was right. The “path” might have moved aside for the elder druid, but not for us. Dalvin apologized for not being accomplished enough in the druidly arts to move the vegetation aside for us, but between Mordo and Enolo, we pushed through with little delay.

Ascending the mountainside presented its own obstacles. While we had rested, our bodies were still dealing with the fatigue of so many adventures in such a short amount of time. While we only had to hike and not really climb it, the ascent was steep. The higher we got, the colder then air, but at least we didn’t have to climb to the snowcapped peak; the altar to the Raven Queen sat on a wide shelf lower down. I wondered who would build a shrine all the way up here. The Raven Queen’s followers must have been quite resolute and pious in their day. Also, if they were required to hike a mountain for religious rites every week, it was easy to see how the religion had died out. We knew we were on the right path when we found the upheaved stones of an ancient stairway and moss-covered stone cobbles from a long destroyed wall.

The shrine itself jutted into the sky. Despite the centuries we assumed had passed since the Raven Queen had actively been worshiped in the realms, the full-bodied statue to her stood majestically against the blue-gray sky. Her skin looked to be a deathly pale, though it was hard to tell if that was just the stone. Her dress, though, was inky black and feathery. One shapely arm stretched out, but its fingers were skeletal. A raven sat on the ground next to her feet. In her other hand she held a scythe,

“Oh, so that’s what terrible beauty looks like,” Nedwyn whispered.

“Mordo, what domain does the Raven Queen claim?” I said. My mouth felt very dry.

“Raven Queen is queen of death,” Mordo said.

“That knowledge would have been nice to know,” Dalvin said.

“It explains why she’d consider Mordo her champion,” I said, recalling the bloody swaths he’d cut through enemy hordes.

“Friends no worry. Raven Queen not kill, only teach souls to accept death. Is why Raven Queen hate undead so much. Undead pervert afterlife.”

“Still though,” Dalvin said. “Share that kind of thing.”

I glanced at Enolo, then remembered the failure of an earlier look asked him directly, “Do you sense any evil from the shrine.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s the shrine itself. Look at its base. See them gory bits? I’d bet that the kobolds did that, trying to profane it.”

“Speaking of whom, where are the scaly little monsters?”

As if awaiting their cue, the kobold shaman crested a rock cluster across from us. His serpents smile told us that he’d been awaiting our arrival. A line of kobold warriors appeared next to them, looking very confident and not at all kobold like. The shaman waved his arms and staff in the air. His minions charged.

Mordo lost the battle for himself in that moment. Whatever the shaman had prepared for us, it was too much for my friend. He shot into the air, eyes black and body swelled. The ghostly image of wings sprouted from his back, as did the faintest trace of a tail. Talons of ether lashed out at us, missing thank Tyr, but they flashed doom as they reared back for another swipe.

“Mordo,” Dalvin said, his voice choking. I shared his pain, looking at the once fierce warrior held aloft by the eldritch winds of evil.

Then, the empowered kobolds were on us, and we did nothing for a while but fight to survive. I could see Enolo slicing his way through them as he tried to get at Mordo. In the giant paladin’s mind, the greater good would be done, even if that meant an end for Mordo.

I disengaged and made space for myself on the crest of rocks. I sang to Mordo, sang and played, though every instinct told me to put my rapier in my hand and not my lute. I ignored my instincts and focused on reaching the man inside the monster.

Magical attacks crackled around me, giving me a chance to complete my song. 2zard and Tyrael unleashed what they could, molding energy into sharp things to pierce or hard things to smash. Dalvin focused magic on the shaman, keeping the kobold leader on the move and unable to lead the reverse exorcism of the Grixmax. Nedwyn whirled like a miniature dust devil about the battlefield, slicing her scimitars in a precise dance of death. She circled back to 2zard just in time to pry a barehanded kobold off the warforged.

Enolo had made his way to Mordo. My heart sank as his sword slashed out. To my relief, he did not strike Mordo properly, but sliced into the draconic phantasm around him. The paladin must have used magic of his own, for the phantasm shuddered and recoiled. I saw Mordo’s head come around and the darkness in his eyes fade. I played on, willing the inspiration to him to resist Grixmax. I could not tell if separating the two would be the wise thing, but at least if the dracolich left Mordo, we could attack it without risk to my friend.

Nedwyn and 2zard wrestled a kobold on to the shrine. “Hey, gnome!” Nedwyn called to Dalvin. Guessing what she had in mind, he broke his fighting stance and let his firey blade diminish, hurrying to them. The little druid was as close as we had to a priest. He began a druid prayer he knew to hollow the dead.

The dracolich bucked and pulled at Mordo, trying to separate itself. I didn’t understand why, exactly. Other than for sheer hatred and cruelty, killing Mordo would leave it without a living phylactery, and its bones were miles from here.

The kobold shaman didn’t seemed concerned. He implored his dark lord with his arms, beckoning him to come forth. The remaining kobolds whipped into a frenzy and, despite not being the fiercest opponents normally, suddenly seemed to swell with size and power. Worse, the slain stirred, floating upright and lurching forward in the grip of eldritch power.

“Ned!” I yelled. “We’re out of time!”

The halfling gulped. She lifted her dagger then jammed it down into the chest of the kobold. “Hey, Raven Lady! Take this stupid thing’s life and give us back our friend!” It certainly wasn’t the most eloquent prayer.

But it was effective.

The sky itself seemed to split in flash of lightning. A dark spot manifested in the air, growing in size with each split second. Finally, it reached full dilation and out hot the living form of the shrine’s statue.

That was all any of us saw, who had dared to look up at the phenomena. The flash of light had been bad enough, but mortal eyes are not meant to gaze upon the pure divine.

I doubled over, holding my eyes, trying to rub away the darkness that had struck them. I stumbled and lost all sense of friend and enemy. Perhaps the only thing that saved me was that some of the kobolds, too, had looked up and been blinded.

What happened next was related to me afterward. The Raven Queen descended from the heavens and touched the very heart of Mordo. Her champion had surged with renewed life and sense of self. He tore the spirit of the dracolich from him, and dragon emerged in spectral form upon the shelf. The Raven Queen passed her scythe through it, and the specter shuddered and solidified. Then, the goddess shot back into the sky, leaving the fight to her champion and his friends.

My vision cleared and I found myself standing behind the shaman. The kobold must have been similarly blinded, for both of us had stumbled away from where we’d been. His vision also restored, he leveled his staff at the battlefield. Lightning dance around the orb on its end and ozone filled the air. Lute in my left hand, I drew my rapier with my right and ran it through the shaman’s back. He twisted violently, tearing the rapier from my hand, but dropping the staff. I smashed the loot on his head, and he dropped, convulsing on the ground.

With no thought for my blade, for what good would it do now? I grabbed up the shaman’s staff. Lightning still danced around the orb. I pointed it at the spectral dracolich. The lightning lanced out and infused the dracolich, making it more substantial.

“Oh my dear Tyr, what have I done?” I nearly dropped the staff as I watched the after effects, sure that I had made Grixmax more powerful, not less. I had little time to contemplate it. Teeth bit into the leather of my boot. I danced away from the shaman, just as he brought down the point of a crude knife on the spot by foot had been. Lacking a proper weapon and not willing to test the integrity of my lute again, I smashed the prone shaman with his own staff.

Back on the battlefield, Tyrael fired magic into Grixmax. The dracolich screamed its agony and rage, but not for long. Enolo, sword flashing, lay into it with the frightening might of a goliath. 2zard’s energy bolts kept the undead dragon staggered. Dalvin slashed at the tail with his flame blade while Nedwyn used her bow to pelt the dracolich with arrows.

“MORDO. CRUSH.”

The warrior sprang from an outcropping. His maul swung high as he leapt from the rock. It blasted Grixmax in the head and Mordo, with the head, dropped to the ground. Releasing his hammer, Mordo drew forth his sword and hacked through the dracolich’s neck. The others piled on, though I could not tell how necessary their efforts were. When they fell back in exhaustion, the dracolich moved no more.



* * *



“Leffe will be upset with us,” Dalvin said as we sorted through the loot of the fallen. “We didn’t kill the dragon in its lair. No horde of gold.”

“Not much gold at all since we got to Ellry, really,” I said. The others looked at me. “Not that that was my prime motivating factor,” I added, smiling at Mordo.

“Mordo know bard care. Bard too pretty to be bad guy.”

I smirked, not bothering to correct him.

“Friends,” Tyrael said. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we mustn’t believe that we’ve killed the dracolich. We’ve only driven it from this plane of existence, at best.”

“We knew that coming in, Tyrael,” Dalvin said. “But what do you mean ‘at best’?”

“At worse, its soul has found a new phylactery, where it will wait until it can influence the next fool to take it.”

That one stung a bit.

“Hold on, Horns,” I said. “That’s not what Bramblebraid said. He said if we could defeat it, it would be some time before it could manifest in this world again. In fact, he figured on getting some help from King Vargas to track down its phylactery and destroying it once and for good.”

The tiefling dipped his head to acknowledge the point. “Yes, that’s true. But keep in mind that should Grixmax ever return to this world, he’ll want to settle some scores.”

“Tiefling couldn’t just let us enjoy moment, could he?” Mordo said.

“Mordo!” Dalvin said. “That’s very good! You just used a pronoun correctly!”

“Mordo renaissance man.”

Sore, bloodied but finally feeling like a weight had been lifted, we descended the mountain together and made our way back to Ellry.




Epilogue


I looked around at my companions as we sat around the fire in the common room of Waltr’s Inn & Tavern. Leffe, proving his twisted sense of humor, had joined us with Westendorf’s help; the dwarf sported two peg legs. Unable to contain myself, I burst out laughing.

“Wot’s so funny, Ander?” Enolo said. He took up an entire bench to himself, and the tankard in his hand looked like a thimble. His tone showed genuine interest and no defensiveness.

“You. Leffe. Us, all of us,” I said between giggles. “This is the oddest lot of beings I’ve ever seen. A noble half-giant paladin, a human warrior with a speech impediment, a gnome druid, a halfling rogue, whatever the hells 2zard is, Horns over there, a dwarf with two peg legs, a bookish wizard, and me, the face that tells the tales. How in all the realms did this happen?” I fell into a fit of giggling. The others, thankfully not insulted, joined me.

“If it works, it works,” Enolo said, smile wide.

“Here’s to the Oddlot, then,” Westendorf said, offering up his wine glass.

“To the Oddlot,” we said, raising our own drinks.

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11: The Third Hag
We sorted ourselves out. With Leffe in such rough shape, he was in no condition to continue on with us. Dalvin, his oldest friend, volunteered to stay with the maimed dwarf, using what he could find in the skull cave to nurse him. While Nedwyn had great interest in exploring the skull caver herself, we convinced her that shiner things laid ahead of us, if she and 2zard were willing to help us finish the third hag.

“We might find information on how to get you home, too,” I offered. Strangely, the couple didn’t really find that an urgent need. Nedwyn seemed comfortable where ever she was, and 2zard was happy to follow her lead.

“Well, maybe we’ll find some other sort of magic on the third hag.”

“Magic?” 2zard said. It was hard to tell by his robotic voice, but the size of his eye lights increased to show I’d piqued his interest.

So, leaving two of the people I’d known the longest in this part of the world, though honestly it hadn’t been that long, I trooped off with: a half-giant paladin, a half-possessed human warrior, a slightly demonic looking tiefling sorcerer, a fully-chatty halfling rogue, and whatever the hell a warforged wizard was. And here I thought I might not fit into an adventuring company.

We got to the edge of the cliff and rigged our ropes together to allow for the fifty foot descent to a cave entrance in the sheer face of the rock wall. Nedwyn and I slid down together first, the most silent of the group. Enolo followed and somehow managed to keep his armor from clanking. 2zard and Tyrael came next, with Mordo bringing up the rear.

I almost called out to stop the warrior, for what I saw in the cave frightened me. The center of the chamber had been mostly filled by the enormous ribcage of a dragon. If I was a betting man, and I am, I’d have wagered that we found the bones of Grixmax. Bringing his soul back to it from within Mordo sounded like a bad idea, but then if he was topside with the ropes and our only escape, we’d be in potentially worse trouble.

Also in the cave, the nightmare nuzzled the third hag, a wretched and shriveled mockery of a woman. The hag turned to yell at something else flying around the high ceiling.

“That’d be an imp, less I missed my mark,” Enolo said.

“Imp!” the hag screamed.

“Told ya.”

“Imp! Get down here and get ready,” the hag continued. Then turning to where we hid, she smiled at us with rotten teeth. “We have company.”

Enolo and Mordo charged, seeking to end the hag where she stood. The old crone proved more agile than they figured, and easily side stepped them. She grabbed the mane of the nightmare as it bound toward the ceiling of the cave.

We moved in. Those of us with missile weapons switched to them, scoring minor hits on the hag and the nightmare.

The imp interposed itself between us and our targets. I felt a wave of something come from it, a charm. Again, my mother’s ancestry gifted me, this time with immunity to such magic. Tyrael, though, had no such luck.

“A unicorn!” he exclaimed. “How lovely!”

I checked the others and suddenly understood why I had seen a wall in the skull cave. 2zard enacted a spell that covered him with rocks similar to the cave around us. It must have been his illusion of a wall that fooled me.

Nedwyn, like me, had also not been affected. She dodged as the nightmare came swooping in. I fired a bolt that missed.

Nedwyn dropped her bow. “This thing will never bring down that big sucker! Hey, Mordo! Get me up there!” Mordo complied, heaving the halfling up at the nightmare. Nedwyn switched weapons, grabbed a hoof and badly wounded the Nightmare with her halfling-sized scimitar. Weaken by the cut, the nightmare shuddered and fell, dipping low enough that I could make a grab for it. I missed it, but snared the hag’s leg. Though we shot back up into the air, I tried to mimic Nedwyn’s heroism and land an attack with my rapier. I missed, but as the nightmare banked, I flipped up to mount the Nightmare myself.

I wished I hadn’t. Out of the pile of rocks that now hid 2zard, arrows of pure energy shot out and slammed into the nightmare. The hellish beast screamed. The hag screamed. Nedwyn may have screamed, but I couldn’t hear her over my own squeal. The nightmare’s head lolled to the side and we crashed to the ground. In a rare bit of successful swashbuckling, I flipped off the dead thing’s back and skidded to a perfect landing.

Nedwyn wasn’t as lucky, though she did manage to avoid the nightmare falling on her. She bounced off the ground and lay motionless. The hag landed the best of us all, some twenty feet away from me. Rage filled her awful face. She lifted her leg high in the air and drove it through the illusionary rocks. They disappeared and I could see she had pinned 2zard to the ground with her foot.

I checked to see where my companions were, if someone was closer than me. Tyrael, hands down and looking thoroughly enamored with the imp, was completely defenseless when it sank it’s claws into his arm.

“Why, Unicorn? Why?” he screamed as the imp’s claws pierced his flesh.

Mordo was closer to the hag and 2zard. He tried to hack off the leg that pinned the warforged, but the hag lifted it and flipped around him.

Enolo’s stony face gave way to a rage of his own. I supposed that as a paladin, the radiating evil of the rogue, the imp and the dracolich combined to drive him into a fit. He swung his sword with a force so mighty it was scary. Unfortunately, he lacked control. Mordo took the blow in the chest, a small dent forming in his armor.

“Ugh. Gross,” 2zard said as he slipped around the ichor of the dead nightmare. He launched his metal first into the hag’s jaw, snapping it around. He was no warrior monk, though, and scurried away as the hag snapped her head back. He roused Nedwyn.

“Fools!” she hissed like something out of the evil overlords of my stories. I expected her to run down our failings next, but she surprised me. “Why do you fight me, your loving goddess?”

Huh? What was she playing at? Then I felt a wave of magic like the imp had exerted, another charm. Again, it had no effect on me, but my two biggest allies could not claim the same thing. The rage faded from Enolo’s face, replaced by a look of utter love. Mordo’s sword dipped and, while not necessarily enamored with the hag, he definitely looked stunned.

“Oh, my handsome goliath,” the hag said in a tone meant to be seductive. “Do me one little favor? Kill this fool! Release the master!” She pointed at Mordo.

To my horror, Enolo reared back and plastered Mordo with a shield slam. The warrior went flying, then stopped in mid air.

“Tyr bless it!” I whispered.

Mordo’s body surged with muscle and a non-corperal power. He hovered in mid-air, a darkness radiating from his body as his eye turned fully black.

“Yes! Yes!” the hag cackled. She danced with glee.

Nedwyn gathered herself and attacked the hag from behind, landing such a back-stab that it surely would have ended the life of any mortal creature. The hag, though she shrieked, seemed barely effected by the stab.

I was too far away to attack. I tried a different approach.

“My goddess, you are the very picture of beauty. Tell me your bidding! I will bring you the world if only you would touch me, hold me!”

The hag blinked and her head cocked. Her tongue licked her withered lips as she drank me in from head to toe, lingering somewhere in the middle, than back up again. I raised my hand out to her and ran to her, like a beau running to his lover on a warm beach.

“Come here, you sweet morsel!” the hag croaked, running to me.

Right before we embraced, I slashed my rapier up, opening an awful wound in her torso.

As she recoiled, her hold on Enolo broke. His head was spinning, though, so his sword missed the hag. 2zard stood up and pushed against Enolo. I hadn’t thought that he could be charmed, but there he was. He waggled his fingers and lights exploded in the ribcage like fireworks. “Give peace a chance, gentle giant,” he said in voice both spacey and metallic.

“Master! Master! Master has returned!” the imp chortled as it danced around Mordo. “Tell me your bidding, Master. Free me from the orders of this unworthy hag!”

“You traitorous dog!” the hag yelled at the imp. “I’ll banish you back to hell!”

The exchange between the two gave me a chance to disengage. No one needed to tell me that if the dracolich got free of Mordo and into its bones, our chance of surviving plummeted. I sang to inspire Mordo, filling his psyche, the real part of him, with a power with which to break free. It wasn’t much, but the only next thing to do was what Tyrael had suggested in the swamp.

Nedwyn tried to hag again, this time aiming for her hand. Her aim was true, and the hag’s hand tumbled away in a trail of black ichor.

The hag did not falter, however. She drove the long nails of her good hand into Nedwyn’s chest, and the little rogue arched in agony and fell away. Then, she turned to me.

“You’re beautiful voice won’t stop the Master,” she hissed. “Nor will your pretty face!”

He clawed hand cut through my cheek before I could parry. I fell three steps back and felt the hot blood gush from my face.

“No!” Nedwyn yelled. I couldn’t believe the halfling had such stern stuff in her. Again her scimitar slashed down on the hag, this time taking her other hand. Disarmed, or dis-handed I suppose, she could do nothing to deflect my rapier as it flicked in. She only barely got her head out of the way, but not before I cut off her nose.

“Mordo smash!”

Yes! The mighty warrior had once again asserted his indomitable will over the dracolich. Going with a classic, he brought his heavy maul down on the hag, shattering her back.

“My life doesn’t matter! You’ve failed!” the hag spat. Mordo’s hammer came down again and ended further conversation.

I took in the carnage. The final hag was dead. The nightmare was, literally, over.

“Where’s the imp?” I asked.

No one knew.

“Where’s the unicorn?” I asked Tyrael.

“Flew away,” he said sadly, holding his arm.

“Your face,” Nedwyn said.

“Your everything,” I replied.

We all dropped then, exhausted and feeling more wounds than we had a right to survive. No one was in danger of dying, even Mordo who’d absorbed two blows by Enolo. He wasn’t exactly healthy, though, and drank one of the potions we’d taken off the kobold shaman. 2zard saw to Nedwyn’s injuries. Tyrael needed nothing more than his wound cleaned up and a bandage.

Seeing no one else in greater need, I recited my poem of healing for my damaged face.

Enolo sat on a rock, sulking.

“What’s the problem, fella?” Nedwyn asked him.

“Me,” he said. “I’m supposed to protect my friends, and here I went and almost killed Mordo.”

“She charmed more than you,” I said. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“Also, no, goliath did not almost kill Mordo,” Mordo said. “Mordo feel pretty good.”

“You sure? You looked pretty hurt?” Enolo said.

“Nah, is good. Goliath not hit that hard.”

“Actually, you were in quite a bit of pain,” Enolo replied.

“Not really.”

“Yeah, you kind of were.”

“Nah.”

I cleared my throat. “Could we not provoke the guy possessed by a dracolich, in the dracolich’s lair?”

“Oh. Right,” Enolo said.

Though we badly needed rest, we dared not stay in the cave. We’d pressed our luck already by having Grixmax’s soul so close to its remains. We did, however, take a quick look around. I found a fine cloak of crimson and gold that smelled faintly of brimstone. Uttering a quick prayer to Tyr, I put it on. Other than continuing to smell of brimstone and making me look quite dashing, nothing happened.

More clearly, we discovered a macabre necklace. What looked to be a real eye had been encased in the pendant of a necklace. 2zard experimented with it and said it could be used to see in the dark.

Weary as we were, we took care when climbing back out of the cave. With our only other choice to try the treacherous swamp at night, we risked staying over in the skull cave. Dalvin greeted us and let us know that Leffe was resting and recovering, but had no great magic to reattach his feet. He had found some sort of magic bag and something he called a heartstone, a treasure from one of the fallen hags.

We took turns keeping watch throughout the night. When I finally got to settle my head down to rest, it was not without a strange dream.

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The original prompt that led to this story:


The wizard went to the rogue’s camp. The two had struck and unusual friendship, with the wizard performing minor magic for the rogue’s benefit, and the rogue acquiring a few odd trinkets that the wizard needed.

“Rogue, I need something different from you today, but you must promise not to ask why.”

The rogue looked up from the blade he was sharpening. “Say it.”

“I require a human skull.”

The rogue thought about it. “Aye. But only if you don’t ask why.”

“What?”

“You can’t ask me why I have them.”

“Agreed.”

The rogue went over to a chest and pulled out a sack. From inside the sack he produced seven skulls.

“Take your pick,” the rogue said.

“This one,” the wizard said after feigning shock. The rogue handed the wizard the indicated skull, and the wizard left.

The next day the wizard returned.

“Can I borrow another skull?”

“Aye, but it’ll cost you two copper, and two copper for the one yesterday.”

The wizard paid four copper and left with the new skull.

The following day, the wizard returned looking tired and repeated the request for a skull.

The rogue nodded, and after being paid two coppers again, gave the wizard a skull.

This happened three more days in a row. Each day, the wizard looked more and more tired. On the seventh day, the wizard appeared to be on the verge of collapse, but once again request a skull at the price of two copper coins.

“Not today, Wizard. The price has gone up.”

The wizard sighed, pushing a long tendril of hair back into the clasp that held it. “Name it.”

“The diamond you wear around your neck.”

The wizard had held the diamond for years. It was a rare token of sentimentality, a gift from a past lover. Now, however, the wizard no longer needed it. If need be, the diamond could be reclaimed later, if only the wizard could get the last skull.

“Agreed, Rogue. Don’t think your greed has gone unnoticed, though.”

The rogue inwardly chafed at the rebuke, but held a neutral expression.

“Then here is the last skull.”

On the eighth day, the wizard returned.

“What do you want now, Wizard? I have no skulls left to give.”

“Perhaps you have one more that interests me. Come with me.”

The rogue followed the wizard back to her chamber and therein were set seven slabs. On each slab was a decapitated body. Each body had one of the skulls the wizard had purchased from the rogue.

“What wicked necromancy is this, Wizard?” the rogue said through fear-clenched teeth.

“Behold.” The wizard tapped the skull at the head of the first body, that of a dwarf woman. The skull glowed an ethereal blue and then transformed. Flesh and skin, eyeballs, hair, all returned to form the face of the she-dwarf the rogue had known quite well.

“Karna,” the rogue gasped.

“Your old adventuring companion. Look again!” The wizard swept her bare arm at the next body. The glowing blue ethereal thread leapt to it, and then the next one, and the next one until all the heads had transformed into the faces the rogue knew well. All but the last, that is. The last was a man dressed as warrior, but the rogue could only guess who he was.

“All are your old friends, companions,” the wizard said. “Each died in your company. Quite a coincidence.”

The rogue, finding some semblance of his usual cool said, “Not the last one, the warrior. I knew him not.”

“Oh, but you did. In the ruins of the temple, you and your companions found what you had been hired to seek. You found the source of the necromancer’s power. Or so you thought. The door of runes resisted every spell, axe hit, and lock pick you had until you all made a fateful decision. Your companions combined their might to attack the door as one. The resulting explosion of runes killed each of your companions, and the necromancer’s champion behind the door. All dead. Except for you. Now, why is that?”

“I had not great spells and no mighty weapons. As you pointed out, my lock picks were useless. I stood back. After the explosion, I…I didn’t know what to do. Whatever eldritch power protected that door had reduced my friends to skeletons. In a daze I collected their skulls. I thought if I could lay them to rest, then they would find peace. But the necromancy stayed in their bones so that no burial mound would contain them. And so, I carried them with me, my burden, until my penance as a survivor was done. They haunted my dreams. I thought you meant to relieve me of that burden.”

“Oh, no Rogue. Here is no relief. Here is only retribution. Rise!”

The seven former corpses stirred.

The rogue sprang into action, his reflexes still keen after all these years. He moved faster than the risen dead, placing copper coins on each of their eyes. One by one, the bodies sighed and fell back into a peaceful repose.

That is, all but the last.

“What is this?!” screamed the wizard. “How have you undone all that I have woven in the eldritch energies?”

“My companions died penniless in that temple ruin. The necromancer’s energy had stripped everything from their bodies. They had nothing with which to pay ferryman in the Underworld and could not rest until the same hand that flayed them from existence paid their way. And with the coins you paid me, I paid their fare. For you are, as I suspected, that same necromancer who slayed them.”

“My, what a clever rogue. It took you long enough. But for you to blame me for their deaths, deaths that were the result of your meddling, is one outrage too much. And you have brought no coins from me for my champion. It is you who will pay.”

The warrior lurched from the slab and shambled forward, sword weaving dangerously back and forth. The rogue danced around the blade. One swipe, two swipes. On the third, the warrior surprised the rogue. He feigned a swipe and impaled the rogue in the side. The rogue twisted and fell away, pulling the sword with him.

“Finish him!” the necromancer shrieked. “Crush the rogue!”

The warrior did as he was commanded, for he was stuck in thrall between life and death. He had rested for a time, not finally, but had at least been free of the commands of the necromancer. It had been a respite. At one time, he had willingly served at her every whim, but that had never been enough. She had never returned the warrior’s love the way he had hoped. His last act had been to stand himself behind the door to buy her escape, one man versus seven. But the necromancer’s own magic had undone him, that and the meddling of the rogue and his companions. A sudden anger burned through the warrior’s otherwise emotionless body, and he lunged at the prone rogue.

As the warrior’s hand darted in, the rogue jammed the necromancer’s diamond into them.

The warrior stumbled back. The effect was immediate. The malevolence of the warrior melted. Dead eyes flared with real life as it beheld the jewel in its hand. Real blood coursed through the face. Haltingly, he turned and approached the wizard.

“My love,” said the warrior. He took the wizard’s hand and pressed the diamond into it. “For eternity.” The wizard’s eyes streamed tears and her lip trembled.

Then the warrior toppled over, finally at rest.

When the wizard/necromancer stopped crying some time later, she approached the fallen rogue.

“How did you know?”

The rogue had freed the sword from his side and had made a poor attempt to bandage the wound.

“I stayed for days at the ruins of your door, trying to figure out how it all went wrong. On one side of the doorway, my six mighty friends had fallen, blasted from existence. On the other, one man in armor and a sword. I thought ‘what fool would face seven heroes by himself?’ I dwelled on the thought for more than a day. The answer, of course, was a fool in love.”

The necromancer stifled a sob.

The rogue continued. “I stayed until I had no food, no water. I crawled out of there, no longer caring if I died. At one point, I passed out. That was the first time the spirits of my companions haunted me. Despair turned to rage. I would have revenge for their deaths. It drove me out of that temple and back to town. I planned revenge on the necromancer who did this, even as I sought a way to lay my friends to rest.

“Yet, one image stayed with me. One man against seven. One fool, one lover, sacrificing himself for his mistress.

“I journeyed far and wide, seeking rest and vengeance for my friends. Holy men and wise women gave me tidbits here and there. Eventually I had it all stitched together. I knew how to lay them to rest. The question of revenge still lingered. And I thought of the fool again. I could twist him into a monster, use the necromancer’s power—your power—against you by turning him into the means of your destruction.”

“But,” the necromancer said, “but you didn’t.”

The rogue coughed and blood came up. He wiped it on the stone floor of the chamber. “No. At some point the thought of revenge left me cold. I realized that to twist the life force of the warrior against you would not just harm you, but him. He had suffered enough in life, a fool’s love unrequited. He needed to rest as badly as my friends had. And so, I allowed him to rest. With that diamond, he fulfilled the one task he had remaining from life.”

The necromancer looked away, gathering herself before she spoke. “I took that diamond from his body. It must have cost him all that I had paid him. How did you miss it, rogue?”

“I didn’t. I saw it on him. Something told me to leave it. Perhaps the spirit world was talking to me even then.”

“I wondered what he had meant to do with that diamond for years. I wore it in memory of him.”

“You loved him too, in your own way.”

“I—I did,” the necromancer said. “But I never…”

“He knew. And now you have the diamond he meant to give you.”

“I do. And you have a sword wound that will end you.”

“Tis a fair trade. I am in need of a rest myself. If you’ll let me.”

The necromancer nodded. “I’ll do nothing to your soul or body.”

“My thanks. If you don’t mind, I’d like to try to make it outside. Always did love this time of year.”

The necromancer nodded and watched as the rogue crawled from her chamber, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Then, she sat with the diamond and her fallen beloved alone in the darkness of her chamber. One life had ended for her, finally, that day. At length, she stood up in the darkness and lit a single candle.

The next day, she emerged from the chamber, sealing it behind her. It would be a proper crypt now. No eldritch energy would corrupt those inside. She did not notice the blood trail up the stairs and out into the autumn landscape. Sometime later, she realized that she never did see the rogue’s body.

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10: The Skull Cave

The swamp gave way to solid ground that led up an incline. We could see the destination looming ahead, the bone white dome of the skull cave gleamed even in the clouded sun. I crept up to have a look. Annoyingly, Tyrael tagged along.

The cave did indeed look like the skull of some ancient and massive humanoid. It sat two stories tall, with the eye sockets forming balconies.

“Something’s inside the one socket,” I whispered to Tyrael. “I can’t quite make it out.”

The tiefling looked, but his eyes could be no sharper than those my ancestors had gifted me. His gaze shifted to take in the entire space.

“Look,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder and pointing. The nightmare grazed about four hundred yards from the cave. I waved the others to join us.

“Do we take out that nightmare first, so it won’t charge in?” Dalvin asked.

“I’d prefer to sneak by it, try to get the drop on the hags in the cave,” I said. “We have to hit them fast before they can muster their magic against us.”

“Nay, friends,” Tyrael said. “Let us use what providence has provided.”

“What you mean?” Enolo asked.

“The nightmare, of course. I’ll talk to it, get it on our side.”

“Those horns growing into your brain?” I said, perhaps a bit louder than I should have.

“Trust me, I know how to speak with this beast. If Mordo comes with me, the evil within him will cloak my true nature. He’ll be receptive, I promise.”

Before I could open my mouth in protest, Mordo nodded.

“Mordo ride nightmare into battle. Be truly epic.”

“Now wait a minute, Mordo,” I said.

“I better go with them,” Dalvin said, cutting me off. “I have a way with animals, you know.”

“I’m not sure a druid’s touch extends to a beast of evil,” I said, though I could tell they’d made up their minds.

Tyrael shook his head. “It wasn’t always evil, and it surely resents its indentured servitude to the hags.”

“Perhaps if bard play tune, help sooth savage beast,” Mordo said.

“Eh, fine,” I said. “You coming along, Enolo?”

“Not me. I won’t truck with evil. That bitty horsey couldn’t carry me no way, no how anyway.”

I nodded. “That’s fine. I’m not getting on it either. Wait for me, and we’ll approach the cave together.”

I played and hummed softly a tune I’d used before on skittish animals, though the nightmare was no nervous foal in a corral. The corrupted beast looked up, but remained relaxed. Dalvin approached first, speaking words to it in a language that only a druid would know. Tyrael with Mordo trailing moved in next. I held my ground, using the music’s range to my advantage.

I couldn’t make out everything Tyrael said to the nightmare because of my playing, but caught the gist of it. He appealed to the forced nature of the nightmare’s service to the hags, sympathizing and reasoning, showing it a way to break free of its fetters. Against all odds and reason, the nightmare bowed down a bit and let Tyrael and Mordo mount. I almost missed a chord.

Dalvin approached next and the nightmare seemed receptive—right up to the point where Dalvin, hand outstretch in a calming manner, tripped. He stumbled forward and his hand went right into the nostril of the beast. The nightmare flipped its head violently, and Dalvin went flying.

Amazingly, Tyrael maintained his control of the nightmare, despite Dalvin’s dazzling ineptitude.

“Up, my friend,” he called to it, and the nightmare leapt twenty feet into the air with ease.

“This…be…epic!” Mordo called as the nightmare ascended, then darted toward the skull.

“Tyr’s other hand!” I cursed. I hoped Tyrael had enough sense to circle a couple of times to allow the rest of us to catch up. I broke in a sprint for the skull, giving Dalvin a hand up as I went. Enolo saw his cue and crested the hill. The goliath’s long strides took him ahead of us quickly. I gauged the nightmare’s distance. Tyrael, whether he had meant to or not, was circling the cave.

The most surprising thing as we got closer was that fighting already resounded from in the cave. There was a lot of metal clattering, a high voice, and the cackling of a hag. Enolo didn’t pause to ponder it and dashed right through the mouth of the skull, the only ground level entrance way I could see. I charged in, too, but skidded to a stop.

A solid wall blocked the entrance to the cave. How had Enolo gotten around it? I touched it all over, searching for some trigger to a secret door, but could find nothing. As I stood back scratching my head, Dalvin finally caught up. Before I could say a word, the gnome ran right through the wall like it wasn’t even there.

“How in the nine hells…?” I touched the wall all over again, but could not figure it out. My thoughts turned to the only other entrances I’d seen, the eyes sockets of the skull.

As I stepped back out, I saw the nightmare dip down. Mordo shot himself off its back and through the cave’s left eye socket. Another tremendous clatter resounded from within. The hellish horse didn’t look content anymore. It flew straight up, and I could see that Tyrael barely held fast. I readied the spell I’d been thinking about since the fool had hatched his horn-brained scheme. Sure enough, I had a chance to use it. Tyrael fell of the nightmare as it soared away, and the tiefling tumbled through the sky.

I’ll give him credit. He didn’t scream. I probably would have. Still, he was in no position to save himself, panicked and flailing. I had to wait until he was in range, then releases my song-spell on him. His plummet halted immediately and he gently floated down, like a leaf fallen from an autumn branch.

Satisfied that the tiefling wouldn’t splatter himself all over the ground, I pulled rope and grappling hook from my pack, holdovers from our assault on the basilisk. I swung it and got a good hold the second throw, and started my ascent to the right eye socket. The sounds of the battle inside reverberated from the socket, forcing me to climb faster to get myself in the fight and help my friends. Another need stopped me as I pulled myself into the socket at the top of the rope.

Leffe had been hung suspended spread-eagle in the socket by his limbs. A rope pulled each arm up and out, and two more wrapped around the stumps of his legs.

“Tyr bless it!” I scrambled to the dwarf, cutting the ropes and lowering him gently to the ground. “Tyr bless it!” I repeated, searching the dwarf for a pulse. He had one, but it was faint. In addition to the amputations, he’d been baking in the sun for an unknown amount of time. Perhaps only the heavy overcast of the day had prevented his death. His lips were peeling and wrinkled with dehydration. I had my minor healing spell, but thought it weak against the damage done to the dwarf.

I had some of the potions we’d taken from the kobold shaman’s satchel after the second battle of Ellry. I grabbed one out of my pack and popped the cork. I opened the dwarf’s mouth and poured it in slowly, allowing him time to swallow. A moment later and his eyes flickered open.

“Water,” he croaked. I found my waterskin and carefully dripped some into his mouth until I was sure he wouldn’t throw it up. Then I let him drink more deeply, as his hands came up to take the skin.

“You’re going to make it, my friend,” I said. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“You’ll have to. I can’t exactly run away.”

I used the ropes that he had been bound with to form a harness for the dwarf, tying him to myself. Slowly, I lowered us down my climbing rope to the ground.

The fight had shifted outside. I peeked into the mouth of the skull, and that strange wall had disappeared. I followed a trail of blood and the sounds of battle to the backside of the skull. In a pond, my companions, plus a female halfling and, well, I didn’t know what in the world it was, had pursued a hag into it. The hag didn’t last long under the barrage of blows.

“That all of them?” I asked as I caught up.

“Nah. The third one wasn’t there,” Enolo said. “They always come in threes, hags do.”

“Leffe!” Dalvin shouted, chugging out of the water. I knelt down so that he could hug his dwarven friend.

“All right, all right. Take it easy. I’ve been near death most of the day,” the dwarf said, but he seemed a little choked up.

The female halfling waved to the group. “Hi! I’m Nedwyn, but lots of people call me Ned! You can too! Say, why does your friend not have any feet? Can you believe it, we killed two hags! Wow, I wonder if they have any cool stuff on them. I’ll go look.” She nearly got by me. I was so dazzled that she’d got all that out in one breath that it took me a second to understand.

“Hang on a second Nedwyn,” I said. “Just who are you and exactly what is that?” I said, pointing to the other newcomer. The most familiar things about him was the wizard robes and hate he wore. His face, if you could call it that, was something I hadn’t ever encountered. It was all metal and not merely a mask. It had a mouth slit and lower jaw, and some shape of cheek bones forged into it. The eyes were two glowing lights. The hand that held a staff had only two fingers and a thumb; it was the same metal as the face.

“Oh, that’s robot. I mean, he’s not a real robot. And he has a name. But you can just call him robot.”

“What in the name of Tyr’s justice is a robot?” I asked.

“It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on,” called Tyrael from atop the skull cave. He’d finally landed.

“You’re one to talk,” I yelled back.

“Permit me to introduce myself. My name is 2zard,” 2zard said in a metallic voice. “I am a creation known as a warforged.”

I searched my considerable memory of odd lore. The term warforged did not exist. I looked to my companions, but they shrugged.

“Nedwyn and I come from a different place, world I believe, altogether,” 2zard continued. “I think it had something to do with a ritual the hags botched, but I’m not sure.”

“You said you’re a creation. Like a golem or construct?” Tyrael said. He’d produced his own rope and slid down to join us.

“No, not like those things. They are simple, not able to think or cast spells like I can. I am a fully cognizant being of a race now recognized in our home land, or world perhaps I should say.”

I looked at Enolo and nodded toward 2zard. Enolo nodded back. I glared at him. He smiled. I was getting the impression that while Mordo played at being dumb, Enolo might be the real deal.

“Check him for evil,” I said.

“Oh, right!” the huge paladin said. He looked 2zard over. “Nope, he’s good.”

“You can tell just like that?”

“Usually.”

“Usually?”

“Hey, 2zard’s not evil! Neither am I. Well, I like shiny things. Maybe a bit too much. I sometimes pick them up to look at them better, and forget to put them back. But I don’t mean to! I mean, I don’t really make an effort to return them, but they probably weren’t important to anyone anyway. Like this one time—”

“God’s bodkin, girl! Enough!”

“What were you doing in the hags’ cave?” Dalvin asked more gently than I could have managed at the time.

“Dunno. One minute we were bopping along, doing our thing, when SHMOOM! A portal opens up out of nowhere! Sucks us right in and spits us out in the cave. The hags looked as surprised to see us as we were to see them. Didn’t stop them from tying us up, though. We got free right before that giant fellow charged in, and the dark-eyed one fell from the ceiling.”

Dark-eyed one!

I turned to regard Mordo, who to this point had seemed his normal self. Though he didn’t levitate or swell with muscle this time, his eyes were mostly black again.

“Ander, that’s the key!” Dalvin said. “The first hag, before she died, laughed and said it was too late, that their master had returned. I think she meant Mordo.”

“Mordo, you in there, big fellow?”

“Mordo. Here,” the warrior managed with some effort.

“You alone in there?”

“No. But in control.”

“Oy, look at the nightmare,” Enolo interrupted, pointing up into the sky. I’d forgotten about the foul beast. It circled us once, then flew off to the east. Diving steeply toward the ground, I thought that it had crashed. I realized that the land gave way to a cliff at that point.

“Where’d it go?” Dalvin asked.

“My guess,” Enolo said, “is to the third hag.”


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