Most of these characters aren't mine, but I'd give some of them back, if asked nicely enough. The Commander is mine, and names were changed to protect the innocent.

x x x

--Shard-Bearer and Commander

Freezing and burning up, the fight went on and on. The shard sword throbbed in her hand and chest, pulsing in their joint hatred of this king of shadows. Weary. Weary of the killing, but unable to stop. Because to stop now, was to die. To stop now, was to waste all their sacrifices.

Stopping now, she'd have to remember the ones she was just forced to fight. The ones she'd thought friends, but so twisted now. Perhaps not all by choice, but that didn't make stopping them any easier. If they survived, maybe she could find out.

But she had to concentrate on the enemy and his tools, as much as she'd rather cry out at the unfairness of it all..

At last, at last, the king was dead.

Long live the shard-bearer!

She suppressed a giggle, afraid she couldn't stop.

Checking for her friends, she saw that Casavir was still standing, Khelgar was over a woozy Neeshka. She heard others moving or cursing behind her, but before she could look further, the floor..., no, the entire space began to shake with awe-inspiring rumbling of stone and earth. Horrified, the roof fell in front of her, crushing where her oldest friends had been an instant before.

Still turning, she saw emotion on even Zhjaeve's face, but the rumble repeated, killing the rest too. Her heart pounded, all she saw was white

x x x

I took a breath to scream a warning, a prayer, a curse, but I was alone. My friends were gone. I fell to my knees on the very soft ground in the dimness, to cry. Gone? Who was I kidding? They were really dead. Even magic armor or protections wouldn't help against that big a rockfall.

I didn't really care where I was, or if I was alone, or safe anymore. I could only mourn them all, and all the things they were: laughs, stories, jests, tragedies, affections, and even the endless bickering. I somehow thought there'd be an after to fix things.

But even as I wailed and sobbed, a part of me still watched around me, honed by the long months on the road. Finally, my tears were exhausted, and I was lying on my back on what seemed to be a thick pile of fabric. I even felt like I slept, but I felt no more rested. I felt hollow. Even my Illefarn blessings had not refreshed for me.

I stood up on the uneven surface, and looked around. I was in a small, dim space, where the sounds I'd made were muffled. In one direction, there was a vertical line of brighter light. Still dim, but brighter.

Feeling nothing anymore, I walked over to it carefully. Pushing against it, it parted to reveal a tented room draped in shadows. An oil lamp hung from above. A table with black cloth on it held the center of the space, with a heavily draped and veiled woman on the other side. There was an empty chair on this side.

With a feeling of inevitability, I crossed to sit.

In a soft voice, she gestured to the deck of cards in front of her and said, "Welcome, Commander. Cut"

I cut the deck of cards, and noticed my hands were clean, and my sleeves unmarked. Looking at myself and feeling my face, I was surprised to find I was uninjured, clean, and wearing plain and simple clothing. I had no other possessions, whether bag, wand, or sword.

The fortune-teller simply waited while I discovered this, with only her eyes and hands were visible in the mound of fabric she wore draped. But while Zhjaeve's eyes held compassion and occasional humor at our odd ways, this woman's emerald eyes were far colder, like winter ice.

Then she began to lay out the cards, but they were all swords and cups, a cacophony of meanings to even my inexperienced eye.

She had me take up the cards myself and shuffle them, and cut. Laying them out under her gestured direction, it was almost the same arrangement.

Once I had taken them up again, she had me show her my palm when finished. Then she stabbed me through my palm with a stiletto. She held it, dripping, over the cards so they were all stained, even as I tried to pull my hand away. Snarling at her, I pulled my hand back to myself, and removed the dagger.

I used the stiletto to cut strips from my tunic and tie them to my palm, using my teeth for the knot. It staunched the bleeding quickly. Too quickly. Flexing, my hand seemed only stiff. The blade disappeared from the table.

While I was doing this, she had shuffled the sticky deck, and placed it down upon the table again, on the surprisingly clean and dry cover.

"Cut," was all she said.

"I've had enough of your games. Who are you? Where am I? What is the meaning of all this?" I asked, with rising anger.

"The cards hold the meaning of your past and future..."

Eyes narrowing, I asked, "What about my present?"

Her voice had dark humor, when she said, "You have no present. Your body lies with the ten others in the swamp..."

This isn't the afterlife, or at least none the priests had ever described, I was nowhere I knew, and in need of direction. I cut the cards.

She turned over a swords card again but this one was the sword queen, enthroned, but so sad. Looking at her, she changed until she looked like me, down to my chain shirt and favorite long sword in my hand. The shard sword was leaning against the throne, sometimes it gave me the creeps, as tied to it as I was.

Another card was laid across the first, labeled Shadow, with dark tentacles reaching out of a pit towards an innocent pair of travelers. The two looked like myself and another, but the other kept changing, and faded away from me. The Shadow became a parade of Kings, unchanging.

I touched the card, but felt only bone numbing cold, and snatched my hand back.

Her eyes showed humor, still, and a glint of superiority.

But she spoke again, saying "Foundation..." Turning over another sword card, where a worn man is turned away from the battered and ornate sword on the ground. She said, "Refusing the call," even as the the image changed.

The bland and featureless land of the card became the Mere. A place just outside West Harbor and I was walking alone with that cheap weapon I'd started with. The sword on the ground now had the odd look of the Shard Sword, but "I" didn't see. This card kept changing as I kept walking away. It looked like I had reached a town or city, but not Neverwinter. Grim work in a seedy bar, I was nearly killed by some gith when the shard was ripped out of me. Most of the others in the bar also died, but I didn't care as I was nearly dead. I survived, crippled, to eke out a life, but never knew why the gith had come to me.

The fortune teller reached out and rotated the card, and it stopped moving, showing me bent and lame and wearing tawdry clothing.

x x x

She turned another card towards me, saying, "Distant past." But this was not one of the minor cards, as it showed a woman in rags fleeing through the forest. "Victim," she told me, as she became Shandra briefly, and then Alaine, as she ran.

Alaine arrived in a town, that looked like Port Llast to find shelter with the guard folk there.

We all arrived looking both grim and intimidating, to ask her about her nightmare. We looked ten foot tall and and brutish, except for Casavir. The room with the Guard's commander, was like a cave to her, with no way out. Sand looked strangely skeletal and vicious.

After she had spoken, reluctantly, she overheard our discussion of the coming trial, looking fearfully at us as we talked. Sand proposed using her, and both Shandra and Casavir objected. I took a long time to respond either way, and turned to look at her with such contempt, seeming to be angrily standing again amongst the corpses of the gith ambush in the living Ember. My voice was the crack of doom when I agreed with Sand.

But that's not what I said!

She rotated this card, and it stopped moving. On it, I was harsh and imperious, treading on tiny little victims.

x x x

She flipped another card, murmuring, "Gateway." Another major card, showing a temple with two knelt in prayer, she announced "Vigil," even as the priest on the card changed to become the statue of Tyr.

The one figure disappeared, and now I knelt awaiting the fight with Lorne. A parade of people visited me, including one that hadn't.

I could see and hear each of their offers: Casavir. all protective... Bishop, eager to kill any Luskan... Qara, wanting to prove her power to all the court... and Khelgar, militant in his outrage. This only reminded me of their fates, whether chosen or not, and I had to close my eyes.

Remembering that night of my anger and fear, I had to take a deep breath. I had killed often enough, even then, but I'd never had so long to anticipate it, and the fear had been trying to win.

Trying to escape my thoughts again, I opened my eyes and saw them all again in the face of the card. Over and over, earnest, snide, and blustery, they made their offers. But I was reluctant to have someone else clean up after West Harbor's disgrace.

I told myself it was because of Retta, but I'd always been afraid of Lorne. He'd always had a mean streak, and he'd beaten Bevil often enough. Though Bevil would never say anything, loyal to his family to a fault. And now Lorne let that viciousness free on the people of Ember. He was a blot on all of the people of West Harbor, not just his mother. I had to be sure, and I could not let the fear win, and turned them all down. I had to do this myself.

By this time she touched it, and the card had stopped moving, it showed me stepping into the archway of an arena.

x x x

She flipped another card to sit beside the last, so only my face and the archway could be seen of that card, saying "The Branching Path." The next word was only a whisper, "The Forging." The new card was labeled Justice, and changed almost instantly to Tyr's statue in the temple again. Again, I was being visited by the others.

But, each offer accepted lead to a different battle than the one I remembered. The preliminaries of this savage arena were over and I saw the four of them each fighting Lornes all at once. Their fights did not go well. Qara was quickly cornered after Lorne shrugged off some of her blasts. I winced when I saw her head bounce away, as I didn't hate her that much, even now. Khelgar, my oldest friend still didn't pay enough attention to avoiding hits, and Lorne got a lucky hit in too soon. He shouted his defiance to the last, and my throat grew tight. Casavir was more careful as always, but stumbled at the wrong moment. It was a small one, but enough. Bishop lasted the longest, ended up in a snarling, close quarters, dirty fight, falling himself to poison just after Lorne died.

In the other three, Lorne was finally killed despite his berserker fury, attacking others in the audience in his blood lust. I had been right to fight him myself, as he was sloppier against me, as he thought I was still the helpless little girl I was when he left West Harbor.

The fortune teller reached out and turned the card to a right angle, and it stopped moving, showing me kneeling by a bier, grieving.

x x x

"What is this for? Why are you showing me what might have been?" I had to ask.

She asked me in challenge, "Aren't you curious what might have been? These choices are long gone, and can't possibly affect your destiny, can they?"

"No," I admitted. There was no one left to save any of us, if there were that many bodies. This was only a stopover for me, I hoped.

The fortune teller reached out again, preparing to turn over another card, saying with a gleam, "the most interesting spot of most layouts..."

This card she placed above the first two cards, the Sword Queen and Shadow, saying "The Guardian or Destroyer." The card was another major card, showing two figures in a starlit bower; her announcing of "the Lovers" was unneeded. Again the one changed to look like me, looking happier than I'd ever seen myself, in water or mirror, for so damn long. Since the shards began to own me, far more than my home, my faith, or any liege lord.

I leaned back a little, afraid of who the other was going to become.

The boys I'd been with before all this started, appeared, and dissolved like ghosts. Replaced by all I'd ever thought attractive in some way while on this path, even if only for an instant. Nevalle, Sand, a nameless Greycloak, and others, all appearing briefly, before oscillating between Casavir and Bishop almost continuously. Each time I chose one and had a taste of happiness, the other became my enemy in some way. Our enemy.

Violence had become the story of my life. The guardian betraying, and destroyer saving. The guardian sacrificing, the destroyer murdering. The guardian murdering, and the destroyer sacrificing.

And my lover died. Over and over, until I shared my bower with only a skeleton.

Heart stuttering, I made one last choice, almost blind from tears, hardening my heart for the losses to come. Holding on to those fleeting moments of warmth and desire, snatched in the middle of this dark war.

Again the fortune teller touched the card, and it stilled. On the card, I was still in the bower, in tears, reaching out to the empty space beside me.

x x x

My throat tight, I just glared at the bitch. "You have no right to second guess my love life, as pitiful as its been the last couple of years!

"We were all chained to this war, one way or another. Some of us were even lucky enough, to not realize it. All I could do was hope there was something true revealed in that crucible, and we'd have an afterwards to pursue it. So screw you, and your voyeurism!" I shouted.

In a steady voice, she reminded me, "You cut the cards, your blood gives power to the reading. Do you want to understand your past and future?"

Something wasn't right.

"But I'm dead, you said. I have no blood to power spells!" I objected.

I ripped the linen bandage off my palm, and my hand was unmarked. Even though the cloth still showed blood stains.

She folded her hands on the table, and said, "Your blood, your soul, your essence. You brought nothing else here. Shall we continue?"

x x x

The fortune teller revealed another card, placing it right in front of me, saying, "Outcome or Destiny, the final space in the layout." The card showed a great battle, against armies, demons, or undead, it was all of these at once. The card named "Final Battle," "Dinamael," "Ragnarok," or "End of Days," depending on the instant.

I was completely unsurprised when the battling armies became both fewer and more horrible. Friends corrupted. False faces revealed. The Reavers were far less cruel to my heart.

The foul taint flowing from the king of shadows, oozing out like fetid swamp air, to twist too many of my companions, my friends.

My hands clenched, until I thought my nails would draw blood. My heart froze, seeing them allied with the end of me, after we had been through so much...

But as I saw them again now, outside the heat of battle, the sorrow began to win over the pain. The Shadow King had fought too often, to not know just how to divide and conquer his enemy. Do you hold the soldier at fault when the poison wins? When the flaws any mortal has, are exploited?

She interrupted the growing thread of my thought, "The Battle. Battle of the Shadow Mere..." and the card finally began to move, no longer sluggishly, and filled my vision.

We succeeded in our mission, that we'd so desperately fought for, but it was only a Pyrrhic victory, when the complex collapsed, just as I remembered it happen. And a new Battle card was placed on top of the previous one.

Bishop betrayed and killed me. Without the power of the shard sword, the rest fell, and the Shadow Mere spread. Another Battle card covered a still, dead Keep.

Garius killed everyone with a powerful spell, including the betrayers. The region was dead. Cities, farms, and rivers, all were the stillness of a crypt of undead. Another Final Battle card hid dead Neverwinter.

The Shadow King offered partnership, and weary, I accepted to become another one of his puppets. His Lich Queen, with guards made from my former companions. Another Final Battle card covered my cruel throne room.

Bishop fled in his rage, frustration, and hunger. With his loss, we did better in the fight, but only a frightened Grobnar and I were trapped in that small pocket after we won, to slowly starve. Crying and praying, after an unknowable time, I used the Shard sword for two last mercy strokes. Again a Final Battle card filled my sight.

Qara killed me, I killed Sand, Neeshka nearly decapitated me, Elanee led shadow beasts, the light of life fled Neeshka's eyes when I cut her heart out, the Construct broke Casavir, Neeshka was freed in time to fight, Bishop rejoined us only to die, Ammon and Zhjaeve blasted each other, Sand laughed a strange giggle when trapping an impotent Qara, Grobnar gloated while the Construct smashed Bishop, Elanee blocked one last attack on me and died in ursine form, both Ammon and Zhjaeve died and we couldn't use the true names anymore, a blue flamed Casavir killed me, I was the only one left standing to finish the king, I was alone and drained of all life...

After each one, the Final Battle card replaced the stilled outcome.

The only constants were Casavir, Khelgar, and Grobnar, always fighting the darkness until their own ends. I failed often enough to feel guilty.

The Final Battles came faster and faster. Sometimes the Shadow King would win, sometimes I would, but only Death won every time. Over and over. My friends, my chosen family, my loves, myself, all dead over and over. We defeated the King of Shadows most of the time, but there was no victory. Only pain and death, until I could taste my blood and feel my fingers, slick against my palms.

Another Final Battle, and I reeled. Another Battle, and my knees were wobbly. Another, my ears rang. Another, my bile rose.

Closer and closer together, until it seemed like the Final Battle card itself was moving with life. But I experienced and felt each one, in all its pain,

"Enough!" I shrieked.

I brought my clenched fists down, and the Sword of Gith came down in them again, slicing through the stack of cards and into the table. The table bled.

"Enough with these false choices! Enough with these damned alternate paths! Enough!" I screamed. "You! You are the problem here! What are you?"

The tip of the Sword had cut off her fingers, showing them to be really tentacles. The Sword was in my hands once more. I glared at her in concentration, willing myself to ignore the seeming. Shaking my head, the mound of veils and fabric became a more oozy, barely humanoid form.

The only thing that remained was the coldness of its eyes.

"Enough!" I said, only slightly more calmly to this planar. "Show me the only choice I could possibly have after death, not these pointless phantasms!"

It said, still calmly, "What is the only thing you have to trade with?"

That stopped me.

Whore and user, champion and mourner, widow; those alternatives were the results of choices long past. But it seemed my own Doom was still fluid.

"Only my soul," I heard myself say.

"What do you want?" it asked.

Aware of the fickleness of this kind of deal, but desperate to save those closest to me, I said, "My friends' escape and safe homecoming after we won against this King of Shadows..."

"Done!" it said.

And a gate appeared in the side of this strangely flesh-like and glistening cavern. Through the gate I could only see darkness, and I could feel the coldness flooding out of it.

I looked back at the once fortune teller, who had mockery in its eyes. "You cannot trade it all away in a single pure deal like that one... perhaps next time. Perhaps we will make another bargain sometime... soon enough."

I heard laughter, though I realized it had no mouth.

Looking back at my blood-priced gate, a dark tendril of cold from it touched me and numbed my leg. Lurching, losing control of my limbs, I took those last steps through, and fell, into the unknown.

x x

A/N: While this is similar to "This was Your Life," those were more about error. This was about the truth that things can always be worse than you thought, and some battles come at a terrible cost. Thanks to an old friend for a particular bit of staging that persistently sticks in my brain...