Strangers Among Us
A/N: First, a word of explaination. This is a crossover fic, between Velgarth/Valdemar and the Exalted game setting. I have to tried to keep in mind that not everyone is familiar with both settings as I wrote.
Now, the standard disclaimer. I do not own either Valdemar or its characters, I just visit now and then thanks to Mercedes Lackey. All Exalted references and settings belong to White Wolf Publishing. Justin Nightbringer is Dave Barrett's creation, as Shiarra and Katriana are mine.
Valdemar
Karal sat cross-legged on his cushion in the garden, praying. His heart was heavy and sore, and he had finally turned, as he had been taught all of his life, to Vkandis for comfort. He didn't pray for answers so much as he prayed to see the answers that were surely there already.
We have suffered so much, already, he thought. Karse, Valdemar, Hardorn. We are afraid, Lord, and this time we have no clues, no idea of where in the world to look for answers.
:And so you must look out of this world.
The thin autumn sunshine that bathed him grew suddenly warmer, and despite his worry Karal smiled, and turned his face up into the warmth.
"Lord," he whispered. "You have seen our need. Mages, Heralds, Artificers—all have failed to find even a cause for our troubles, much less a solution. And so we priests must now ask for guidance, for we are all at a loss."
The warmth multiplied, and the light grew. Suddenly Karal was standing surrounded by the Light. He did not wonder to find himself here; he had been here before, though not so often that he was anything but honored.
:We have heard your plea, Karal—yours and all others.
Karal started and turned—that voice was certainly one he had never heard in Sunheart before! Before him he beheld a woman, dressed head to foot in black silks, a strange shadow on the unblemished radiance of this Place. Her voice was a sorrowful symphony, and her eyes in her beautiful face were black, without pupil or iris, but holding a sprinkling of stars, as if they were windows onto the eternal night sky.
"Lady…" Karal's voice was reverent, and he bowed respectfully. "Kal'enal."
:We have come, said the Star-Eyed:because you will not find the answers you seek anywhere inthis world
Karal frowned. "Is this evil some demon from the Abyssal planes, then?" he guessed. "Or—"
:No. That was the solemn voice of Vkandis, as much in his head and heart as in his ears. :Not merely another plane, another world. One with its own laws, its own people, its own gods. Less kin to this, your home, as you are to a lizard, yet as alike as one grain of sand to another.
Karal sucked in a quick, nervous breath. (Never mind that it wasn't strictly necessary, here; sometimes, you just needed a good deep breath.) "Then, what can we do?"
:Because you have asked, and because this is need, we can intervene, the Lady told him. :We will arrange for help to arrive. However, it will be up to you to persuade him.
Karal bowed again, both grateful and fearful. "Thank you both," he said fervently. "We shall do our best to justify Your faith in us."
Their voices were mingled in his ears as the radiance dimmed and Karal found himself back in the garden, in his familiar darkness.
:We know you shall…
The Forest Refuge
Justin reclined on the grass outside of his manse, watching the women he loved. One was a tall redhead, with exotic copper skin and a lush figure. The other was a slender dark haired creature of subtle curves and extraordinary grace. Three children played boisterously around them, swarming over the women and making enough noise for six.
"Enough, enough!" the dark one called. "I surrender!" As the pale-haired girl who had "captured" her squealed in victory, she extracted herself from the cage of arms and began strolling leisurely over the verdant lawn toward her husband.
"Had enough?" Justin asked lazily.
"For now." Katriana lowered herself onto the grass next to him and laid a hand over her round belly. "The little one keeps shoving his toes into my ribs."
Justin laid his hand over hers, and was immediately rewarded with a swift kick. "I'm glad," was all he said.
She knew what he meant. "I know." And she leaned in to kiss him.
Only to have the moment spoiled when Kazhir and Dunuzial pounced on them from both sides, shrieking with childish glee.
Later, when the children had been left in the care of Verging Thicket, the manse's guardian spirit, Shiarra laid her own hand on Kat's belly and whispered a simple charm. Justin waited impatiently while his sister assessed his wife's condition.
"Well?" he asked when she opened her eyes again.
Shiarra smiled at her brother. "She is fine. The baby is fine." She gently touched the back of his hand before turning back to Kat. "Simple foods, plenty of rest, and whatever exercise you feel you can manage."
"How much longer?" Kat asked plaintively.
Shiarra laughed. "Babies come when they are ready, trust me," she said. "But I'd say that you should be a mother by Ascending Fire."
"Two more months." Kat sighed. "I still don't understand why it has to take a year—" She broke off as something seemed to ripple through the air around them. All three of them felt the sudden change in the manse—but none of them could identify it.
Shiarra stood, and the golden half-circle on her forehead began to glow as she invoked the All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight. Justin and Kat rose from the living moss that cradled them, as Verging Thicket materialized in their midst.
"Master," the spirit rustled, "there is a disturbance."
"Show me," Justin said coldly.
Verging Thicket led them to the hedge-wall that surrounded the manse's Hearthstone chamber, the center of the manse's power. Shiarra hissed as her enchanted sight revealed the arcs of Essence that were anchored to the chamber doorway.
"Don't touch it," she said absently, moving a little closer to examine the phenomenon more closely.
"Wasn't planning to," Justin said tersely. Kat laid a hand on his arm.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's…it's like the House of Doors…only temporary," Shiarra said. Cautiously, she reached through the magic that showed itself to her as a startling rainbow shimmer. The Essence reacted, swirling around her hand—almost angrily, she thought.
"It's keyed," she realized, and turned to Justin. "It's keyed to you."
Justin raised an eyebrow. "A portal, like the House of Doors, keyed only to me, put here by who-knows-what-sorcerer, that leads who-knows-where?" He snorted. "I hope no one expects me to just step through."
The women smiled. "No one who knows you, certainly," Shiarra said. She turned back toward the eerie portal, and saw that the edges seemed to be unraveling. "I don't think it will last much longer," she said.
Kat stepped around Justin with her head cocked curiously. She could feel the change in the manse's energies, but unlike Shiarra she had no particular ability to see Essence. "How much longer?"
"I don't—no!" Shiarra Saw the energies of portal react as Kat came near. She tried to interpose herself between them and the other woman, but the coruscating Essence ignored her completely, wrapping around Kat and pulling her into the archway. There was a sizzle like lightning and the stench of cordite, and Justin and Shiarra caught a brief glimpse of a forest beyond the arch, a forest decked in the colors of autumn rather then the green of high summer.
"I though you said it was keyed to me!" Justin glared at his sister, automatically shifting into a fighting stance.
"It is!" she cried. "But…the baby," she realized. "It's your baby, so the magic assumed—"
Before she could finish, Justin leaped past her and through the portal. Again, the crack and sizzle, and as she blinked her eyes clear she Saw the portal's Essence unravel itself, leaving her alone in the Forest Refuge.
Arrival
It was like stepping off of a cliff—a disorienting fall through blackness laced with brilliant bolts of Essence. Those bright ribbons grabbed him and hurled him through the Void for an eternal instant before depositing him in a pile of red and gold leaves. Justin staggered in spite of himself, retching as his stomach protested the violent journey. But in a moment the sickness passed, and he looked around frantically for his wife.
He didn't have to look far. She sat propped against a nearby tree, her fair skin pale as milk. From the looks of it, she had lost her battle with her stomach on arriving. Justin hurried over to where she sat, his worry easing only slightly when her eyes fluttered open.
"Justin…"she murmured. Then her strength seemed to return and she sat up and frowned. "What happened? Where in Creation are we?"
"It was a trap," he replied tightly, shaking now with fury. "Someone set a trap for me, and it caught you. Or the baby…Shiarra said that the magic couldn't tell the difference."
Nodding to show she understood, Katriana struggled to her feet, wrapping an arm around her awkward heavy belly. Grimacing, she used her foot to shove leaves over the evidence of her sickness, then cocked her head to examine the area of their arrival.
This forest was old, with a cathedral-like stillness about it that Justin had come to associate with places of power. But any power here was sleeping in the twilight stillness, quiescent; the trees themselves seemed to drowse beneath their colorful autumn coats. As the pair took a tentative step forward, Justin realized that it was also beautiful. And though it lacked the amenities of the Forest Refuge, he felt welcomed by this place.
Until suddenly all of his senses shouted "DANGER!" His hands automatically came up defensively as he turned and beheld a creature stepping out of the trees. It was at least nine feet tall, and it walked like a man, but it had four arms and a head with a bestial snout. It sniffed the air, and growled, showing mouth full of strong pointed teeth.
Justin automatically shifted to put himself between it and Kat. It circled the pair slowly, and Justin realized that the joining of its legs had only smooth skin. There was no sign of any genitals, nor any sign of a navel on its bare belly. That was significant, somehow, but he couldn't quite figure out how before the thing roared and charged.
There was a flurry of silk and a sparkle of essence beside him as Kat leaped into the nearest tree. Justin stood his ground, waiting until the last possible moment before spinning out of the way and aiming a deadly punch at the thing's kidneys.
It was like striking a lump of clay. The creature ignored him entirely, slamming its body into the tree where Kat had taken refuge. The tree shook under the impact; Kat gasped and clutched at the branches. As the creature raised its arms to strike again, Justin flung himself at its back, his fingers hardened by essence, capable of punching through armor.
His hands sank deep into its spine, and it roared in rage, but there was no blood as Justin pulled his hands out of the wound. He barely managed to avoid its retaliatory strike, rolling to the side as it attempted to grab him with its oversized claws. The gaping hole in its back seemed not to affect it as it reached up and ripped a branch off of the tree where Kat sat.
Now armed, it flung itself at Justin, swinging its improvised club. It was fast, much faster than it should have been. It's some sort of construct, thought Justin, evading another swing of the club, a magic-made thing. There were ways of dealing with those—but Justin didn't know them, and he had the vague idea that the methods were different for every type of construct. But he did know that they were not vulnerable to ordinary wounds—you could not sever an artery, or hamstring it, or cripple it with strikes to its pressure points.
Well, then…I guess I'll have to do it the hard way…
He channeled more essence through his body, making himself faster and stronger. With the preternatural alertness granted him by his charms, he was aware of Kat flipping out a pair of paper fans. The deadly little toys hung in the air, spinning and flirting like leaves on the wind as Justin avoided yet another blow, sliding like a shadow over the ground. He came up beneath the creature's reach and hammered at its body, then ducked and rolled again.
Katriana's fans darted forward, slicing at the beast's throat. It gagged, but the wound still refused to bleed, and the beast leaped at the tree, reaching for the woman with two of its clawed hands and swinging the branch with the others. Kat scrambled out of its reach, hampered by the branches that tangled in her skirts, as Justin aimed a flurry of blows at its unprotected flank.
Its body seemed to crack or break under the stress of his punches, but the onslaught had left him open, and Justin found himself flying through the air as it swiped at him, knocking him into another tree. Justin picked himself up and shook the breath back into his lungs—
Just in time to see Kat's foot slip on the branch she was standing on—
And the beast grabbing her, dropping its club to hold her with its upper pair of arms as it raked her body with its lower pair of claws.
Cold settled over Justin then, the cold determination that made a lie of all emotion. There was no love in him, no hate, and no fear. There was only a target, and the certain knowledge that it. Would. Die.
He burned essence recklessly, the indigo shadows of his anima wrapping around his body, hiding his movements from the creature as the image of a ghostly white cobra rose thirty feet into the air and spread its hood over the burning darkness. The creature dropped Kat like a doll, turning to face this new threat—and Justin hit it with fists hardened by essence, again and again. It tried to retaliate, but the cloak of his anima hid his movements from its eyes, and he danced around it, striking high, then low, first on one side and then another.
Again, Justin felt something yield when he struck. Cracks began appearing through its body as he drove his fists into its dun-colored hide. A lucky swipe sent the creature's claws across one arm, but he ignored it and pressed his attack.
He was slowly driving the beast across the clearing with the sheer force of his blows. It roared again and flailed about, but Justin avoided its wild swings and hit it in the center of its chest with his clasped fists—and suddenly, the creature broke apart and collapsed into a pile of clay and dust.
Ignoring the remains of his enemy, Justin hurried to where Kat lay, gently parting her kimono to check her wounds. They had already stopped bleeding—every Exalt could staunch the flow of their own blood with but a thought—and they seemed shallow as well. But as he helped her to sit up, she winced and laid a hand over her belly.
"Justin," she gasped. "I think the baby—"
He laid a hand over hers. "Will be fine," he said.
Her other hand reached up to clasp his arm. "Maybe so," she said, "but I think she's in a hurry."
His eyes flickered to her belly in time to see it ripple beneath his hand. "Are you sure?" he asked, alarmed.
"As sure as I can be," she said. Then she pointed. "I saw rooftops, when I was in the tree. Maybe we'll find help there."
"Or maybe they're responsible for us being here," he speculated.
Kat's jaw set as she levered herself from the ground. "Justin Nightbringer," she said fiercely, "I am not having this baby laying on the ground in a strange forest at night."
There was no fighting her. "All right, then." He offered her his shoulder to lean on. "Lead the way.
Dirk woke with his Companion's urgent summons. As his wife Talia sat up, blinking sleepily and running a hand through her tangled curls, Dirk heard an imperious knocking on the door of his family's home.
"Who…?" Talia wondered aloud.
"I don't know," said Dirk, "but Ahrodie says someone's hurt, and not to be alarmed."
"Why would she say that?"
The Heralds were already hurrying through the halls as the talked, where Dirk's mother met them with a lighted lantern. As the knock sounded again, she threw open the front door, then stepped back with a gasp of shock. Immediately Talia knew why the Companion had warned them.
The figure at the door was wrapped in swirling shadow. Indigo, pewter, and all of the subtle shades of midnight swirled around a vaguely defined core. Whoever was in those shadows was half-carrying a young woman whose long wrapped robe was stained with blood.
Dirk said to his mother, "Ahrodie says the woman is injured, and in labor."
That decided the matter. Handing her lantern to her son, Dirk's mother stepped forward and ushered the pair inside. Talia squinted against the baffling display, trying to get a better look at the figure inside, but was forced to abandon the effort when her eyes began to cross. Dirk raised his voice, calling for servants, and followed his mother down the hall to the large main room.
Justin allowed the woman with the long braid of iron-gray hair to lead him and his wife through the halls of the farmhouse. The lack of fear these people displayed was curious, but he was grateful for it. Kat was quickly settled on a couch near a large fireplace, where a sleepy-eyed girl was already blowing up the coals as another brought a kettle of water and hung it on the iron hook to heat. The woman in charge—and there was no doubt in Justin's mind that she ruled this steading—began to gently but efficiently strip Kat's clothing away from her, exclaiming over the raw wounds revealed. Just then, Kat cried out as another contraction seized her, and the woman's eyebrows rose. She turned and gave further orders, and suddenly Justin found himself pushed aside by the small army that trooped around the couch.
Before he could force his way back to Kat's side, he felt a hand on his arm and turned to face a small woman who looked like an oddly bleached-out version of Katriana. Her curly hair, still tangled from sleep, was a rich red-brown, and her hazel eyes dominated her sweet, heart-shaped face. Her voice was calm and soothing as she spoke, and though he couldn't understand the words, he allowed himself to be led to a chair on the other side of the fireplace.
"Is this your first child?" Talia asked as she handed him a cup of tea and perched on the hearth next to him.
The concealing shadows had already started to fade, and she could make out something of his face as he looked at her and accepted the tea, taking a cautious sniff before swallowing the scalding liquid and replying in a completely unfamiliar language. But though his words were incomprehensible, his worry was quite plain to the Herald, and she patted his hand, deliberately soothing him with her words backed up by her powerful empathy.
"It's all right," she told him. "You came to the right place. Dirk's mother is a Healer."
Justin didn't know why the woman's touch should sooth him—he was never quick to trust—but he found himself relaxing a bit as she continued to talk. He refused to look at his companion, keeping his attention focused on the couch where Kat lay surrounded by women. That did not keep him from being perfectly aware of the moment when the tall blond man who'd met them at the door joined them, crouching to put his head on a level with the woman's. There was some low conversation, which Justin ignored—he couldn't understand it anyway, and that was another puzzle. He was at least passing familiar with most of the languages in Creation. This was obviously a civilized land, not some degenerate barbarian tribe, so why were they not speaking one of the common civilized languages?
Talia and Dirk watched, fascinated, as the swirling shadowy display around their guest's body gradually unraveled, revealing a slender man of medium height, dark haired and dark eyed, dressed in a simple tunic and pants that could have come from virtually anywhere. He was still haloed by a ghostly gray glow, but now a golden radiance emanated from his forehead, bright enough to read by. Dirk's mother turned briefly at the exclamations of the servants, but brought their minds back to the task at hand with a few sharp words.
"Seems to be going well," Dirk commented to Talia.
"Mm," she agreed. "I wish we could tellhim," she indicated their guest, who had yet to take his eyes from the Healer. "He's so worried—but he's also angry, underneath it, and I don't know why." The protocols drilled into Heralds kept her from probing further without good reason, but even without those protocols, she didn't think she'd get very far. "He's got shields the equal of any Herald," Talia said speculatively. "The only reason I'm getting anything at all is because he's feeling it so strongly."
"You're getting more than I am," Dirk admitted ruefully. "Of course, my best gift isn't Thought Sensing, but he's so closed off that if I wasn't actually looking at him, I wouldn't know he was there."
The woman in charge turned and beckoned imperiously to Justin, who rose to stand next to her as she made room for him at the head of the couch. His wife now lay swathed in a clean white sheet, and her indigo eyes were alert as she reached for his hand. He gave it, feeling the pain that she refused to voice in her grip. The woman tending her said something to Justin that sounded like a question; he could only shrug in reply.
Then the woman placed her hand over Justin's. Something touched him then, something cool and green that caressed that part of his soul where his Exaltation was seated. He felt that essence brush against his, and suddenly he knew what she was asking. Without thought, he opened up all of his reserves to her.
His essence flowed, not to the woman, but to Kat. Though her grip on his hand did not ease, the lines of pain left her face, leaving it serene as another contraction rippled beneath the sheet. One of the women at Kat's feet exclaimed excitedly; Justin found that he did not care. This was not the dispassionate cold of battle, but rather an all-encompassing peace that left no room for worry or fear. Somehow he knew, with a certainty he had not felt since he was a very small child that everything would be all right.
The woman removed her hand, and the feeling dissipated, though something of that peace still lingered. There was a flurry of activity at the foot of the couch, a sudden sharp squall, and suddenly a small squirming bundle was placed in his arms. Justin went ridged with shock, staring at the small wrinkled face that gaped up at him. It looked red and squashed and not very much like a person. But the eyes that stared into his were the same molten blue as Kat's, that incredible shade of the sky just after twilight and just before true night. As the baby's indignant howls subsided, Justin found his arms relaxing, cradling the child against his chest.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" Kat struggled to sit up as the bevy of attendants swarmed around her with clean towels and warm water.
Justin took a quick peek under the blanket. "A girl." He looked back at his wife. "How do you feel?" he asked softly.
"Tired." Her lips curved softly as he knelt beside the couch. "I feel like I could sleep for a week—no, you keep her," she added as Justin tried to hand her the baby. "I think…I'm so tired right now…I might drop her."
"You wouldn't," he murmured. "But I'll hold her."
He stood back a little as the women helped Kat sit up. Someone brought a fluffy dressing gown, and as they wrapped Kat in it, Justin stopped them with a sudden word. As they paused, he pulled aside the sheet and looked at Kat's side where the creature had raked her with its claws.
The skin there was smooth and unmarked. Justin looked at Kat in dumb surprise, and then at the woman in charge. She smiled serenely, nodding her head in response to his unasked question.