Marik Observant: The Man in the Mage

by Erico

Marik Observant is a fledgling Sorceror in search of a life worth living. Desperate for funds, he and his imp familiar will join forces with a veteran swordsman and a young healer on a quest to hunt down and destroy the Grey Shadow. Through their adventures and trials, he will find more than the life worth living; he will find himself. A story written in an original setting.

10. Nine: Detour of The Heart

Nine: Detour of the Heart

Western Samael's Lands

For the most part, the first leg of their trek through western Samael's Lands was uneventful. The main highways were well kept and guarded, so they met little trouble as they rode along on their rented horses.

"Of course, it won't be like this forever." Ness Benson reminded them, who had grown more and more somber the closer they came to Istus. "Once we reach the city of Denvale, we'll have to dismount and walk from there. The relay station will need our mounts back."

Marik, who towered over his companions normally, utterly dwarfed them sitting upon a horse. Morris flew in lazy circles around them all, watchful for danger but not all that concerned.

After all, Marik hadn't been feeling any headaches lately, which meant the Shadow was nowhere nearby. Ness had found the mages' ability to detect their assassin by "feel" curious, but welcome.

Rachel glanced about them, holding one hand against the saddle and her other clasped about the reins. Even now, she smiled and watched the world around them unfold in its beauty. The breeze played with her hair, and she shook her head to get it out of her eyes. "I think I've gotten used to walking, Ness. Do you think we'll meet any danger before we reach the borders of Istus?"

"I doubt it." Came the swordsman's stoic reply. His green cloak hung about his shoulders and draped over his back. It covered all of him but the hilt of his new sword, a masterpiece of craftsmanship called Brightflame. It had been a gift to him from Baron Denwyr Lastagorn in Lightfell, a gift whose only catch had been that Ness would use it to end the Grey Shadow's life. "Samael's Lands is generally peaceful. There will occasionally be an uprising of highway bandits, but those are dealt with quickly." He threw a glance back to Marik and smiled. "Given our prior experience, I'm not too worried about highway robbers anyhow."

Marik, who rode with his arms folded in his sleeves and his Sorceror's hand guiding the reins, gave so slight of a nod that it could almost be mistaken for just a vibration of the road.

Rachel patted the satchel that hung at her side. "If we do get into trouble, we'll be ready for it. I picked up a few more pouches of silver dust before we left Lightfell. I was also able to prepare ten vials of my blue healing potions, and another twelve of the greens."

"And the stronger batch is the blue stuff, right?" Morris queried, wanting to make sure he understood it. Rachel gave the imp a nod.

"The blue ones are stronger, yes. We won't be caught unprepared again."

"Twenty-two vials of healing elixir and a new magical sword?" Ness mused, rubbing at his chin. "I'd hope not. It's better odds going against the Grey Shadow than I've had in a long time."

"What is it now, eight years you've been chasing him?" Morris called out, flying beside his head as he darted on ahead of them and swept up into the air at the last moment.

Ness didn't reply right away, though. Whatever mirth he had seemed to fade, and he seemed to age in seconds. It was a startling picture for Rachel and Marik to see.

"Ness?" Rachel asked. "Are you all right?"

"Eight." Ness murmured, and shook his head. "Yes, it's been eight years."

Morris swung back and landed on his shoulder, giving Ness a wiggle of his ears. "It sounds like there's a story to this."

Ness gave Morris a cold stare. "Another time." He said firmly. The swordsman cleared his throat and motioned ahead of them. "We should increase our pace. Every moment we dawdle is another one that the Shadow gets closer and closer to Istus."

Not giving his comrades a chance to say anything in rebuttal, Ness Benson dug his heels into the sides of his steed and charged on ahead in an easy gallop.

Marik pulled alongside Rachel as Morris landed on the Sorceror's shoulder. A little miffed, Morris sniffed his nose and crossed his arms. "I wonder what that was all about." He muttered dejectedly.

Rachel, who knew that it was Morris who had said that, and not Morris passing along Marik's words, gave a soft shrug of her shoulders and pulled her red scarf tighter around her neck. "Something painful." She replied. "He wasn't like this when we first got to Lightfell, but ever since then, I've seen him getting more and more distant again."

"Curious." Marik rumbled, no longer feeling the need to use Morris to translate for him around her. "When did he begin to become so dismal?"

The young woman thought for a moment. The last few days had really been a blur to her. The answer was somewhere near, but out of reach, at that moment in time.

"When I remember, I'll let you know." She said with a shrug.

---

The Border City of Baraden

Istus, Continent of Ashra

Baraden didn't exist on the maps of Ashra. It was a township held only in rumor and preserved in secrecy. Of course, that had everything to do with the sort of business that was conducted there.

Hidden from the skies by a large overhanging ridge of land, its foundations laid in a cavern that time and the elements had carved over thousands of years, Baraden was a marvel of engineering and ingenuity. With glowflies acting as the city's lighting, swirling about in their hives on the ceiling, it was passably lit. A complex set of dams and culverts diverted the water from the seasonal rains into deep reservoirs that its inhabitants used to live off of, and further plumbing took the city's waste out through underground tunnels to the Ocean of Idane to the south. Other tunnels led to the caverns beneath Ashra; the places where men feared to go, but others trod regularly. The Banished, monsters almost indescribable, and countless others would occasionally pass through Baraden. Provided they did not seek to threaten it, they were allowed to come and go as they pleased, for a small fee.

That was where Baraden's business came into play. The city, a marvel of its time, was home, hospice, and den to some of the worst brigands and cutthroats to ever betray the night's tranquility. Partially in Samael's Lands and partially in Istus, it held allegiance to neither, but Istus certainly was more in line with the business interests of Baraden. It was home to the Mist Riders, a fabled group of assassins whose name sent dread into the hearts of goodhearted men and women.

That fact didn't escape the Grey Shadow's thoughts as he maneuvered through the damp, musty streets of Baraden. It had been approximately two months since he had last been here, and he had only stayed an afternoon before he grew tired and left.

Well, that and the fact that he had killed one of the Mist Rider's apprentices. It had been the stupid boy's fault, anyway; Taking on the assignment of trailing after him, in hopes of seeing what lay underneath the cold, gray iron faceplate. Out of amusement, the Shadow had let him think he was undetected; he killed him only after letting the boy see what he had been hired to see.

He still couldn't decide what had been more delicious; The look of utter surprise when the youth realized the Shadow had known all along, or the noiseless, openmouthed scream when the Shadow had taken off his faceplate and let him see the true monster underneath.

Naturally, the fool's death had won him the Mist Rider's open hostility. Still, they were nobody's fool; the Grey Shadow had made and kept a reputation as being one of the best in his line of work. While they let him know that he wasn't welcomed in Baraden, they didn't attack him openly. It just wasn't done.

Convenience and necessity had brought him back; Convenience, for entering into Istus through Baraden was a safer option than through the highways, and necessity, for his latest contracted employer had arranged to meet him here for the payment of that job of his in Sorvindal.

His latest job had been particularly harrowing on him. Had he known that the Cursed Blade would have caused him so much trouble by getting new, and capable companions, he would have stayed around with the orcs and killed Ness himself.

Hindsight, as they said…

Even in the relative darkness, the Shadow kept his tattered black shroud around him, hiding every part of his armored body except for the skeletal faceplate he wore, and his curiously sized boots. If he were to walk in at his full glory, shortswords clasped at his sides, he would have attracted far too much attention for his liking. At least this way, there was some element of obscurity to it. He wasn't the only sort of fellow who hid away in shrouds and cloaks, after all.

Although I've never seen anyone as cunning at hiding himself than that blasted Sorceror…

He frowned and let the thought pass, pushing into a well-lit alley. Ten feet in, there was a raised doorstop and a bolted entrance. He went up to it and lifted a gloved hand out of his shroud, knocking on the door with deliberately slow force.

A slot in the door, positioned for a pair of eyes, slid open to a gruff-looking set.

"Whaddya want?" Came the snarl.

The Shadow pulled the edge of his shroud back, revealing his masked face more clearly. The eyes did nothing, and the voice kept its edge. "He's expecting you." The slot slammed shut, and the door swung open. The Shadow calmly entered inside the tavern through the back entrance. The only people who used the front were fools who didn't mind being seen.

His contact was sitting up in the balcony of the dank, odorous tavern, swirling his finger through a half-empty snifter of brandy with utter disregard for the impropriety of the motion. His studded velvet robes, even covered by the thick and rough material of his cloak, gave him away. The ruby red ring that sat on his finger was an even more audacious means of identification, for rings of fireblasting were rare.

The Shadow casually took the seat opposite of him, waiting for his employer to begin the conversation. It took a few moments for the wiry middle-aged spellcaster to conclude his bizarre ritual before he finally looked up at the Shadow with an unsurprised look.

"You took the back entrance. I almost thought you might brave the front this time." He said.

"Save your Scrying for someone who cares, Arlemyst." The Shadow rasped back. "I'm here for my money."

Almost in disappointment, the wizard sighed and motioned to a brass lid sitting on the table. It was the kind used to cover dishes while they were being delivered to a dinner table. "Always so professional, Shadow? I thought we might stay and talk for a while." He said hopefully.

The Grey Shadow lifted the lid up and found a thick moneypurse underneath, filled with finger-sized gold ingots. Nodding appreciatively, he tucked his service fee away. He couldn't help but try and calculate how much he had spent just to get here, and how much he had thrown at all those useless buffoons and beasts he had paid to get in the way of his pursuers. Even with those expenses, he had earned himself a tidy sum. "Sorry, but unless you've got another job to discuss, our business is concluded." He summarized solemnly.

The wizard smiled, touching his fingertips together as he leaned on the table. "And if I did? Arlemyst Destane has many enemies, you know." That curious habit the mage had of referring to himself in the third person was something that had grated on the assassin's nerves from the moment they had met. If anyone had reason to speak in such a fashion, it wasn't this aging arcanist, that was for certain.

"Perhaps another time." The Shadow rumbled. "For the moment, I have other business to attend to."

"You've been chased out all this way?" Arlemyst mused, stroking at his chin. "Curious. I thought you were better than that."

The Grey Shadow narrowed his eyes into slits at that, but said nothing.

"Well, as long as you're here, could I offer you a drink for your troubles?" Arlemyst asked. "Something for the road ahead of you?"

"I don't think that this place carries…my brand." The Shadow said, growing tired of the conversation. Like all conversations with Arlemyst's kind, they were pointless, layered in fickle intrigue, and rooted in a sense of superiority that the Shadow found sickening and completely laughable.

"Too bad, too bad." Arlemyst said waving his hand about and humming briefly to himself. The motion seemed less than coincidental to the Shadow, and he found himself wondering if the man didn't have some hidden plot at work. It certainly seemed like he had cast a spell, but there was no immediate sign that he had.

The Grey Shadow stood up, tired of the brief meeting. "I believe our business here is ended." He rumbled, reaching out with his finely tuned senses about the tavern. No, he should have anticipated the possibility of danger, because whether he wanted it or not, there was clearly danger present.

Arlemyst gave him one of his insightful grins, as if some master plan was unfolding. It was a trap, the Shadow realized with calm realization. "I believe you're correct. You should think of a way to spend that money while you still can."

On the main floor below, and in the balcony, several of the tavern's patrons stood up, glancing towards the Shadow and the curious wizard.

The Shadow recognized them the moment that the closest knave, only six feet away, drew out an ornate dagger with a white stallion's head rising out of a cloud of mist engraved on the pommel. The Mist Riders. It figures.

He hadn't turned his head to see the danger, but he knew it was there anyway. Arlemyst had an odd smile on his face as he looked up to the standing assassin. "Is something the matter, friend?"

"Tell me something." The Shadow rasped, keeping his voice calm while he lowered one hand down to the hilt of his first shortsword. "Did you hire the Mist Riders…or did they buy you?"

"A little of both, actually." The wizard replied smugly. "See, I just didn't feel like parting with that much money, and they had an old score to settle with you, apparently. So, in turn for bringing you here and helping in your eradication, they waived their fee, and I have an entire guild of cutthroats to use for eliminating my enemies."

The Shadow laughed a little bit at that; a low, watery laugh that seemed more of a wheeze. It set the odd mage off his balance, and that was his intention. "Of course, there's one flaw in your plan to not pay me." The Grey Shadow announced coldly. "You're assuming that you'll be able to pry back your money from my cold, dead hands."

His fingers wrapped around the hilt of his shortsword. Hissing in triumph, the Shadow threw off his shroud. It struck the face of his nearest aggressor, blinding him and stopping the first attack.

There was the barest moment of surprise on the wizard Arlemyst Destane's face before the Grey Shadow's shortsword was out and flashing through the air, slicing through his frail body in a clean slice.

Too clean. There was no resistance, no form to him at all. The illusion of Arlemyst sitting at the table vanished into wisps of vapor, and the Shadow whirled about and drew his other shortsword.

So, misleading me all this time, were you? He could make out at least six other assassins from the Mist Riders now running towards him, and the rest of the tavern was clearing out with the fight now in full swing. The presence of an armored, dextrous combatant with two sawtoothed shortswords was something that nobody wished to be in proximity of.

Under more ideal circumstances, the Grey Shadow would concentrate with his finely tuned senses to locate the invisible mage before he could escape. However, he had a feeling that the self-proclaimed Arlemyst didn't have flight on his mind, not while he could watch the Shadow be overwhelmed and enjoy his chicanery. The other thing that kept him worrying less about where Arlemyst had gone, for the moment at least, was that there were seven members of the Mist Riders guild spoiling to chop his head off.

The one closest to him threw the Shadow's shroud aside angrily and reached at his side. Curiously, as the Shadow turned in towards him with his wicked blades, the man did not flee or feint, but held onto a pouch as he jerked a skinny arm towards the Shadow's face.

The Grey Shadow closed his eyes too late to completely block the spray of sand. He could feel his eyes burning and stinging. The sensation was displeasing.

To most warriors, the loss of vision would have meant a very feeble and pointless resistance. But underneath his staring faceplate, the Shadow offered a dark and malevolent grin, stumbling back in a feigned gesture of surprise and weakness.

As he had predicted, the first of the Mist Riders came in, hoping to score that needed critical stab. Just as he had practiced so many times, the Shadow knocked aside the small dagger with one lazy swing of his left shortsword, and then severed the man's arm clean off with his right. There was the briefest moment of shock on the poor man's face before the Shadow jammed one blade through the man's chest. The Shadow pulled his sword back as the dead Rider fell, finding the entire affair displeasing. Open conflict wasn't his preferred method of killing.

There was just…no style to it, really. There was fighting, but an assassin did not live for combat. All the same, they stood in his way, and they had made their first mistake. They had thought the Grey Shadow needed to see them to fight. He didn't, of course. Smugly, he chuckled as his perception reached out and felt every one of them in the room. Turning to one of his favorite abilities once more, he began to hear the surprise and fear that echoed in their thoughts.

Heh heh…I can see you. He paused for a moment as the second and third Riders, carrying shortswords themselves, charged in towards him. The wizard Arlemyst had moved downstairs, and from his thoughts was preparing to fire a lightning bolt at him before his invisibility wore off. And I can see you, too.

The next two Riders came in towards him, ready to end his life. There was a magic blast being aimed at him from behind. The Shadow could have cared less. He simply lowered himself into a crouch and grinned.

This was going to be fun.

They came together as a single team, working their shortswords in tandem in a pattern of flash and weave. It gave them an edge in the direct conflict, and any attempt to dodge to the side or jump over them would have certainly met with failure.

The Shadow came at them, enjoying a brief clash of swords before he seemed to lose his footing and slip down. Taking the advantage, the two assassins swung their blades down, ready to lop off his head. They struck the wooden floor instead.

They were dumbstruck just long enough for the Grey Shadow to pull himself up to his feet behind them and kill them with two clean backhanded stabs. There was a brief pair of shuddering cries, and then they slumped silent and dead.

A shame. Did they have horror or surprise on their faces? He wondered briefly, sensing the third Mist Rider barreling towards him. Taking a chance, he opened his eyes against the burning sand, and got a somewhat blurry image. His new attacker carried a pair of daggers, but there was an aura to the weapons. The black hazy glow about them made the Shadow frown for a moment; they were magically enchanted to suck the life out of the poor souls they were used against.

A pinprick in the back of his mind reminded him of Arlemyst, finishing the last motions to unleash that lightning bolt of his. Idly, he wondered if he should just take it, for while it would hit, his natural resistances would stop it cold. Then he recalled, with the sort of lazy memory one possessed of utter calm had, that there was still the fourth Mist Rider coming at him with those troublesome daggers.

If there was a graceful or particularly stylistic way to kill somebody, the Shadow knew how. He knew how to make it count this time as well. Casually, he turned the handle of his shortsword about in his hand, letting the fourth assassin come at him.

Only when he could nearly feel the electricity of Arlemyst's lightning bolt singe at his neck did he dart to the side. It missed him completely and soared on, moving in an unerring line.

With some amount of satisfaction, and still half-blind, the Shadow heard the crackling force strike at a target it was not meant to hit. He heard Arlemyst's horrified curse as well, and that made him smile all the more in tandem with the sound of the fourth Mist Rider collapsing to the floor, charred and dead.

I suppose I could spare a moment, he thought to himself. Slipping his shortswords back into their scabbards, he fumbled around through his blurry eyes across a nearby table, grasping about a tankard. He splashed it onto his faceplate, and exhaled a bit in relief when it dripped down to his mouth and he could taste it. Aah, small miracles. Somebody was drinking small beer. The burning sensation faded from his eyes as it washed away the sand. The Shadow looked about the tavern again, seeing the last three of the Mist Riders charging up towards him. Arlemyst was busy ruffling about in his components pouch for something to fire another spell.

Casually, the Shadow looked to the three assassins, and then gave a hard, piercing look to the spellcaster. While he certainly wasn't afraid of most magics, Arlemyst could prove to be a distraction in the wrong moment.

He reached down to the dead and thunderblasted Rider he had allowed Arlemyst to kill with his misplaced shot, then quickly scooped up the two enchanted daggers the assassin had been fixing to use on him.

Relax, friends. The Shadow mused, ignoring the three remaining Mist Riders as he jumped over the railing of the balcony. It was a solid ten foot drop, but he had barely touched the ground before he came charging at Arlemyst. The wizard's face, so smug and superior for the longest time filled with dread. I'll deal with you all in a moment.

Arlemyst reached for the one spell that he, like nearly every other arcane spellcaster, could pull off without fail. Wiggling his fingers at the charging assassin, he launched off a volley of magical bolts. They all swung in on target, and there was a glimmer of hope in the mage's eyes.

Every shot disappeared and fizzled just before impact, just as Marik's had. The similarity wasn't lost on the Shadow, gripping the borrowed life-stealing daggers in his hands.

If he could replay that fateful night's duel…

One dagger was jammed through Arlemyst's shoulder, and the other the Shadow sent through his hand, pushing him back against the wall and pinning him there. The wizard screamed and began to whimper, and for a moment, the Shadow thought of killing him on the spot. He changed his mind quickly. With one of Arlemyst's arms paralyzed by that critical shoulder wound and the other hand pinned to the wall, he could afford to wait.

"I'll be back for you." The Grey Shadow hissed, leaning in his cold metal faceplate close to Arlemyst. The wizard moaned and shut his eyes, begging for death to take him quickly.

Satisfied, the Shadow stood up and turned about, drawing his serrated shortswords once more. Two of the three Mist Riders had reversed course and were charging down the steps. The last one had decided to leap off the balcony like he had earlier. The Shadow rolled his eyes. At least he had made the jump with style. The other man would be lucky if he didn't sprain an ankle in the fall. He spun his shortswords in his hands again and narrowed his perfect eyes.

Now we shall see how the Mist Riders can fight against their better.

It was really no contest at all, not when he was so focused that he could almost predict their moves before they made them. The Mist Rider who had thrown himself off of the balcony stumbled. The Shadow came towards him at a leisurely pace, ignoring the quick kill for something better.

Gritting his teeth, the Mist Rider leapt away from the Shadow. He was biding his time, the Grey Shadow realized, waiting for his two friends to come in. It was a pincer maneuver, meant to trap him between three warriors. Smiling to himself, the Grey Shadow kept walking towards the lone bandit, all too aware of the foes charging behind him.

If you're going to kill, then kill smoothly and without warning. And always remember…Do it with style.

Idly, the Shadow tried to remember who had said that to him. Had he come up with that on his own, or was that phrase an alteration to some sage piece of advice he had heard in the past, and lost in his long years of being a feared killer?

It mattered little, and he could think on it later, when things of little matter could gain importance. For the moment, he reminded himself, he had other issues.

He could cast a spell of invisibility on himself; that momentary edge would give him the time to strike once, perhaps twice at them without immediate fear or danger.

It would be clean, true. It just would have no style. And that was unacceptable.

So he let them come, and as he dueled against the first with one blade, he turned his body sideways and met the charge of the other two with his second. Steel met steel, crashing with angry gnawing sounds, and the teeth of the Shadow's shortswords scraped viciously against the weaker, mundane metal of the Mist Rider's blades. In time, the Shadow knew, even his impressive body would be hard-pressed to maintain the physical output that taxed his seemingly endless stamina. A move would have to be made soon, and still holding all three at bay with his artful weaves, his elegant sword strokes, and that eternal dance on the razor's edge between life and death, he ran over the options in his mind.

He could pull down in himself and exert the full force of his untapped fury, but that would raise too many questions, and for all he knew, there were still others of the Mist Riders, hidden eyes watching the duel unfold for later reference. No, he could not expose that. Any strategist would argue to always hold one's true potential out of view.

Another option was to use his incredible dexterity to leap out of the conflagration and approach the fight from a different, more secure angle. His rational side favored this one.

The last option was to give in entirely to the hypnotic dance of his blades, of his arms, of his legs and torso, and become the sadistic dealer of death he relished in as a self-granted privilege. It would be risky, for he would shut off most of his rationality to let himself go…But it was preferred by his impulsive side. After all, he reminded himself as he grinned behind his cold gray metal faceplate, the third option carried the most style. And he could use the practice in the sort of close combat he so rarely got to get into.

He whirled about to face the paired Mist Riders, working his blades in a feverish pattern that matched their own and slowly began to turn it back. They had built their determined cooperative bladework over years. The Shadow had had decades to perfect his art. The Shadow contorted his body into one arch after another, pleased that not a single blow landed. The single troublesome Rider behind him came in too close for comfort, and the Shadow could feel the point of his shortsword tickle across the armored mesh covering his torso.

He ignored it for about a quarter second more, just long enough to gain the advantage against the two. He disarmed one with a quick double swipe of his blades, but did not throw the shortsword aside. Juggling it between his own swords for a moment, he hefted it into the air and delivered a blow with the flat side of one of his weapons to the blade's hilt, shooting it through the air at one of his foes. Stabbed through his side with his own weapon, the disarmed Mist Rider stumbled away from the fight.

Casually, the Shadow hurled the first of his own blades against the second of the former pair, and while the man was able to divert it from its course to his heart, it still slammed through his leg, bringing him down with a grunt.

And then there was one.

Knowing that if they were determined enough, the pair could return to battle in a moment, the Grey Shadow did a leaping backflip over the last of the Mist Riders, Mr. jumps-off-of-balconies. With his injured ankle, he couldn't get enough reach into the air to deliver a solid blow, and his sword just scraped along the woven armor.

The Shadow landed behind him, squatting low to the ground with one leg held out to the side. The man was still turning when the Shadow rotated his entire body in a circle, using his extended leg to knock the Mist Rider's feet out from under him.

He fell, expecting to bounce against the floor…He did not expect the flaring pain in his back, or the bloody tip of a serrated shortsword jammed clear through his chest for his eyes to see.

Chuckling to himself, the Grey Shadow stayed like that for a moment, suspending the man off of the ground by inches as he was speared on his blade. The eyes of the dying man, fluttering as his heartbeat and breathing became erratic, came to the side to stare at the emotionless skeletal faceplate that covered the Shadow's entire face.

"You're a monster…" The man rasped. "Nobody…can be this good…"

The Grey Shadow mustered a watery snort. "You have all eternity to figure out why you were wrong." He tilted the man onto his side and pulled his weapon out, making sure that every inch of his weapon's teeth sawed away at the Mist Rider's insides as he did. He wiped the blood off of his weapon onto the man's back, noting the growing pool of blood underneath the assassin.

The last two weren't much of a challenge at all. The one injured by his thrown sword made a feeble attempt to defend himself with his own weapon, struggling to pull out the Shadow's shortsword from his leg as well. He couldn't do much in the span of three seconds, which was exactly how long it took the Grey Shadow to sever his head from his body. The last Mist Rider had gone into shock from his wound, and it became a mercy killing to decapitate him.

Wiping his blades off one last time, the Shadow turned about in the empty tavern full of bodies and looked towards the wizard Arlemyst, still pinned against the wall and whimpering. The daggers the Shadow had left in him had done their work; his face was ashen, and he was beginning to shiver as the life was drained from him.

Somehow, as the Shadow approached, the spellshaper managed to focus enough on the ring on his right hand to muster three blazing rays of fire. They struck out at the Shadow, and there was the barest impression of heat before they, like the wizard's magical bolts, simply snuffed out.

"Oh, stop it. You're just embarrassing yourself now." The Shadow chastised the wizard, shaking his head. Arlemyst's lower lip trembled as the assassin came towards him and knelt, entirely unafraid.

"Please, d…don't kill me." He begged. The Shadow rolled his eyes, even more disgusted at the wounded man. Even when he was dying, Arlemyst Destane found a way to annoy him. "I'll give you anything! Money! Gems!"

"I have my payment." The Shadow rasped, patting a hand against the moneypurse of gold ingots. "Besides, you've gone and forced me to play my hand. I'm afraid I just can't let anyone live who's seen me at work. Professional security…and personal pride."

"I could work for you!" The wizard said, panicking. "Surely, the services of the great Arlemyst Destane could be of use to your endeavors!"

He'd said his own name again. The Shadow let out a long sigh, and tilted his head to the side as if he was thinking about it. "And what could Arlemyst Destane do for me?"

"Arlemyst could bring all manner of magical doom upon your foes!" The mage promised eagerly. "He can help to make your enemies bleed!"

The Shadow hadn't been seriously entertaining the notion, of course, but he had thought it would be amusing to play the part for a while. And the while was over.

Slowly, he pulled out the enchanted dagger from Arlemyst's shoulder, and the wizard began to sigh in relief…Up until the Grey Shadow jammed it deep into his heart, and his velvet robes grew darker around the wound. Dumbstruck, unable to speak, he looked to the Shadow in disbelief.

"My enemies always bleed." Came the Shadow's response. And then that was the end of it, and Arlemyst Destane, unloved arcanist of intrigue perished with a final exhalation.

Two minutes later, wrapped in his shroud once more, the Grey Shadow went into the streets of Baraden and calmly began to stroll out of town. The Mist Riders. A troublesome lot, really. They had, at one time, tried to convince him to join. But the Shadow worked alone, and worked well alone. He would have to leave quickly. News of their failed attempt on his life would travel fast in this stronghold of vice and skullduggery.

All in all, it wasn't a bad day. He had gained two enchanted daggers capable of sucking the life out of their victims, that magical ring Arlemyst had used against him, and his payment for the assassination in Sorvindal so long ago. His workout had been refreshing; it was nice to know that he could still make his multitude of advantages work for him, and how he had danced around that foolish mage…

He almost chuckled before he remembered the danger wasn't over yet.

They're still coming. And if they're as bound and determined as I think they are, they might well make it to my stronghold.

It meant he would see Marik again. Would fight Marik again. Only this time, he assured himself, it would be different. He had hesitated, because he had realized what the Sorceror all in black was. The question had arisen in his mind…Did the young fool, for he would have had to be incredibly young and foolish, not sense the truth?

It would be a tragedy to have to kill him. It would be an even worse tragedy for the Grey Shadow to perish, without fulfilling his destiny.

The next time we meet, Marik, we shall uncover the truth about you. And we will decide if you live…or if your head belongs on my wall.

The Grey Shadow had never killed a…Had never killed a person of Marik's ilk before. Not once in his long career had it ever come to this. The Shadow wondered, dismissing the question one moment later in disgust, if he had the strength of conviction to kill Marik Observant.

He wondered what the others would think if he did not.

---

"So, Ness, is this your first time up to Northern Ashra?" Came the good-humored voice of his superior. They were protecting a convoy traveling north from Lightfell into the country of Marnus Rhee. From there, they would go until they met the shore village of Khone, a hub of trade and commerce for the fishing industry.

"Ness? Are you paying attention to me?"

"Eh?" The swordsman blinked at the question. "I'm sorry, what did you say, sir?"

The leader of their convoy, Sir Raleigh Finn, sighed. "Boy, I asked you if you had ever been up in Marnus Rhee before."

"Can't say that I have." Ness murmured. "I've spent most of my time in the east and the south."

"Well, this will all be new to you then." The old knight explained. "Once we have delivered Lord Blake to Khone, I have some friends who I'd like to see again."

Riding ahead of the noble's carriage, behind their venerable leader, Ness found his weariness fading. "I'd like that, sir." It did his heart a lot of good to be away from the region of Ashra he had grown up in. The more distance between him and Samael's Lands, the better in his mind.

"Do you think there'll be any trouble?" Ness asked, unconsciously grazing his hand across the hilt of the longsword riding at his hip.

"We'll have more cold weather than trouble, I'd imagine." The old knight mused. "And from that cloak of yours, you won't have to worry about that. Besides, Ness…If there is trouble, it's nothing we cannot handle." He gave the boy almost half his age a grin. "Not while we have you along, right?"

It had been many years since Ness had parted ways with his last teacher. This old sellsword, wise but good-natured, filled in an old niche in his heart.

"I'll try my best, sir."

"Fight with everything you have, boy, and always stand by your allies. That way, when the end comes, you won't die with regrets…and you won't die alone."

"Ness…"

"Ness…"

---

Western Samael's Lands

"Ness!" A weight landed on his tousled brown hair, stirring him from his haze. "Blast it, chief, are you going to sleep the entire day away?"

"Huh?" Ness mumbled groggily.

Leathery wings clapped down over his ears, and he was shocked awake by the buffeting breeze. "Blast it!" Ness snapped, swinging a hand up to swipe away the offending creature.

Morris chuckled and took off just in the nick of time, causing Ness Benson to hit empty air. "Geez, you're a bad shot. Stick to your swords, chief. You'll live longer."

Still dozy, but slowly becoming aware of his surroundings, the swordsman lifted himself up out of his slumped saddle, wincing at the pain in his back.

I slept like that? I'll be paying for it the rest of the day.

Shaking his head, Ness glanced around. They were still on the highway leading west, passing the distance easily on their horses.

Not…not going north. That was a little more than eight years ago. Back when…

Ness closed his eyes and stopped the memory. He didn't want to remember.

Marik was up ahead of him, leading the way. Morris was fluttering back and forth above them.

The sound of another horse behind him drew his attention, and Rachel pulled up alongside him.

"Good afternoon." The sixteen-year old Calyssan greeted him, smiling warmly. "Did you sleep well?"

"I must have been more tired than I realized." Ness offered, running a hand through his hair. "How long was I out?"

"About two hours. Marik took the lead in your place, and I've just been making sure your horse kept close."

"I see." The swordsman mused. "And who decided that Morris should be the one to wake me?"

"I think that was his own choice." Rachel answered, covering her mouth to hide her widening grin. "In any case, how are you feeling now?"

"…Aware." Ness commented, struggling for an appropriate word. "How far are we from Denvale?"

Morris must have heard the question, for he swung down and hovered beside the two of them, flashing another one of his grins.

"Marik says we'll reach Denvale by nightfall. That'll be the end of the road then, won't it?"

"The end of our ride, yes." Ness agreed. "But not the end of our journey. That won't end until we reach Istus and stop the Grey Shadow."

He was distant as he said it, and Rachel could sense the difference.

"Something's changed." The healer offered quietly, looking over to him. "Ness, what's bothering you? You've been so cold lately."

Not wanting to burden her any farther, Ness put on a gentler face, smiling weakly. "I've just been having some bad dreams, I suppose."

"Bad dreams?"

"Nothing you need to worry about." He reassured her. "I should stop snacking so late."

"You could use a shave, too." The young woman commented wryly. Ness arched an eyebrow at her, and Rachel smiled and turned away, blushing.

They were interrupted by a horrified shriek, and they whirled their heads towards a panicking Morris.

"The boss is in danger!" Morris howled, darting off down the road ahead of them. It was so out of the blue that the two of them froze for a moment, watching the imp fly off.

Then they saw a green goblin running towards them, not noticing them for several seconds. Dressed in a filthy patchwork shirt and half-trousers, it gave them a snarl before running off of the road.

It was twenty feet away when Rachel pulled the hand crossbow from her hip and held it up, narrowing an eye for the shot.

Ness glanced at her, marveling how confident she seemed holding the weapon. "Can you take him?"

"He can't run that fast." She remarked, squeezing the trigger. The feathered quarrel hissed through the air, slamming into the back of the goblin's skull. It fell dead in the grass beyond the road, fifty feet away.

Ness whistled appreciatively. "Have you been practicing with that?"

"I don't spend all my time brewing potions." She remarked, giving Ness a worried glance as she reloaded it. "Chances are there's more of those things up ahead with…"

"Marik." Ness finished, feeling his stomach sink low in panic.

They urged their horses onward, hoping that they would not be too late.

---

Marik hadn't expected an attack. Samael's Lands was supposed to be one of the safest regions in all of Ashra to travel through, after all, and whatever passive sense allowed him to detect the Grey Shadow had been thankfully silent.

The first javelin had come out of the tall grasses beside the road to the south, burying itself deep into the flank of his mount. The rented horse had not taken the blow well, and whinnied, nearly unseating Marik. By the time the second projectile buried itself through the horse's chest, the Sorceror had wisely decided that getting off of his steed might be a wise idea. Only by the miracle of a moment had he freed himself and not been pinned down when it collapsed onto its side, badly wounded and in no shape to flee.

The snarls and guttural, coarse language that came out as a warcry happened to be one of the eight other languages besides common Terran that he understood; goblin speech. "Tear him to pieces and drag him away!" Came the barking order.

Out of the brush had emerged a medium-sized band of twelve green goblins and four red goblins, the larger, more brutish kinfolk of the small green-skinned nuisances.

They must have thought him an easy target, with no visible weapons. Marik channeled his will into the reserve of magical strength within himself, growling at them. That small mistake would cost them dearly. Green light surrounded his left sleeve for a moment, just before he whirled it in an arc towards the charging horde. Three bolts of magic snapped out, each striking a different green in the chest. Each fell dead with a loud croak, quartering the onslaught's smaller force in a single sweep.

As a student of the road, Marik had done a minor research project on goblins when he was twelve. While that was a long eight years ago, something had stuck with him. The goblin clans were known for infighting; Without a strong leader, they could tear themselves apart trying to decide who was worthy of the role. Moreover, they were notorious for not caring if one of their comrades fell in a battle.

But three, however, with a single resounding blast…That slowed them down, curiously staring at the now announced mage with a mix of wonder and panic.

It gave Marik the time he needed to pull back, ready his springloaded longsword, and cast a protective aura over himself. It lastly gave him an opportunity to fall back on his ever-reliable link, and reach for his final advantage.

He needed his friend. He needed Morris. Morris, hurry it up! We've got trouble!

Morris said nothing back, but the worried feeling that passed over their empathic link said enough. He was coming, and the imp was panicking.

Marik wondered, as one of the more terrified goblins ran up the road towards Ness and Rachel who were trailing behind, if he shouldn't be panicking as well.

They crowded in around him, their first move being to encircle him and cut off any chance of escape. Grimly, Marik began to harness another blast of his magical bolts, waiting for the right opportunity.

Eight greens, and four of their red kin.Why do I get the impression that someone doesn't like me all that much?

A red goblin charged in with two of his smaller green kin, waving a chained sickle above his head. The Sorceror fired off his three bolts, turning them all towards the more dangerous looking red. They landed solidly, jarring him backwards. Unfortunately, that left the two smaller attackers untouched, and they rushed in, trying to skewer him on their spears.

They might have, too, if a set of leathery wings hadn't reappeared, and Morris had struck out at them with a cackle. One of the beasts yelped and slapped up at his neck, cursing.

"The little bat thing bits me!" It screeched, moments before freezing up and falling to the ground paralyzed. With only one green goblin to worry about, Marik was able to parry his stab and cut a gash into him that set the other one out of commission as well. Cackling, Morris twirled about in midair and went invisible once again. Marik could still sense where he was, though.

It took you long enough to get here, Morris.

What are you complaining about? You're not even bleeding yet!

Rachel and Ness…?

Ness woke up from his nap a few minutes ago. They should be right behind me.

The surviving red charged in, whipping his sickle and chain at Marik. The wicked cutting edge narrowly missed him, and it scraped across his sleeve with a thin cut. Wincing as he felt the rusted weapon slice through his spell of protection, Marik uttered a soft mental curse.

Three bolts and he still didn't drop. Morris, can you do something about him?

I can sting 'im, but that's not gonna stop him from clawing your face off!

The imp was hovering nearby as Marik prepared another spell. Unlike his magical bolts, though, this one began to electrify his entire body. Marik's thoughts flickered briefly to Morris as he growled the last of what served for an incantation, and then the energy left him.

The spell's power slipped into Morris, causing the imp to let out a mental grunt of surprise.

Boss…What was that?!

Marik realized the spell he had been intending to use for himself had been passed on to Morris. Something to even the odds. Try hitting that red goblin now.

The chain of the goblinoid's sickle wrapped around his arms and chest, making Marik nearly helpless. The attacker advanced on him, a sick and toothy grin going over his features. "Now youses will die, magic man!" He snarled, speaking in his native tongue.

Morris, anytime now… Marik thought, struggling uselessly against the tight metal chains.

Once again, Morris reappeared out of nowhere. He jammed his tail into the red goblin's face, but along with the venomous sting, a surge of electricity rushed into the monster. He twitched for a moment as the power crackled through him and burned, and fell dead seconds later.

The effect, startling and sudden, bought them some more time as the rest of the awestruck goblin raiders began to grow less sure of their success.

Marik growled and channeled another spell of crackling electrical shock into Morris, flexing his body until the chains loosened and fell away from him. Imp and Sorceror glared at their attackers, knowing that they were still surrounded.

Any ideas, Morris?

Yeah. How about we try not to die?

Any original ideas?

No, not really…but that's a neat little trick you and I just did. How did you come up with that?

Something I read in an old historical text. It seems that there was a Sorceror during the Wars of Greed who was fond of having his cat electrocute people.

Sounds like he had a sadistic streak.

I hope you're not implying anything, Morris.

Of course not. I know you're sadistic. The imp teased him, going invisible. Just don't let 'em kill you. All we have to do is last until Ness and Rachel get here.

"We're coming, Marik!" Came a cry from behind them. Up the road to the east, Ness Benson and Rachel were riding in at full gallop.

And here comes the cavalry.

One of the red goblins and four of the smaller greens turned away from the Sorceror towards the approaching riders. That still left Marik and Morris facing the sizable force of two of the larger brutes and a pair of the scrawny spear-carrying misfits. Morris let out a soft chuckle, somewhat eerie as it came from nowhere.

Four against two…I think we can handle those odds.

Marik charged up another salvo of magical bolts in his left sleeve and gave a nod of his head. And I'm supposed to be the optimistic one.

Ness drew out his enchanted blade, Brightflame, and called its name aloud. It caught fire as he held it beside his charging mount, glaring down on the goblins. "Blasted creatures!" He screamed, moving his feet until he was riding sidesaddle towards them.

Rachel came up fast behind him, not nearly so brash in her own attack. Trying to hold her arm steady against the jarring motion of the horse, she aimed at the goblin leading the charge towards them and fired. The crossbow bolt hissed harmlessly over the beast's head, and Rachel bit her lip. "Missed." She muttered, moving to reload the device. At the same time, she slowed her horse down. She would get there slower than Ness, but she couldn't aim properly at the breakneck speeds the swordsman was going.

Ness plowed through the horde of the small goblins, trampling one who didn't move out of the way fast enough. He targeted the larger reds, coming at him with their saw-edged halberds. He positioned himself carefully, then leapt off of his horse with a powerful cry at the first. Surprised, the red goblin raised his long polearm up, hoping to let Ness skewer himself in the charge.

It was a testament to the older swordsman's ability when, still in midair, he managed a double-handed swing with his fiery bastard sword that pushed the pointed end away from his body, then carried on through to cut it clean off. His foe disarmed, Ness made a hard landing and charged. Panicking, the red swung what was left of his halberd's shaft at Ness, smacking his shoulder. Ignoring the flaring pain where the heavy wood had likely cracked bone through his covered chainmail, Ness slashed Brightflame against the red's chest and ended his life.

The second red goblin wasted no time in stabbing towards Ness with his own long polearm. The cutting edge scraped along the side of his midsection, leaving a nick through the chainmail, but failing to cause any lasting damage. Turning about, and now thoroughly annoyed, the swordsman switched to a one-handed grip on Brightflame and gripped the shaft of the warrior's halberd in the other. Surprised, the red tugged on his polearm, but could not budge it.

Ness' blue eyes burned as bright as the flames from his magical sword. "Not today, you beast."

The brute snarled and let go of the halberd, pulling out a scimitar from behind his back. Ness dropped his end of the long polearm as well and held his sword with his familiar two-handed grip.

Moving at a slower pace had worked; Rachel's second shot had been far more accurate, slicing through the neck of one of the three goblins Ness had left alive. The other two turned and ran at her, but Rachel dipped into her divine connection once again, and suddenly glowed with a radiating aura of white about her. The two goblins slowed, awed and wondering as they looked up at her.

Rachel smiled at them, relieved that the spell which gave her a peaceful aura and made weaker-minded creatures unwilling to attack her, had worked.

"I could get used to this." She murmured, casually lifting her reloaded crossbow back up at them. The creatures stared blankly at her, still caught in her aura.

She fired, and one died with a shot that pierced through its heart cleanly. The other blinked a few times, recovering from the broken spell's effect. Reacting, it snarled and charged towards her. Rachel's hand reached down to the small quiver of crossbow quarrels that hung on her right hip, beside where she kept the crossbow when it wasn't in use. Her dextrous fingers easily pulled one free, then set it into place on the crossbow's firing rail as she pulled the string back.

The goblin was nearly on top of her, its shortspear prepared to skewer her horse. Rachel lifted her weapon again and fired. It shot through the creature's open, screaming mouth and out the back of its neck. It choked a few times, stumbling backwards before it went limp and fell paralyzed and bleeding.

Rachel reloaded the crossbow as the green goblin turned its blank eyes towards her, unable to do anything else. She rode up beside the motionless creature and pointed it at its chest. "You do not deserve to die slowly." She commented, a little guilty that her first shot hadn't killed it outright. "You will not suffer."

She fired again, and the goblin finally fell dead.

Even as Ness and Rachel concluded their own battles, Marik and Morris were in a duel all their own. Marik held no false illusions that he could take them down in a rushing storm of slashes. His magic had proven to be far more effective anyhow. Morris unleashed the electrical charge Marik had endowed him with into the first red that charged, swinging about and clawing at the face of the green who rode up beside him. That gave Marik enough time to muster his Sorceror's hand again and conjure up a ball of flames. He picked it up in his magical grip and swung it about in front of him, the burning blaze causing them to back off long enough for Morris to gleefully stab the first of the smaller creatures in the arm and flutter off away from the retaliatory spear poke. The scrawny beast froze up a few moments later and collapsed sideways, no longer able to fight or move.

Stop trying to scare them and hit one of these buggers already! I feel like I'm doing all the work!

Oh yes. I work you to death, don't I? Marik retorted with a mental roll of his eyes. He directed the green hand and fireball into the face and chest of the nearest red goblin, the one weakened from Morris' electrical shock, and it let out a terrible scream before collapsing dead, unable to suffer any more trauma. Let's just not start on the entire 'But you just wave your arms and wiggle your fingers at people all day!' argument again. It took you two hours the last time.

Yeah, and the jury is still out on who won that one. All I'm saying is…

Morris was distracted just long enough for the remaining green goblinoid to swat at him with a thick wooden paddle, knocking him down out of the sky with a sharp pain in his tiny skull.

The beast stepped over on top of him, lifting the wooden beating stick above his head with a sick grin. "Me smashed the bat thing!" It cackled.

That was the last thing it said before the burning orb of fire smashed down on its head and burned its face away into a featureless husk. The last red roared and charged towards Marik, and the orb snuffed out as the Sorceror lost his focus.

"Crud…" Morris groaned, slowly picking himself up and rubbing at the injury.

It may just be 'finger wiggling' I do most days, Morris, but it's enough to save your grumbling carcass.

Yeah, sure. Now go and save your own hide. I can take care of myself. The imp thought back, feeling the bruise beginning to subside as his natural healing factor kicked in.

Smiling, even as the red came after him with his scimitar curving about in wild arcs, Marik couldn't resist one last parting shot. Your skull must be getting thicker. At least you stayed awake this time.

"Screw you, Observant!" Morris snapped, wincing as the lump on his skull sent a bolt of pain through him. "Ohhh, my head…" The imp decided that sitting was a good idea then. No, he was wrong again. He wanted to lie down. Yes, that was it.

The red goblin was ugly, it smelled bad, and it had brute strength on its side. But with his Sorceror's hand running defense, Marik had the upper hand in their duel. Every time that the brute tried to land a solid blow, the green appendage would slap across his face, or turn his swing off balance ever so slightly. Between the beast's attacks, Marik would cut in a darting poke or slice with his springloaded longsword, wearing the beast down with a successive series of small wounds instead of trying for a definitive blow. The strategy kept the red goblin at bay, which was what the Sorceror wanted. He had no intention of giving the creature who had wanted to kill him an even advantage, and with Morris temporarily out of the fight, that meant playing a more desperate game.

It breathed a little heavier as they continued to cross swords, landing a few glancing blows that failed to pierce through Marik's magical aura. Marik stubbornly kept on, beginning to sweat a little in his robes as well, but refusing to give up.

With one last roar, the sluggish and bleeding red swung at Marik and lost his balance. Rolling his eyes at the sight of the beast collapsing onto the ground, Marik retracted his blade and brought his Sorceror's hand to bear once again. A quick punch to its groin made the beast shudder for a moment, then pass out from the excruciating pain. Sighing once it was over, Marik turned about and looked to the others.

Morris picked himself up off of the ground, still woozy as he took to the air, but otherwise unharmed. Rachel trotted over to him with a worried look on her face, and Ness was busy cleaning Brightflame.

"Are you all right?" Rachel asked, wasting no time in dismounting and running over to Marik's horse. The mount whinnied softly from its injuries, and the girl set to work channeling her spells of healing into it and pulling out the javelins in its side.

Morris landed a little shakily onto Marik's shoulder and nodded. "The horse took the worst of it." He looked down to Marik's left arm, where the sickle had hit him. "And I suppose I got scraped a bit. Morris just has a headache. How about you and Ness? How did you fare?"

"We're fine." The healer assured him. Marik's horse, curious as to why it was no longer injured, stood back up on its feet and let out a snort. She took a moment to look to Marik, wondering. "Still, the fact that you walked out of that…"

Morris cleared his throat to stop her. "Hey, it's us, remember? It'll take more than a couple of goblinfolk to bring us down!"

Ness was silent as he led his mount up towards them, considering Marik and Morris with his soft blue eyes. Only when Rachel threw a glance at him did the swordsman stiffen. "Your spellcasting must have set them off-balance. A raiding party like this is usually forged of hardier resolve."

The Sorceror shrugged nonchalantly, and the imp took flight towards the red goblin Marik had decked with a shot to the groin.

"I think you worry too much some days." Rachel teased Ness, climbing back on her horse. "Marik's no ordinary spellshaper."

"And you're no ordinary healer, true enough." Ness admitted. "I'm…I'm surprised, I suppose."

"Surprised?" Rachel queried. "Did you expect this encounter to turn out differently?"

Feeling all the long miles of his own journey beginning to weigh on him again, Ness gave a shake of his head. "I just underestimate the two of you some days, is all."

It was better than the truth that a part of him expected them to die at some point in this journey, and leave him alone to continue his painful quest to defeat the Grey Shadow.

"Well, I've got some questions for this fella." Morris said, changing the subject. With his venomous tail waving back and forth behind him, he landed on the surviving red goblin and stuck it with his stinger. "Specifically, what a bunch of goblins are doing all the way out here in the middle of Samael's Lands!"

"I could wonder that myself." Ness agreed, rubbing at his chin. "They're not known to live in this region of Ashra."

Unconscious, the red goblin really had no way to resist the truth venom in Morris's potent sting. Dully, the wounded fellow opened his eyes and stared up to Morris.

The tiny imp opened its mouth, and in the guttural, growling speech of the goblinfolk, posed its question. "Why is you attacking peoples?"

Ness couldn't understand goblinspeech, and neither could Rachel. Marik calmly walked over to them with his arms in his sleeves and cleared his throat. "You two don't speak goblin, do you?"

"It's not exactly something most people teach." Ness said, amazed Marik would speak at all. "Do you know it, then?"

Marik nodded his head, and the swordsman rolled his eyes. "Good grief. You know how to speak goblin?"

"And because of that, so does Morris." Came the dry, rasping reply.

"Just where did you…"

"Bards." Marik reminded him simply, and Ness nodded, as if that answered everything.

Unaware of the minor exchange, Morris pressed on, using his connection with Marik to pick up and transmit the appropriate phrases in the goblinfolk tongue. "I asked youses a question, hmm? What are you doing out here?"

"Waiting for a wizard." Came the slow, muted reply.

"Why are you waiting for a wizard?"

"We was told he would have a shiney rock thing, a…a…"

"A crystal?" Morris inferred. "Was that it? A crystal?"

"Yes." The red goblin slurred.

"Just where did you all come from?"

"From the west."

"…Istus? You came from Istus?" Morris pressed, throwing a glance back to the others.

"Yeah."

"Why did you think we'd have the crystal?"

"The grouchy magic lady said the wizard would come on this road."

"Do wees looks like a wizard?"

"No. So thens the others are going to find him in Denvale, likes she said. They'll rides north tonight."

Marik and Morris both froze, their mental link allowing them to share the thought without Morris having to break away from the red.

Denvale was not much farther west.

"I wants youses to take a nap." Morris ordered. The goblin yawned for a moment, nodded dreamily in reply to the command and passed out soon after.

With his horse now back to rights after Rachel's efforts, Marik climbed back on his mount and gave a slow nod to the others. Morris landed on his shoulder and cleared his throat.

"Something tells me we should hurry on to Denvale as fast as we can."

Ness took a few moments to kill the last few surviving creatures with some fast strokes of his longsword, then got back on his horse as well. His blue eyes were puzzled as he looked at Morris. "Why? What did you talk about?"

The imp's face was stonily serious. "They attacked Marik because they thought he was a wizard. They're after some sort of a crystal, and they've come all the way from Istus to get it." He pulled his wings around him, using them as a coat while he perched. "And the fun thing is, they're not the end of it. They have friends. Those friends are planning to attack Denvale."

The news caused Ness to shudder involuntarily, and even Rachel reached up to brush a hand along the hem of her shawl.

"If we hurry, we should get there in a couple of hours." Rachel Ashbury suggested, giving Ness a hopeful expression.

Keeping his fears and doubts to himself for a while longer, Ness gave a quick nod of his head. "Then we ride on." As an afterthought, Rachel cast one of her minor healing spells to take care of Marik's minor injury, and a slightly more powerful one to tend to Ness' bruised shoulder. Leaving the bodies of the small goblin's raiding party behind them, Ness Benson and his companions took to the west at full gallop.

With the memory of his dream still fresh in his mind, Ness couldn't stop the sinking feeling in his chest that an ill wind blew at their backs.

---

The town of Denvale was nowhere near the size of Lightfell, but its collection of streets and buildings easily dwarfed the minimal structures that Kalen had boasted. All of it lay in front of the team as they rode into the east end.

Ness nodded slowly. "Well, the place is still standing, and I'm not hearing any cries of panic." He glanced over to Morris, still sitting on Marik's shoulder with his wings tucked around him. "Morris, what can you see?"

The tiny imp stirred from his stupor and looked about, blinking his beady black eyes as he did. "It's Denvale."

The swordsman gave him an irritated stare. "Beyond that, Morris. What do your other senses tell you?"

"Oh, that." Morris remarked nonchalantly. "Nothing invisible. Mostly good-minded folk. A whole trove of magic in…" He waved his hand toward a tavern about two blocks away, "That direction. And of course, the stables are right there." He used a wing to point to an open barnlike structure to their left. "Relax. If there were goblins here, I'd know."

"You can detect goblins too?" Rachel asked, surprised.

Marik let out a rumbling chuckle before he stifled himself, and Morris grinned from his friend's faux pas. "Sure, just like anybody else does. You wait for the smell of unwashed feet and sweat, and listen for growling."

Rachel dismounted off of her horse and pulled her blue shawl tighter around her shoulders. "For a town that's going to be attacked by raiders, it's awfully peaceful." She brushed her long brown hair to the side of her face and looked over to Ness.

The swordsman stroked at his chin, the immediate danger averted. "They probably don't know." The townsfolk strolled about unaware of any doom which might befall them, giving the inbound riders only the barest look. "We don't want to create a sense of panic. We need to get a hold of the right people…"

"Oh, like the town elder?" Rachel suggested.

"Or mayor." Ness agreed. "The term changes from place to place, but it's about the same thing."

Marik considered all of that for a moment, then dismounted and gave Ness a nod. Morris took to a hovering position beside his spellforging friend and carried over the Sorceror's message.

"Well, if we need to find the leader of Denvale, then we'll start with the hub of activity; the tavern and lodge." Using his Sorceror's hand, Marik guided the reins of his horse over to Ness. "See to the horses. Morris and I will push ahead and look for the town official."

Ness frowned at the Sorceror. "What makes you think you can locate the mayor on your own? Or that anyone here will trust you enough to talk to you?"

The thought made Marik and Morris pause, and the imp shrugged sheepishly. "I…I didn't think about that." The winged devil glanced about, finally beginning to notice the odd and unfriendly looks that some of the hardened farmers and villagers were leveling their way. "I suppose they wouldn't."

Rachel led her horse over to Ness and handed over the reins. She looked back towards Marik and Morris with a smile and a brief nod. "I'll go with you." She turned to Ness, anticipating his question. "If I go with them, people should worry less. After all, respectable girls don't travel with dangerous strangers in hooded robes."

As always, Rachel's simple thinking made sense. His heart swelled with newfound respect and admiration for the woman he was enamored with, and Ness made an agreeable grunt.

"Keep an eye on those two, then." Ness said to her. "I'll catch up in a few moments." Beaming, but refraining from offering more emotion, Rachel gave another nod and walked towards Marik and Morris. Together, the three turned and began to walk towards the tavern, as Ness led their mounts towards the stables, where he would drop them off and pay the rest of the rental fees.

Denvale remained quiet and unaware.

---

When one stopped to think about it, all tavern lodges looked about the same. You came in through the front door, and ventured into a foyer with a bar, a room full of tables, and the same semi-stale air permeated with the smells of alcohol and food.

The one in Denvale had a few differences; The wall facing the street was composed of large windows that let in the daylight and eliminated much of the need for internal lighting. Another was that stale air was nonexistent, and the place was clean. There were a few patrons at the bar, and an indistinguishable gentleman in pale gray clothing calmly drinking a mug of something in the back.

All present took notice of the towering hooded figure covered in black as he strolled into the bar. However, when the young woman came in behind him, it eased their concerns. The barkeep, a woman in a smock and apron gave them a curt nod. "Afternoon, strangers. Is there something I can get for you?"

A slightly muffled voice from within Marik's hood replied, as the hidden Morris carried out his role as translator for the Sorceror once again. "We're looking for the town elder. It's a matter of utmost importance."

The woman, looking to be in her thirties considered it for a moment. "We don't have a town elder."

"What do you have?"

"We do have a mayor, of a sort." The slightly dumpy looking barmaid said. Underneath her tired, ageworn frame, she seemed to carry herself with a steely air, tough and resilient. "But why do you want to see the mayor?"

"We have reason to suspect Denvale is in danger." Morris, posing as Marik's voice, inferred.

The woman pulled the towel off of her shoulder and reached for a toothpick, popping it into her mouth. "Really now?" She said, a little annoyed. "What from, exactly?"

Rachel stepped out in front of Marik a ways and shook her head. "We were ambushed by a small band of goblins and their kin earlier this morning; they thought we had something they were looking for." The healer gave Marik a look out of the corner of her eye, then gave her head a soft shake. "But we didn't. They're coming here next." Rachel clasped her hands together. "We have to warn the mayor and everyone here; There's green and red goblins and Rosequeen knows what else coming, and…"

"All right, all right, I get it." The barkeep said, lifting her hands in surrender. "You've sold me. So what can I do for you, then?"

"You can take us to the mayor." Morris said, still tucked safely away in Marik's hood.

The barmaid gave him a slightly bemused expression as she wiped a hand on her apron. "The mayor's right here, son." She held out her hand towards Marik and Rachel. "Elise Sartis, at your service. Now who are you two?"

Knowing that Marik wouldn't feel at all willing to shake her hand, Rachel took the mayor's hand, surprised as she was, and gave it a shake. "My name's Rachel Ashbury. This is Marik Observant, and…"

"Well, hold on a moment." The woman murmured, scrutinizing them. "Where's Marik's little friend, Morris?"

Rachel couldn't help but put out a flustered look. "…Wha?"

"Or your Mr. Benson, for that matter." The mayor continued, smiling. "News travels fast in Samael's Lands, especially when it comes to saving an entire town in the south."

Rachel turned up to Marik, and the towering Sorceror gave a shrug of his shoulders.

Grumbling slightly, Morris pulled himself free of Marik's hood and clawed his way back to the mages' shoulder. He blinked a few times as he looked to Mayor Sartis, looking for any sign of concern.

Elise simply nodded appreciatively and pointed to his tail. "Can you really paralyze people with that?"

"Just the ones I don't like." Morris said, a little taken aback at her mood. The mayor laughed raucously, and was soon joined by the other patrons at the bar.

After she wiped at the corner of her eye, the mayor motioned to a set of empty seats along the counter. "Go ahead and have a seat, friends. I've got some bread and cheese in the back, if you're in the need of some nourishment. Once you've eaten, you can explain this attack to me."

She ducked into the back, leaving Marik, Morris, and Rachel to glance at each other. Morris spoke the question they were all thinking. "Just how do you think news about our exploits got out this far?"

"I can answer that." One of the patrons, a simply-dressed man down at the end of the bar said. He lifted his glass up and nodded to them. "A bard came through the other day, started spinning his tales to pay for his lunch. One of 'em was about you."

The look on Rachel's face was priceless. "He didn't happen to be wearing a feathered hat, was he?"

"No. Why do you ask?" The man queried.

Rachel exhaled and nodded. "Well, at least it wasn't Orville then."

"Oh, but it is Orville's fault." Morris grumbled, his monotone indicating Marik's words. "Just because he didn't happen to be the bard who passed through Denvale, doesn't mean the one who did didn't hear it from him." The imp crossed his arms and stretched out his wings. "Orville Gracefoot likes us, remember? He said fame was just a consequence of what we were doing. And I know one thing about bards; they're not above spreading tidbits of adventures they've been on, or adventures of people they know for a free meal."

Rachel smiled a bit as they sat down at the counter, shaking her head. "Incredible. So. What do we do the next time we see him?"

"Beat him up for making us out to be heroes when we're not!" The imp began to snarl in his own voice, but he paused when Mayor Sartis came back out with a platter of freshly baked bread and large wedges of cheese.

"I didn't know what cheese you'd feel like, so I brought a few varieties." She said, giving them all another warm smile. "It's on the house."

Giggling a bit at the shock that came over the animated little devil's face, Rachel raised an eyebrow. "You'll beat him up, will you?"

Begrudgingly, Morris walked across the countertop and tore off a small section of bread the size of his face. "And then thank him." He said, all anger lost as he savored the meal that was a far cry from his usual crackers.

Mayor Elise Sartis took off her apron and leaned her arm against the counter. "Now, then." She said, growing more focused as Ness finally walked in the door. "Tell me just what exactly is heading our way."

---

"It's a band of goblinfolk." Rachel explained. "They've come from Istus, and are somewhere south of Denvale."

"They're planning to strike tonight." Morris interjected, swallowing another bite of the still warm bread. "They'll charge north."

"I see." The mayor said, lifting an eyebrow. "Do you all seem to have any particular idea why a rogue band out of lawless Istans would risk their lives, cross miles of land into Samael's Lands, and attack a town along the main western highway?"

"The one I interrogated mentioned something about a crystal." Morris inferred. "He thought Marik might have it. That's why they ambushed us."

"Luckily for us, their little assault didn't work." Ness Benson interjected. The man sitting in the back of the lodge gave them all a curious glance, but said nothing. Their conversation was interesting, but he didn't feel it was quite the right time to join in.

"Well, thank goodness for small miracles." Mayor Sartis exhaled. "But I'm afraid we don't have any sort of crystal in Denvale that they'd be after. At least not one that I know of."

"No, the crystal isn't here." Morris continued, adding to his argument. "The red goblin I hypnotized told me that a wizard was carrying it."

To this, the mayor and barmaid gained an annoyed glint in her eye. "Oh? A wizard, you say?"

The man in the back winced, even though she didn't look towards him. "As luck would have it, travelers, we do happen to have a mage passing through the area."

She finally pointed to the one obscure patron of her establishment. "Him."

Sighing as he set his mug down, the man dressed in drab grays looked towards them with a disinterested expression. "So now it's a crime to be a practitioner of the arcane arts? A shame." He brushed a hand over his clothes and shrugged. "So you're the folks who helped to save Kalen, eh?"

"Aah, you must wish to congratulate us." Ness answered drily.

"Actually, I couldn't care less." The man said shortly. His response caught them all off guard, but he made no motion to indicate that it was some sick joke.

The man stood up and hefted his satchel over his shoulder, walking over next to them all and giving a brief nod. "I suppose introductions are in order. Milon Friss, of Margrave's order. A priest, if you must."

"But the red goblin said that a wizard…"

The nondescript gentleman, a fellow in his thirties with a receding hairline of brown, let out a derisive snort and snapped his fingers, creating a blue hand out of thin air. "Come on now. Why would Margrave, the deity of magic use anything but wizards to serve him?" He shook a finger at them, and the hand did as well. "I'm a practitioner of the high Indifferent's secrets. Believe me, I'm the spellshaper that they're after." He stroked at his chin. "Interesting. From Istus, you said?"

Growing displeased with the man in a hurry, Marik brought forth his own green Sorceror's hand and waggled it at him, not moving his arms an inch. Morris carried over the accusation. "Perhaps you would mind telling us why exactly you have goblinfolk chasing you across the border."

The ease with which Marik had manifested his own magical hand that had made Milon Friss, the gray-clothed wizard lift an eyebrow. He hardly batted an eye at all to the threat. "It would seem you are a spellweaver of no small talent either…Mr. Observant, wasn't it?"

Morris flew over and hovered close to Marik, acting as a buffer. "You just watch yourself there, bub! I'll have you know Marik's the best Sorceror you'll ever cross paths with!"

Now the mage known as Milon showed genuine interest. "A Sorceror?" He mused, stroking at his chin. "Amazing. I didn't think there were any Sorcerors left in Terrus. Your kind is so much of an anomaly, you know."

He doesn't know the half of it, came Marik's grim message to Morris. The imp snickered a bit, but recovered.

"All right. So you're the wizard they're after. So why? And why are they after a crystal?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea, Mr. Observant." Milon Friss retorted with a shrug. He looked over to a glowering Ness and shrugged again. "Honest. I just came from Istus, true enough. I had completed an excavation in the mountains along the Ocean of Idane, and am on my way back to Sorvindal." He set his bag down and rummaged around on the inside, producing a staff-sized crystal that was smooth at its base, and exploded outwards in a series of spiky protrusions. "This is what we found."

Marik stared at it for a moment, growling softly, and the imp harrumphed. "It's definitely magical."

"An astute observation, little familiar." Milon agreed. "But what exactly it does…well, that's something else entirely." He swept his face across the room with a grim stare. "I find it curious that a force of goblinfolk have been sent out of Istus to retrieve it. No, they're not acting on their own initiative. Somebody else has ordered them to march for this trinket."

"Like a 'grouchy, funny-eared lady'?" Morris posed, recalling another segment of the red goblin's speech.

Milon grunted softly. "I don't know anyone personally who fits that description, but, it's very possible." He tucked the crystal away and shook his head. "Well, I'll be out of Denvale soon enough. Then it won't be an issue."

"How soon?" Mayor Sartis asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Given what I know now, it would be in my best interests to get out of here this afternoon." He remarked calmly.

His answer surprised Ness, and it steamed Marik and Morris. The imp flew up next to the wizard's face and snarled at him. "You monster." Morris accused him. "The only reason Denvale is IN trouble is because you're here in the first place! You would leave without helping them to fight off the danger?"

"It's unfortunate, but it's not my problem." Milon said, growing annoyed. "You being in my face, however, is an issue."

Marik growled for a bit, but finally snorted with disdain and shook his hooded head. Morris stared with his black, beady eyes at the wizard defiantly. "Consider yourself lucky. Marik says we have bigger fish to fry than one of Margrave's selfish patrons."

Rachel considered it for a moment, then broke out into a smile as Marik turned to look at them. "You mean…"

Morris landed back onto his friend's shoulder and harrumphed. "There's no way that Marik and I are going to let a bunch of growling, snarling halfwits tear Denvale to pieces because of this selfish prig."

Still sitting at the counter, Ness drew a hand across his face. "By Cross's sword. Are you serious?"

"Perfectly serious." Morris answered. Rachel was beaming by this point and gave a nod to the Mayor.

"You three always end up dragging me into more trouble." Ness murmured. "Why is it we have to take every sideroad possible in our journey? We have our own mission ahead of us, and every time 'we' decide to go off gallivanting like this, we're pulled from it." He turned about in his seat and glowered at them. "So don't give me this 'we have to' nonsense. Just why in the blazes are we stopping our pursuit of the Grey Shadow here?"

Rachel began to say that it was the right thing to do, but halted herself when she realized it wasn't what he wanted to hear. Marik and Morris exchanged a look before the imp spoke up again, the calm clarity in his voice inferring Marik's presence. "I think I have a suitable answer for it in one of Father Rodian's old stories he told us once…"

All eyes in the room turned to them, curiosities piqued. "A father and his son were walking together, when they chanced upon a crossroads. Down one path was a road less sure, and fraught with danger, but there they knew were people who needed help. Down the other was a quieter road without any sort of trouble. The father turned to walk down the more dangerous road. The son stopped him, asking 'Why are you going that way? Why not take the safer route?' The father smiled and replied, 'Because this way is far more interesting.' His son protested, saying 'But you put yourself in danger! Why do you refuse the straighter course?' To this, the father shook his head. 'Who knows which path my life must take? Not even I fully know. But my heart tells me to go where I can do the most good, which is along that winding, dangerous path. And I will always trust in my heart to lead me."

Mayor Sartis slowly nodded her head in approval. Even the indifferent wizard, Milon Friss, curled his mouth into a smile, covering it quickly by picking up his glass and drinking a little more. Ness simply shook his head in disgust and turned back to the bar, waving a hand towards the Sorceror. "Do what you want." He chanced a glance at Rachel, who seemed a little crestfallen at his response. "You don't need me around to save the world, right?" He asked, immediately regretting the sharp response. The girl turned away, hurt by his words. Ness felt like slapping himself, but it came too late to do any good. "Rachel, I…"

"No, you're right." She said, standing up and readjusting her gear sadly. "I have to do what I think is right…and I'd do it, no matter what you or anyone else said." The hurt expression in her eyes tore at him as she walked over to Marik and gave him one last glance. "But I would have wanted you with me anyhow."

Unaware of the undertones that accompanied that soft statement, Marik and Morris prepared to depart. While Marik checked his backpack and scroll keeper, Morris was hurriedly stuffing as many pieces of fresh bread and crumbs of cheese into his vest pockets as he could.

At last ready, the Sorceror gave a nod to the bartender of the lodge and mayor of Denvale. Black eyes shining brightly, Morris let out a hearty laugh. "Don't worry yourself, Mayor Sartis. We'll take care of those goblinfolk before they can set one foot into this town!"

She gave the two travelers and the imp an appreciative nod. "We'll be in your debt if you can triumph." She concluded by glaring towards Milon Friss in the back of her establishment. "I'm just sorry you have to fix his mistakes."

"It's not a mistake." The wizard priest grumbled, folding his arms. "Chance alone has put this town in jeopardy."

"And yet you do nothing to help?!" The mayor accused him. "You forge a bad reputation for the emissaries of those in Margrave's service."

Tired of being insulted, the mage raised his hands in surrender and sighed. "Very well. I shall stay in Denvale. That way, you shall at least have a chance when they come."

The imp bared his fangs at the man known as Milon Friss. "Are you saying that you expect us to fail?"

"I think it far more likely that you'll perish out there." Came the terse reply. He said nothing else and turned his seat about, staring at the wall.

The healer shook off the comment and gave Marik a determined nod. "Are you ready?"

"Always." Morris chirped, and the three walked out of the lodge.

Ness Benson watched them depart with tired eyes, then looked over to the mayor and lifted a finger. "I'll take a mug of your house ale."

"You're not going with them, then?" Mayor Sartis inquired, reaching for a glass.

Feeling more tired than he had in a while, Ness set his arms on the counter and rested his head.

"They would stand more of a chance without me." He said quietly. The closer they came to Istus, after all, the more that his reputation worried him. The Cursed Blade had not claimed the lives of his comrades this entire time…But the inevitable was surely fast in coming.

---

"I haven't seen Ness this dismal in a while." Rachel confessed to Marik as they crested over another hill. Walking at a brisk pace, the two had made good time in their trek south of Denvale. Morris was flying on ahead of them, using his invisibility and keen senses of detection to keep watch for any sign of trouble. "I mean, this isn't the first time we've gone off course to help people. We did it once with those bandits in Westshire, and again in Kalen."

The towering mage shrugged his cloaked shoulders. "Still, something's changed. Ever since we left Lightfell, he…"

Marik and Rachel paused in the same moment, then glanced to each other. "Of course." Rachel murmured, shaking her head. "Your encounter with the Grey Shadow. He never did forgive himself, you know."

"Stupid of him." Marik grumbled, his watery rasp almost flippant. "It wasn't his head the Shadow was after."

"Nonetheless, I got the impression he blamed himself somehow." Rachel added. "I just wish he was here."

Marik had to agree with that, nodding his head. The skirmish east of Denvale had forced him to deplete a large amount of his magical reserves; He estimated that he had used about half of that essence saving his neck. "Ness' presence would be…reassuring." He finally said, not willing to go into detail about how much more cautious he would have to be in his tactics. The Sorceror picked up his pace a little bit, forging on ahead of Rachel to avoid further questions.

Wiping a bit of sweat from her brow from the day's heat, Rachel tried her best to keep up. "How can you be comfortable in that outfit in this weather?" She asked.

"Comfort wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I set out." He reminded her slowly, still moving at a fair clip. "And no, I'm not all that comfortable."

"Something tells me you'd fare better in the winter months." Rachel commented, smiling a bit. "Just how far ahead is Morris, anyhow? I can't see him anywhere."

"He's about three hundred feet away from us, and seventy-five feet up in the air." Marik responded. "He can do us more good up there at the moment."

"It's funny to watch the two of you." The Calyssan said, brushing her hair out of her face as the wind tried to annoy her.

"Funny?" Came the slightly confused voice of the cloaked Sorceror.

"Well, interesting, I guess." She continued. "Even back home, we heard stories of grand Druneweavers and their summoned companions, but you and Morris aren't like them."

"He is only my familiar in a very crude sense." Marik answered. "He's my friend, Rachel, more than anything else."

A blur of beating burnished wings crashed down onto Marik's shoulder, startling the mage. Grinning, Morris waggled an eyebrow. "Shucks, Marik. I'm your friend? I'm touched!"

Trying his best to ignore Rachel's giggles, Marik spoke up again. "Find anything interesting?"

"Yeah, trouble in a handbasket." The imp grumbled, his moment of levity ended. "They've pulled out some serious muscle for that dopey wizard back in Denvale. I counted two red goblins and a brown goblin patrolling the area about four hundred feet ahead."

The reds didn't worry Marik, but the mention of a brown goblin, a ferocious branch of the goblin bloodline which was far larger and far more powerful, gave him reason to worry. He turned his hood towards Rachel, a little relieved to see he was not the only one who seemed worried.

Rachel looked to Morris. "Any chance we could get around them?"

"A decent enough scout might be able to elude 'em…but not us." Morris said glumly. "So what'll it be? Fight or flight?"

Of course, the imp expected only one answer to that question, and he was smiling a bit when he heard it.

"Fight, Morris. As if I would say anything different."

"Well, I wasn't asking you, to begin with." Morris shot back testily. "I was asking her."

Rachel thought about it for a moment, then went digging into her satchel. She pulled out two vials of a faintly glowing blue liquid, her more potent healing potions and gave them to Marik. "Just in case I can't pull you back from whatever sort of stunt you're likely to pull." She said. "We fight." To make her statement hit home, she unlatched her crossbow from her right hip and took it in her hand again.

"But without Ness here, who are you going to have protecting you?" Morris asked.

"Us, of course." Said Marik, as if it answered everything.

"I'm not some paper doll, Marik." Rachel chastised him, her blue eyes glimmering softly in the daylight. An aura of white light surrounded her to punctuate that rebuttal. "I can take care of myself. My faith is the only armor I need."

Glancing at her, even the two lifelong friends had to agree that neither harbored any ill thoughts towards her in that moment. Marik harrumphed a bit, his smile and face hidden within the darkness of his hood, and shrugged his shoulders.

"It doesn't change the fact I'll still look out for you." He said finally.

"Why? Because you have some chauvinistic vision to uphold?"

"Not hardly." Marik rasped, only half-sincere. "You've saved my life at least three times by now. I'm only doing my best to get out of your debt."

It was a lousy comeback, but Rachel didn't care. She smiled all the same, and they charged off farther through Samael's fields and hills. It was funny he would make a comment about her just doing her job as their group's healer.

She wondered if he would start keeping count.

---

It had been an ambush; A pair of trolls, creatures somewhere between beast and plant had come at them out of the swamps that dotted the roads. That in itself was deadly enough, but too late had they realized the decoy.

"Protect Lord Blake!" Came the worried voice of Raleigh Finn. The bulk of their force, including their Commander, Sir Finn, was busy fending off the trolls. Even with their torches swinging about and threatening to burn the beasts, which was really the only way to keep one down permanently, they were losing ground at the front.

Only Ness Benson and Raleigh's squire were close enough to the Noble's carriage to mount a charge on their aggressor, a man in gray and black meshlike armor who wore a mask of cold iron, giving him a skeletal face in the midst of his swirling shroud. Almost casually, the attacker jumped off of the carriage roof towards them, and Ness and the squire raised their blades.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the dark assassin produced two serrated shortswords that glimmered in the midday light. The squire, carrying a broadsword and more courageous than Ness was, came in first with a ferocious horizontal slash. With grace and agility that nobody could have predicted, the skull-faced assassin crouched down as if pushed, holding his deadly blades crossed above his head in a V. When the squire's sword was directly above him, the eternally grinning vision of death snapped back up and caught the weapon between his, stopping the swing with sudden force and leaving his opponent stunned.

Ness cried out for him to pull back too late; by then, the man in black and gray was charging towards the squire and halfway down the length of his blade, sliding his shortswords along the weapon and keeping him helpless. In that last crucial moment, when the shrouded assassin was a foot from the squire, he snapped his blades up, pushing the sword above the man's head. Roaring in fury, the squire began to swing his weapon down, hoping to cleave the assassin's head in two.

It was not to be, for the shrouded killer's shortswords moved far faster, slicing across the unlucky squire in two deep cuts. The first slash took the squire's head clean off of his shoulders. The second severed his torso from underarm to shoulder.

Ness screamed and charged at the assassin, but the shrouded figure merely batted his sword aside and kicked him aside like a piece of trash. Gasping for breath, winded, Ness tried to move only to find his chest and newly broken ribs screaming to make him stop. He slumped into a motionless state, watching helplessly as the man in the skeletal faceplate approached the carriage.

Lord Blake finally emerged, face ashen but determined to uphold his nobility at any cost…Even his life. The white-haired man clenched a gloved hand at his side as the assassin paused to consider him for a moment. "So you are the one they call the Grey Shadow." Lord Blake said aloud, no hint of fear seeping into his voice.

The assassin chuckled and gave one short nod. Lord Blake closed his eyes and turned his face towards the blue sky above.

The Grey Shadow charged, even as Sir Finn and another man in his party, the only other one to survive the battle against the two trolls that the Shadow had used as diversion, came in shouting Lord Blake's name. A twelfth of a second later, none of that mattered. Lord Blake's body fell to the ground, and his head, hanging by the clenched mass of hair in the Shadow's left hand remained as stoic as ever.

"Bastard!" Sir Finn screamed, rushing on without regard for his life alongside the other standing warrior. As Ness realized in dawning horror, The Grey Shadow feared little to nothing. His grace and dexterity allowed him to weave about unharmed in the field of Finn's slashes. He tired quickly of the game, though, and after ten seconds of that useless combat, stepped in after a particularly brutal slash and ended the old knight's life with a single stab. The other fellow expired just as quickly.

Crying softly, shaking instead of sobbing, Ness Benson watched as the Grey Shadow tucked Lord Blake's head inside of his tattered black shroud and casually walked over to him.

The two regarded each other for a quiet moment, the assassin and the wounded swordsman. With his terrified blue eyes, Ness looked up into the Shadow's dull metal faceplate, and saw empty white eyes behind them. He shut his eyelids, praying that the Shadow would kill him fast and painlessly.

That death never came. A few moments later, Ness' eyes opened to the sound of the Grey Shadow's footsteps, calmly and deliberately walking away from the weakling who had never stood a chance against him.

Pressing a hand against his broken ribs, Ness trembled all the more as the assassin left him to die. In shame, he realized that the Shadow had thought him not worth the trouble of killing. Minutes later, when Ness found the strength to move again against his aching body and broken bones that he looked over the bodies of his comrades and the failed expedition and cried again.

He remembered the Shadow's burnished faceplate, and seared it into his memory. The Grey Shadow was responsible for his failure to protect Lord Blake. Until that faceless assassin was destroyed…

---

Ness Benson awoke with a strangled cry, his blue eyes blinking rapidly as he tried to place where he was.

No, not Marnus Rhee. Not eight years ago. He was in the lodge at Denvale, with a lukewarm bowl of soup turned over his arm from when he'd snapped from his dream.

A chuckle from farther down the bar made the swordsman turn from the disappointing sight of his half-eaten meal. He glowered at the source. The gray-robed wizard Milon Friss lifted a glass of water to him, still smirking in his own superior fashion.

"What's so funny?" Ness demanded, using a napkin that a barmaid brought to him to clean himself off. The mage scratched at his chin thoughtfully, still wearing the same smirk.

"Nothing, Mr. Benson. Nothing at all."

Ness grunted and picked up his drink which he had not spilled, fortunately. "How long was I asleep?"

"About an hour and a half." The wizard answered. "Your friends have been gone for about an hour longer than that." Ness nodded slowly, and the wizard spoke up. "I was wondering, Mr. Benson. Why exactly did you choose not to go with them?"

"I…" Ness began, grasping for a suitable answer. "I would just slow them down."

Milon considered that for a moment as he glanced about the bar. Satisfied that nobody else was listening in, he leaned in close. "Or are you just afraid you'd get them killed?"

Ness' eyes widened for a moment before he grew terse. The wizard shrugged and pulled back, not willing to risk a backhand. "How did you come to know of my name?" Ness growled.

Milon restrained a smirk, settling on a more indifferent drawl. "Come now, Mr. Benson. I'm paid to know things."

Ness turned away, glowering. "That's all that concerns you, isn't it? Money and your own self-interest."

"The same could be said of you, as well." Milon retorted, taking another swallow of his ale. "Your quest to defeat the Grey Shadow carries a substantial monetary sum with it."

Ness seethed at the comparison. "Men have died going after him. If money was the only reason I chased him, I would have given up for less dangerous prey a long time ago."

"And saved a lot of courageous boys' lives in the process." Milon noted grimly.

Ness's hand tightened into a fist on the counter. "Is there a point to your grumbling, wizard?"

"I'm just wondering why you would choose to remain behind here in Denvale while the rest of your comrades march off to stop an invasion."

"You know my reputation." Ness snapped softly. "You should know better than anyone why they're better off without me."

Milon shrugged to that. "In most cases, I would agree with you, but…" He paused, then clucked his tongue. "Well, no matter."

Ness froze at that, glancing towards the indifferent wizard as he spun his waterglass. "Just what do you mean by that?" He growled, suddenly worried.

Milon shrugged. "I could mean many things. Why do you care enough to ask?"

Ness stood up from his barstool, towering over the unimpressive-looking wizard of Margrave. "If they're in danger, so help me I'll…"

"Oh, stop threatening me." Milon snapped, glaring back at his aggressor. "It won't make me give you the answers you want any faster."

Ness kept his arms at his sides. "They are my friends, Milon. Are you telling me that they are…"

"I'd just like you to ask yourself, are they in more danger with you, or without you?" Milon interrupted coldly. "Then ask yourself which path your 'reputation' is destined to play out on." Milon rolled his eyes. "And while you're thinking about that little tidbit, take a seat."

Ness did so.

Sighing, Milon lifted a hand up. "Barkeep! Some more ale, if you please." As the glass was taken away from him, Milon ventured some more conversation. "You know, Mr. Benson, I had a reason for staying here in Denvale, instead of traveling east."

"Would it have anything to do with the fact that you didn't want to anger the mayor any more than she already was?"

"Admittedly, opting to stay got her off of my back, but that wasn't the real reason." Milon noted. "Your friend Mr. Observant…Interests me. Sorcerors are a rarity in any age, and Marik is the first one alive I've run across. Most Sorcerors, unlike your friend, are known for madness and evil. They're supposed to have devastating potential, but…" Milon let the sentence hang for a moment before continuing. "Well, I suppose I'll never know."

"If you're trying to say something, just say it." Ness pleaded.

Milon examined his nails, perfectly trimmed and groomed. "If the stories are true, then Mr. Observant can wield incredible power. But nobody, not even your cunning friend can throw spells all day, and Miss Ashbury's crossbow arrows can only go so far. When that happens, woe to the fool who is without a means of lesser defense."

The wizard pulled the edge of his outer robes back, revealing a glimmering longsword strapped to his side. He gave Ness a look. "Magic can be exhausted. But a sword is eternal, in comparison to the art that I wield. And believe me, Marik is not limitless, as much as he seems to be."

The barmaid brought Milon his drink, and he took in a long draught before sighing. "Too bad. There were things I would have liked to discuss with him. He and his imp familiar are interesting."

Ness closed his eyes. "So they are in danger."

"When are they not, while they follow in your footsteps?" Milon snorted. "You're drawn to danger, Benson. You've made a career of it."

"So what are you telling me then?!" Ness demanded, pounding a fist on the counter. "Are you telling me that they'll die because I'm not there, or because I go to find them and doom them by being there?"

Milon shrugged. "I'm not telling you anything of the sort. I'm just pointing out the facts."

"Enough of your facts, then." Ness snapped. He turned for the door.

Milon raised his glass and paused before taking another drink. "And just where are you off to, then?"

"To catch up to them!" Ness barked. "Far too long I've played a fool to all this, and I let them go down a detour without me!"

"And if they die when you are there?" Milon asked, arching an eyebrow.

Feeling precious time being pulled from him, Ness shook his head angrily. In its sheathe at his back, Brightflame pulsed with anticipation. "If they are to die, I will not have it be because I left them to die!"

Ness stormed out of the lodge, leaving Milon to stroke at his chin and smile. "So, then. You've finally made up your mind, Cursed Blade?" He stood up and tossed a few gold coins on the bar to pay for his tab. Lifting his rucksack on his shoulders, he set out after the rushing swordsman. Time was running out.

---

Ness didn't know whether to cry or to scream. He opted to storm off towards Denvale's southern edge, anticipating a long and harried run after them.

"Mr. Benson!" Came the voice of Milon Friss after him. Ness turned to regard the wizard priest coldly.

"What do you want now, coward?"

"I'm insulted by that." Milon remarked. "I just thought I'd point out something before you went dashing off. At the distance they are from you, you would never make it to them in time."

"I have to try." Ness argued resolutely. "I have no other choice."

"I'm glad you feel that way." Milon said, seeming more chipper afterwards. "I would have felt a fool otherwise."

Pausing to consider the comment, Ness looked to the mage. "What do you mean by that?"

Milon stared off into the distance, scrutinizing for something that the swordsman couldn't detect. "Aah, there they are." He motioned to Ness to come closer to him. "I'll get you to them, Ness."

"You'll teleport me?"

"It's a simple enough concept, in practice." Milon explained. "We may land a distance away from them, as I don't know the terrain of this land all that well, but it's a risk we'll have to take."

Ness swallowed, remembering some of the things he'd heard rumored about teleporting wizards. "You're not going to make us reappear in a tree, are you?"

The nondescript mage snorted derisively at that. "That's a highly unlikely possibility. Only in the most extreme cases has teleportation resulted in meshing with material as the destination, and we're not exactly trying to appear inside of a mountain. Come now, Mr. Benson. Surely you can muster some of that courage you displayed earlier for a short journey such as this."

He really didn't have any other choice, Ness realized. Not if he meant to save Marik, Morris, and Rachel from an untimely demise. Steeling his nerves, he stepped beside Milon. "Work your spells then, wizard. But hurry."

Harrumphing at the notion, Milon grasped Ness by the arm and began to chant in an unintelligible arcane dialect. There was the sensation of something tingly blowing about them a few seconds later, and then the world seemed to fade to white.

What seemed like a moment later, they reappeared far from Denvale's relative civilization, out in the fields and rolling hills of the countryside. Thankfully, Ness noted as he exhaled, they stood on solid ground, and were none the worse for wear.

Milon stepped away from Ness and began to look about again, pointing in a specific direction soon after. "Your friends are that way."

"How can you be so sure?" Ness demanded.

"Simple." Milon Friss harrumphed. "Before Mr. Observant left the lodge, I left an ethereal marker on the edge of his cloak. I thought you might reconsider, and it seemed the easiest way to track them." He pointed again. "Go that way about three-quarters of a mile, and you will find them."

As an afterthought, he dug into the pouch of bizarre ingredients at his waist and began to weave his will again. Ness felt a strange force descend over him, and the tired looking wizard waved him off. "I'd hurry." He urged the swordsman. "My enchantments will only last so long."

"Why are you doing this?" Ness asked, confused. "I thought you didn't care about Denvale."

"I don't." Milon Friss harrumphed, giving the swordsman a soft smile. "But it would be a shame if I didn't get to see Mr. Observant again. And be sure to tell him, when you all come back, I have something to give him."

Ness shook his head to the strange spellshaper. "I just can't figure you out, Mr. wizard."

"And let's pray that you never will." Milon Friss observed, stroking his chin. "I do have a reputation to uphold, after all. You can pay me for the transport when you return."

Ness began to voice a complaint to the 'charge', but Milon had uttered a few more syllables and vanished in a beam of light that shot up into the sky before he could begin half of his sentence.

Seeing the end of it, Ness Benson took off running, feeling so much faster from the spell the wizard of Margrave had given him as a parting gift. Later, he decided, he would sit down and think about what Milon Friss was really after, and if the wizard had helped Ness as an act of kindness, or simply out of his own selfish desires. That was for later. Trouble was brewing up ahead.

Ness only hoped he would not be too late.

---

The goblinoid patrol continued on through their predetermined course, looking in every direction for trouble. They were the farthest scouts out, but even their slow-witted brown goblin wasn't concerned.

Not until a fireball, guided by a transparent green hand crashed down on the leading red goblin's face and roasted him alive. The beast screamed in pain and tried to escape the magical fire, but it stubbornly followed him and scorched his back with the killing blow.

The surviving red drew out his rusty greatsword and stared about, looking for the source of the sudden attack. His larger companion snarled through his deformed, tusk-filled mouth and swung his massive spiked club about in front of it.

"Where did it come from?!" The brown growled in their guttural language. The red stared about, finally spotting a flash of black up in a tree above that drew his attention.

"Hims!" He snarled, dodging to the side as the burning ball swung in again. It snuffed out a few moments later, the aether in it exhausted. The large brown wasted no time in running up to the tree, roaring and swinging its heavy club. The blow made the entire tree shudder, and Marik was forced to jump down. Midfall, he drew his right arm back and snapped out his longsword, bracing himself for the first strike.

The red goblin came charging in towards the Sorceror in black soon after, goading his ally on. He was ten feet from them when he felt the sharp report of an arrow slamming into his shoulder, and more curious, a lesser sting that jammed into the back of his neck. Blindsided, he swatted angrily at a strange winged creature that appeared out of thin air, then reached for the arrow in his shoulder. Ripping it out with a grunt, he stared at the projectile in his hand. Not an arrow, but a crossbow bolt.

He turned in the direction where the shot had come from, and saw a young human woman leveling a crossbow in a one-handed grip at him again. He took two steps towards her and she fired again, hitting him in the right side of his chest. Still grimacing, the beastly warrior wondered why he was moving so slow.

Providing the answer, the winged creature laughed above his head, waving at him with a smirk on his face. The red felt another crossbow bolt, better aimed, sink into his throat. Beyond the impact as his back hit the ground, he didn't feel much else. The paralytic venom of the imp's sting and the three crossbow shots took care of that.

The larger brown goblin may have been huge and slow, but that didn't make it any easier of a target for Marik to deal with. The overhead slash he'd mustered on the jump down had been stopped cold just by the ferocious creature simply raising its club up and pushing Marik back. Marik had kept his balance by continuing through with the force of the club's push, spinning in a backflip before kicking his boots into the beast's chest and leaping backwards. Skidding into a crouch, he lifted his hooded head up and stared incredulously at the thing.

Morris, do you remember anything about fighting brown goblins from the lessons Rodian gave us?

Those were your lessons! I was taking a nap at the time!

The Sorceror gave an unseen grimace as the thing roared and charged at him, its thick spiked club swinging back and forth. Terrific. All I remember is that they're born sexless. Well, we'll make this up as we go along.

Trying to conserve his power, Marik straightened his left arm out and fired off a small beam of icy blue light, one of his more reliable cantrips. The beast's movements were erratic, however, so the frozen mist meant for its' face skewered past its' ear with minimal effect. Cursing, Marik jumped to his feet and tried to jump backwards out of the way of the swing. The brown came on without stopping, and smashed the unspiked side of the massive club into Marik's waist.

The impact wasn't so much of a hammerblow as it was being thrown by a mountain. Injured from the concussive smash, Marik was tossed to the side until he smashed backfirst into another tree. The stars in his eyes and Rachel's scream were the first signs Marik had that anything was horribly wrong.

"Now yous die!" The huge brown goblin snarled, coming in close to Marik and lifting the club above its head. Numbly, the Sorceror tried to clear his vision, not suspecting he was moments away from having his skull bashed in.

Morris' poisonous sting jammed into the creature's thick neck in perfect synch with the long end of Rachel's whip wrapping around its arm and pulling back. Rachel strained against the creature several times stronger than her, halting his efforts for a bit.

"Stupid lady!" The dimwitted brown goblin snarled, pulling hard on the whip. Rachel yelped as she was lifted off the ground, but managed to let go before he could send her for too wild of a ride. The short drop still knocked the wind out of her when she met ground again. The brute wasn't fazed by the sting in its neck at all. Finally clearing his senses of the pain-filled haze, Marik pulled himself to his feet and managed a shaky slash across the beast's chest. It nicked into the creature's flesh a bit before meeting the piecemeal armor and dashing off.

The brute roared in pain and brought in a swinging fist in at Marik. Again, the Sorceror registered the impact of another tremendous blow. Thankfully, he missed the tree this time, and skidded backwards along the ground. It didn't stop the beast from coming closer, and both Rachel and Morris screamed out his name again, horrified and unable to do anything.

The bestial goblinoid lifted its club up above the now helpless Marik Observant, and prepared to end it all. The blow never fell. A powerful scream, accentuated by the slash of a fiery sword ended the danger to Marik's life in an instant. The heavy club fell to the ground with a thud, and the dead brown goblin collapsed after it.

Marik opened his eyes inside the darkness of his hood and looked up to see Ness Benson standing there, his green cloak flaring out behind him and Brightflame burning in his right hand.

It was Rachel who spoke first, standing back up after recovering her breath. "Ness?" She said, hardly believing it. "What are you doing here?"

Looking about, Ness Benson's blue eyes looked for any further sign of trouble. Only when he was satisfied did he put his sword away. "For better or worse, we are a team. And I am not going to sit back and let more of my comrades perish." Marik struggled to his feet, looking to Rachel as he stood up.

"Oh, hold on, Marik…" Rachel murmured, concentrating for a bit and casting a spell of healing towards him. Blue motes of light danced over the Sorceror, and he straightened up, less bruised from the forceful blows of the goblin behemoth.

Morris plopped onto Ness' shoulder and laughed. "I knew you couldn't get away from us!" He goaded the swordsman. "But damn, it's good to see you! Marik nearly bought the farm back there!"

Marik conjured another green hand and gave Morris a rude gesture to the comment. Rachel smiled as she finished wrapping up her bullwhip, then went to give Ness a thankful hug. "We thought we could handle it, but…"

Ness shook his head, then tapped his hand against the hilt of his longsword at his hip. "Magic can be exhausted. A sword is eternal." He said, repeating Milon's warning. "It was stupid of me to stay behind and let you three risk your lives without me." Ness shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"Just how did you get here so fast?" Morris asked, carrying over Marik's question.

"I had a little help from that wizard back in the lodge." Ness admitted.

"That grumbling servant of Margrave?" Morris snorted, at the same time Marik did. "Why would he care?"

"I honestly have no idea." Ness admitted. "But he got me here in time to save you, so I'm in his debt."

"You'll stay with us, then?" Rachel asked hopefully. "Help us stop the invasion of Denvale before it can take place?"

Ness bit his lip. "Yes. But before we go on, there is something I must tell you." He stepped back as Marik came up beside Rachel, glancing out of the corner of his eye to the imp sitting on his shoulder. "All of you."

With a foot, Ness rolled the dead brown onto its back, then sat down on its stomach with a sigh. He looked up at them with such a grave expression that any questions they might have had were silenced. "Ever since we left Lightfell, the two of you must have noticed that I wasn't as relaxed as before. The Grey Shadow's attack on Marik was responsible for that, but it was not so much the attack as something that runs deeper." Ness blinked at them. "Did either of you think it odd that nobody else besides you two took this mission with me? Or that I asked you to be sure of your intention?"

Marik and Morris thought back, and the imp nodded vigorously. "I believe we told you that as long as there was some money to be made doing it, we'd take on the danger." Rachel folded her arms behind her back and looked to Ness silently, wondering just where it was all leading.

"There's been danger for eight years." Ness concluded softly. "Ever since the Shadow and I first crossed paths, he's been killing everyone around me, but not me. Sometimes he's ignored me, other times I've just been luckier than the others. With all the expeditions I had been on in all the years after, I was given a nickname to match my reputation."

The blue-eyed swordsman stared towards Marik. "And in all this time, I'm surprised that you, Marik, who seems to know everything there's worth knowing, never placed it. To you, I'm Ness Benson. To most of Ashra, I'm not a face, or a person. I'm a walking curse. The Cursed Blade."

Marik and Morris both recoiled at that, their telepathic bond sharing the sudden confusion. Rachel stared blankly, without an idea in her head as to why that was such a terrible thing.

"You?" Morris squeaked. "You mean, you're the Cursed Blade? The bane of all adventurers?"

"One and the same." Ness Benson murmured, looking to the ground. "The man who always lives while all his allies perish around him. It's been haunting me for years, and I thought that I had finally escaped its grip, but…" He motioned towards Marik and shook his head. "But then the Shadow nearly took you away from us. I'm still the Cursed Blade, as much as I try to tell myself that I'm not."

Morris fluttered off of the swordsman's shoulder and went back to hovering around Marik. "So why wait until now to tell us?" The little winged devil demanded. "Why now, when we're nearly at Istus?"

"If you had known, would you have come?" Ness asked, no sarcasm in what was usually a sarcastic statement. He picked his head up and stared at them all. "I thought that maybe this time, it would be different. But all I'm doing is putting all of your lives in jeopardy." He chewed on his lip for a moment, then sighed. "If you wanted to leave, return home, or chase a different road, then I would understand. I just could not continue this quest any longer without all of you knowing the whole truth of it. I am the Cursed Blade, and you were all in danger the moment you joined with me."

Marik and Morris said nothing for a bit, and the imp shrugged. Unconsciously, Rachel stared up wonderingly into the dark, seemingly empty hood of the giant Sorceror, searching for a sign as she formulated her own response that the spellcaster was thinking the same thing. Her gentle blue eyes glimmered with understanding when the quiet Marik gave a single nod of his head.

Rachel walked over to Ness, standing there as he looked down at the ground in shame. Her hand found his shoulder, and he looked up in surprise.

Determination and acceptance was all that he could see in her posture. "You are not The Cursed Blade." She uttered softly, her brown hair bouncing about her shoulders as she shook her head. "Not if you believe in us."

Ness blinked, not sure if he had heard her correctly. Her reassuring smile removed any doubt. "You…you would stay with me?"

"Come ON, Ness!" Morris piped up again, feeling as chipper as ever. "We've survived bandits, vampires, ghouls, zombies, fire bats, every breed of goblin, and even ex-druids fighting with you! If we were going to die, it would have happened a long time ago!" As an afterthought, and more composed as Marik took over, he added, "Besides, this mission's not done with. Until the Grey Shadow's dead, we don't get paid. It'd be stupid to leave before we get the reward for making Ashra a safer place."

Ness slowly stood up, shaking his head in disbelief as he grinned back at them. "You know what's funny? I do believe in you."

"Oh, that's just their youthful optimism." Morris retorted, earning a slap from Marik's magical hand for the comment.

Rachel took Ness' hand in hers, still smiling in her gentle way. "So are we going to finish this, or not?"

Ness squeezed her hand back and nodded. "We'll finish this…and then it's on to Istus."

"Damn right." Marik rasped in his gravelly voice, and for a change, Morris didn't chastise him for it. Ness looked to his Sorceror and blinked a few times.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to that voice of yours. Tell me, Marik, how many more spells do you think you could muster?"

The Sorceror examined his comrades for a long moment as he pondered that. Rachel Ashbury, the healer from another world who believed in him and did not care how he sounded, and the righteous Ness Benson, who was on the path to exorcise his own demons. Ness could complain all he wanted about Marik's voice as long as she was around. The shining power in Rachel's eyes had been captivating him ever since she had healed him in Lightfell, giving him hope. After they were done with these goblinfolk, Marik would find some way to return the favor, and express his feelings for the girl who was like nothing he had ever known.

"I've got enough in me for a few more." Marik rasped. "Just don't go asking me to bolster your defenses."

"Fair enough." Ness answered, rubbing a hand along the shirt and chainmail covering his chest. "I'm used to keeping myself alive." He threw Marik a wink. "And you now."

"Keeping him alive is my job, Ness." Rachel complained, and the spritely devil up in the air laughed.

The young Calyssan passed Ness two of her green healing potions and one blue, and they set out again. If they had a choice, they preferred to attack the beasts in broad daylight rather than night.

There were still more miles ahead of them before they'd reach the camp of raiders from Istus. They would have to hurry, for it was already mid-afternoon.

---

The sun was an hour from disappearing before they finally reached their destination. In the hazy pink glow of sunset, Ness, Marik and Rachel hid behind a small hill, with the swordsman throwing a furtive glance every now and then to the camp in the distance.

It was simple looking enough, with a few cookfires here and there slowly being put out. "They're getting ready to move out soon." Ness explained, looking to his comrades. Rachel kept her crossbow at the ready, but Marik seemed remarkably unfazed by matters. "Marik, where's Morris?" Ness demanded impatiently.

The Sorceror shrugged, saying nothing. Thankfully, a fluttering of familiar wings came close and the vest and trouser wearing imp reappeared beside them. "It's not good; they came prepared." Morris observed. "I could make out fifteen greens, five browns, and ten reds in that camp."

"And it's likely not their full number, either." Ness murmured. "They still have patrols out." They had narrowly avoided detection by two more on their way in, which left the real tally in the air.

"Anything else in the camp to worry about besides large numbers?" Rachel asked, noting she would be using her spell-powered aura of pacifism sooner than expected.

"This place is pretty empty of magic. Only one tent had anything that I could pick up." The imp said, blinking his sharp, beady eyes.

What exactly did you pick up? A trinket of some sort, or…something else?

"I don't rightly know." Morris harrumphed. "I didn't feel like trying to fly inside to take a peek, not with that mage woman in there."

Ness and his comrades all sat up a little straighter at that. "A mage? Here?" Ness murmured, surprised.

"Well, it does explain what that red goblin we interrogated earlier today meant by 'magic lady'." Morris harrumphed. "I guess our friend Mr. Friss is more interesting than we gave him credit for."

Ness looked to Marik. "If you had to…could you take her?"

Marik glanced to Morris, who shrugged. "She had a spellbook in there, and she was prepping for battle."

Marik thought over it for a moment, then sighed. Morris took over for him. "Marik says he might be able to take her, if he gets to her before she finishes memorizing all her spells. It'll be a duel between spellcrafters, though, and Marik doesn't have that much pep left in him at the moment."

"Just keep her off my back, that's all I ask." Ness nodded firmly. Brightflame pulsed against his back, and the swordsman clenched a fist. "I can handle the others."

Rachel gave the stubbled Benson a disapproving scowl. "Ness, be serious! There's at least thirty different goblinkin in that camp, you can't take them all! This isn't like the last time we fought!"

"True." Ness admitted, a little deflated. He mulled over the idea in his head and looked to Marik and Morris. "Morris, you're our wildcard."

"Me?" The imp asked incredulously. "Why me?"

"Because they won't be expecting you." Ness inferred. "That paralyzing sting of yours has proved devastatingly effective in the past, and I think it can do so again."

"Don't be expecting me to drop any of those brutish browns." Morris grumbled. "They're more resistant than the others."

"Do what you can, keep them distracted."

"In other words, trying to shoot and swing at me instead of you?"

"That's the general idea, yes."

"You're a frigging saint, Benson." Morris Redtail grumbled.

Rachel thought about it for a moment. "So my job will be to make sure that you three clods don't keel over and die, is that it?"

"Well, that and using that crossbow to cut down their numbers." Ness remarked.

"All right. Does anyone else think this plan needs some serious work?" Morris interjected tersely. "Because right now, it sounds like the plan is to rush in there and catch them with their pants down, and that's a lot of hoping."

"Provided Marik can deal with their wizard, I've good hope for the rest of this little skirmish." Ness clarified.

"That's awfully optimistic of you." Marik noted, not wanting to bother with the third wheel of having Morris speak for him. "But all right. If we're going to do this, let's start now."

"Hold on." Rachel said, clasping her hands together. The puzzled menfolk waited patiently as she recited a few lines of scripture to herself, then reached her hands out and touched them on their forearms. Her aura came into being for a moment, and the swordsman and Sorceror felt a brief twinge of confidence flow into them. "You'll need that. A little divine aid never hurt."

"So, the goddess of beauty can help even uncultured 'clods' like us fight a little better?" Morris chuckled, flexing his tiny claws. Rachel pulled her scarf a little tighter around her neck and nodded.

"One has to be able to defend their friends in this world, or else beauty has no place to grow." She gave Ness a wink she masked as a blink, which the Sorceror and imp missed, but Ness picked up easily.

"All right then." Ness said easily. "Marik…Can you get in there and deal with her?" The Sorceror mulled it over for a moment, then began to growl. A few seconds later, he disappeared, and only the sound of soft footsteps indicated his departure.

Ness and Rachel flattened themselves against the hill a little bit more and waited.

"Good luck, boss." Morris said hopefully. "Don't do anything stupid."

---

Under the cover of invisibility, Marik Observant weaved through the camp unharried by any of the goblinoids preparing for the night raid. The tent that Morris had found questionable was easily picked out; it was the only one with midnight blue canvas.

It was also the only one with a wizard inside. How powerful, Marik did not know, but he hoped that she wouldn't be dropping a hailstorm of brimstone on his head. Still, he had one advantage on his side, the Sorceror thought grimly. She didn't know he was coming, and if there was something that Marik could do that most Sorcerors could not, it was move without making much noise, so long as he was careful. And he was always careful.

---

Inside, Piella Xan'Khul continued to skim her pale fingers over her spellbook, idly preparing a fireball spell for the night's raid. Or at least, that was how it seemed. Morris had been invisible as well, but when he was flapping his wings like that, he was nowhere near as quiet as the little imp had hoped. That quick warning had allowed Piella to cast a spell she had prepared prior, which allowed her to see through invisibility. While the imp had disappeared, her casual glances up and out of her tent's entrance finally reached fruition. To anyone's look, she was just making sure the rest of her force was preparing as well.

Goblins and their kin were ferocious little monsters, true enough, but a few medium strength dweomers was all it took to bring them in line and cowering. She had been working with this band for a while now, and that longstanding allegiance helped as well. At least they could follow directions, and from the sounds and sights of it, they were nearly ready.

When she raised her head again to look out the tent flap, she moved it slowly and without any sign of tension or worry. She was rewarded by the sight of a towering figure in black robes and a cloak moving towards her, outlined with a flashing aura that indicated his invisible state. Piella stared off to the side of him, using her peripheral vision to examine him. The ploy worked, and he continued on towards her, unaware that his plan was already foiled.

She turned back to her book, no longer trying to prepare any more spells. There wasn't the time for it, but she'd already finished more than a handful.

You think you're so clever, don't you, little mage? Piella thought to herself as she used her hidden hand to prepare the motions for her first spell. Not clever enough.

Marik was just at the entrance to her tent and preparing to strike at her swiftly when she whirled about and screamed the final arcane syllables. The formula complete, a mass of brilliant blue energy formed into the shape of a ball and snapped forward. It struck Marik dead-on in the chest, ending his spell of invisibility as it flung him out into the center pavilion of their camp.

He landed with a grunt, wincing as his already bruised ribs screamed at him again. Morris, she saw me coming!

The imp was silent for a moment, then spoke up again. You want my advice, boss?

I'd rather have your help!

No longer invisible, Marik pulled himself to his feet and looked about, feeling slightly sluggish. Blast it… He used his Sorceror's hand to pull out the first vial of healing potion Rachel had given him and drained it quickly, all too aware of the amassing goblins who could now see him.

The female wizard stepped out of her tent, a glint in her burning red eyes as she pushed back a loose strand of her white hair that had escaped the tightly wrapped bun behind her head. It was clear by her appearance that dark magics had taken their toll on her; her shock-white hair, inhuman eyes, and pale skin screamed of sacrifices taken for evil rituals. Marik restrained a growl of frustration as she set a hand to her hip and looked at him in disdain. "Stupid spellshapers like you deserve to perish. You weaken our breed." She announced, a tremor in her voice shaking the air.

Marik held his right arm down at his side, snapping his springloaded longsword out while he began to charge one of his few remaining spells in his covered left hand.

Anytime now, Morris…

Oh, stop complaining. We're coming in fast! Came the urgent reply.

While the goblinfolk in the camp began to surround Marik, Rachel, Ness and Morris charged in. With a scream and a quick slash of his fiery sword, Brightflame, Ness cut one unlucky red goblin in two as they continued on. Rachel's aura was already up and glowing, and everyone that caught sight of her either stared blankly or turned away, unwilling to harm her. Unfortunately, once they reached Marik, Ness realized why they hadn't rushed out at them. They'd encircled them, giving no way out, and countless swords, halberds and clubs in all directions meaning to end their lives.

The warped mage flung her hand out and chanted a few syllables, and Morris suddenly reappeared beside them, his invisibility dispelled.

Ness held Brightflame at the ready, gritting his teeth as he examined the odds against them. Glowing inside of her protective aura, Rachel readied her crossbow and hoped her friends would not die so quickly that she could not help them. Marik held fast to his pose, seeing the gloating dark wizard out of the corner of his eye and hoping she did not have many more surprises.

"We're gonna die here." Morris spoke up, the only one looking truly frightened out of all of them. "Boss, we're gonna die!"

Marik rolled his eyes inside of his hood. You know, I get tired of hearing you say that.

I'm supposed to be your conscience, remember?!

Unaware of their telepathic exchange, Ness gave a shake of his wild brown hair. "Morris, would you just shut up and do your job?"

The imp threw him a glare. "And just what would that be?"

Rachel made the first move, seeing that there were still a few members of the camp which had not amassed around them. One green goblin came in towards them, brandishing a shortspear, and she fired her loaded crossbow. The quarrel hit it in the center of its forehead and dropped it dead on its back. Not waiting as she felt her protective aura fall away from her, the healer grimaced and reached for another one of her crossbow bolts. The quiver hanging off of her hip was starting to become empty. "Do you need to ask?" She snapped.

The female wizard lifted her hands up in the air. "Kill them all!" She roared, and the beasts lunged forward.

Ness focused in on a group of three greens and two of their larger red cousins rushing in towards them. Gripping Brightflame a little tighter, he grinned a little. "I thought she'd never ask."

Marik summoned another ball of flames and launched it in the direction of a pair of lumbering brown hoping to bash them senseless. Conjuring his Sorceror's hand again, he felt the sudden sting of five magical bolts trying to drill into him.

It only hurt for a moment, though. The feeling passed quickly from him, and the puzzled Sorceror turned about to see the albino woman looking at him in surprise. That surprise only went for a moment before she scowled and began to cast another spell, summoning the same blue sphere which had managed to hit him. "Resist this, then!" She uttered darkly, firing it towards him.

So much for small breaks. Marik thought to Morris, leaping out of the way just as the unstoppable blast of force hurtled past him.

Lurching to the side, Marik tracked the blast and watched it crash into the thick chest of one of the two browns which had survived his fiery sphere's attack. The beast went flying backwards, crushing an unlucky green goblin underneath him. None too smugly, Marik looked back to the now infuriated woman and gave his hooded head a slow and chastising shake back and forth.

Ness sliced through his third green and turned to the red trying to shear his head off. "Marik, deal with that witch already!" Rachel fired another bolt from her crossbow soon after, working in synch with the fast-stabbing Morris to bring the midsized creatures down. "We can handle them!"

Ignoring the blow from a shortsword that crashed against his chainmail covered arm, Ness turned about and slashed at another brown trying to get too close to Rachel.

Marik hesitated for a moment, worrying that if he strayed too far from Rachel, the healer would be overwhelmed by the gathering forces, even with the help of Ness and Morris. He was stuck there only until a barrage of flying red arcane darts descended on the young healer, causing her to shudder and cry out in pain. He whirled about, seeing only that infuriating dark mage, and none of the other beasts about them.

"Marik!" Ness roared, slicing across to end the brown beast's life. "Go!"

The Sorceror didn't need another prompt after that. Already, the woman wizard was preparing another barrage of magical bolts; the wiggling of her fingers and the red glow about her hands was unmistakable.

Marik tore towards her, and began to growl as he summoned forth the same spell. He got his off a moment before hers, throwing his own salvo into her path. Her spell finished, and the sturdy red bolts soared outwards, vanishing a quarter second later when Marik's own magical bolts counterspelled and neutralized the attack. Marik was rewarded by her infuriated stare, but he didn't have the time to gloat. Sensing a few greens approaching him, he swung his right arm out in a wild arc to keep them at bay, then channeled back into his dwindling reserves of magical strength. The green light reappeared around his hand, ending with another three concussive blasts of magical force that streaked in towards her. But just as her own darts had failed to harm him, his bolts didn't leave a mark against her, and simply snuffed out. Inside his hood, Marik's eyes flared.

Just like with the Shadow!

As Rachel, Ness, and Morris continued to struggle against a horde which was dying, but slowly, Marik stood there dumbfounded as the pale spellcaster laughed with no mirth in her voice.

"Incredible." She murmured, shaking her head. "All this trouble for an inferior mage."

Before he could react, she threw out another sphere of blue light, crashing the concussive force against his chest and sending him flying through the air to fall beside his comrades.

"Marik!" Rachel cried, and a few moments later she cast another healing spell over him, lessening the spots in his eyes.

Marik stood back up, finding himself huddled in with his three allies as the surviving members of the camp closed in around them. The pale wizard gloated behind the line, knowing that Marik was no threat to her any longer.

Ness gritted his teeth as Morris hovered over his right shoulder, brandishing Brightflame in a two-handed grip.

Rachel reached for her quiver, finding it empty after the last quarrel. "I've only got one bolt left!" She exclaimed in worry.

Finding the entire affair too surreal for his tastes, Ness gave a weak laugh that his grim expression didn't match. "That's all right, my dear. There's only fifteen of them left."

Morris let out a quick chirp which seemed like a hiccough. "Four against fifteen? They don't stand a chance!" He said, so boldly it didn't seem like his usual pragmatism at work. Marik clenched his left hand inside of his sleeve and began to muster another glow of his strength.

"And whether we believe it or not," Ness murmured, looking about to all the creatures that wanted them dead, "We have to go on hoping!" Two greens, screaming with no regard to their lives came charging in, and Ness' fiery blade seared and cut into them.

The circle closed in, and Ness went charging out to meet them, hoping to carve a hole. Rachel was about to fire when a magical green hand pushed her crossbow down and stopped her. Confused, she looked over to Marik, who was staring towards the spellcaster with his unseen eyes.

"Protect yourself." The quiet mage rasped forcefully, nearly gurgling. "They won't harm you if you do."

"What about you?!" The healer demanded.

Marik's breathing sharpened into a gasp, and he whirled Rachel about as a pair of fiery rays shot towards her. His hand…his real hand clenched on her soft shoulder for a moment as the blasts impacted against his back, but after a moment he seemed none the worse for wear. "She can't hurt me…much." Marik said, hoping that statement was as true as he wanted it to sound. Nodding numbly, Rachel began to chant her familiar spell, relaxing as the gentle, protective aura fell on her shoulders.

Satisfied, Marik pulled his left hand back into his sleeve and glared at the wizard. "I have to deal with her, no matter what…"

"Be careful." Rachel insisted, biting her lip in worry.

Marik gave a soft, wheezing laugh to that. "Worry about Ness. I'll come back to you." The saying was so out of character for the somber looking Sorceror that Rachel didn't know what to say to that. She didn't have the chance to say anything to that before he dashed off through the hordes, swinging wildly and using his powerful legs to leap clear over the goblinfolk's heads on his path to the enemy spellcaster.

"I'll come back to you?" She murmured to herself, still not knowing what to make of it. A grunt from Ness, and the sight of a red landing a decent nick along the side of his leg forced her back to the battle at hand, and she began to perform the only task which would not violate the intangible field that made the throngs of goblin and goblinkin ignore her; Healing.

Piella Xan'Khul expected the naïve and foolish spellcaster to turn back to her, and wasn't in the least bit dismayed when he did. He did make the mistake of leaping up into the air, which made him, as far as she was concerned, a very predictable target.

"End of the line, mage." She snarled, conjuring up the last force ball spell she'd memorized.

Marik didn't need a hawk's eyes to see what was coming his way; she made no secret to hide the intricate motions of her hand that were associated with the one spell she had thrown at him which always seemed able to hit him. Unfortunately for her, he had no intention of being hit with the same thing a third time.

Let's see how well you can aim when you're distracted!

His green hand, his favorite cantrip and most innate skill swung effortlessly towards her, scooping up a handful of dirt as it soared on. Just as she was readying to aim it, the hand came up and threw the dusty soil into her face, temporarily blinding her.

She grimaced, and the spell failed as she lost her concentration. Marik landed and kept going towards her, shaking his head. Crude, but effective.

She wasn't entirely without defenses, he soon realized. Even as she rubbed at her eyes with one hand, the other went into her robes and pulled out a crossbow which shared a striking resemblance with Rachel's. She fired blindly, but with Marik charging towards her like a buffalo, she could track him by sound alone.

His charge slowed when the dark crossbow bolt slammed home and pierced through his robes and mythril chain shirt. Quizzically, he stood there and drew it out as the woman finished clearing her eyes of dirt and glowered at him.

"Enjoy your last moments of movement." She goaded him, drawing out an ornate dagger and beginning to walk towards him.

Marik could feel something beginning to burn through his veins, and he realized that the arrow had been coated with some kind of poison. Not just any poison, though.

Paralyzing venom… He announced, just as his left hand began to freeze up. His ankles went weak and gave out on him, and by a miracle he was able to land on his knees, still teetering somewhat upright.

The pale-skinned wizard came closer to him, and raised her dagger above her head. She said nothing else, for Marik was undeserving of any sort of congratulations. The faceless Sorceror had been a minor nuisance at best to her, and that nuisance ended here.

Gritting his teeth, Marik focused on the poison seething through his veins…Stretching his will beyond its grasp. His right arm came up with a jerk, bringing the silvered longsword to bear. Dumbstruck, Piella froze in her downstroke.

Marik didn't hesitate, though. He drove his blade through her abdomen in one smooth motion, and she cried out in pain. His blade still inside her, her lifeblood seeping into her red robes and into the ground around her, Piella slumped to her knees, unable to stop her head from drifting towards him.

She landed against his shoulder, wondering where it had all gone wrong. And then Marik spoke to her, his voice rasping on her ear.

"You forgot, cursed wizard…My friend has paralyzing venom as well. And he's stung me in the past."

Something in that, perhaps the sound of his voice or what his words implied made the dying dark wizard force herself away from him, staring in horror and sudden recognition.

"You're…You're a…"

Marik drew his blade back out, cutting the sentences' end out of her before she could utter it. Choking, she collapsed backwards to the ground and died, Marik's true identity realized too late to do her any good.

Even with his familiarity to the poison, it took Marik a while to shake off its effects. By then, a stray brown had come over and picked him up by his midsection in both hands, trying to squeeze the life out of him. Marik grunted, feeling flesh and muscle give way, and even his bones beginning to bend under the tremendous pressure of the brutes' raw power. Reacting quickly, Marik conjured another sphere of fire smashed down on his skull and roasted his face off. The goblinoid dropped Marik and swatted at his charring face, screaming in pain. It did him little good; ten seconds of the intense magical flames was all he could take before he collapsed, having no recognizable head at all.

His head swimming, his muscles still spasming from the aftereffects of the venom in the albino's crossbow bolt, Marik decided that lying there on the ground was an awfully good plan. The less than observant goblins took one look at his prone form and thought him dead, moving on to the still very active target of Ness Benson.

I don't need to move, anyways… Marik said, wincing from his tender ribs. By the Traveler…I really hate being knocked around like that.

Moving his sluggish left hand as carefully as he could manage, Marik summoned forth the last fireball his exhausted magical stores could muster. It dropped on the ground in front of him and rushed off to ride up the leg and torso of another unsuspecting bugbear. The thing shrieked and howled and swung about, but collapsed soon after. A gentle nudge from his Sorceror's hand tossed the still active sphere towards a pack of red goblins trying to blindside Ness, sending them scattering in all directions.

No, Marik thought, he didn't need to move at all. Morris, off in the distance, took one look at him and sent a mental chuckle.

Look on the bright side, boss. At least you aren't bleeding to death this time.

Come over here and say that, you little…

Another red goblin brushed past Rachel, utterly ignoring her as it went charging towards Ness. Shaking her head, she threw her third healing spell on Ness. The glittering motes of white and blue energy sealed up the nicks and gashes covering his legs and face and gave him back his vigor, but the swordsman had yet to take a serious blow.

Safe inside her protective aura, she folded her arms against her chest and watched. She admitted that it was a little disconcerting to be surrounded by all these brutes, but to also know that not a one of them was ever going to harm her.

"Hold on, Ness…" Rachel murmured, seeing the five of the last seven raiders in the camp surround him. Morris was still flying at his side, swordsman and winged devil working together to bring them down. Idly, the healer wondered how Marik was doing. She hadn't seen any more spells flying to strike at her or Ness, so chances were good that Marik was keeping that pale wizard occupied.

A quick glance around the dwindling battlefield revealed the woman in question lying motionless. Dead, from the looks of her.

Not far from her, Marik was also slumped to the ground, not moving at all beside the corpse of another brown goblin. Gasping, Rachel ran over towards him.

"Marik!" She cried out, loud enough that Ness and Morris could hear. The swordsman's moment of distraction allowed a red to swing in his rusty scimitar at his side, cutting through his shirt and scraping against the chain mail underneath.

"Take it easy, chief. Marik's fine!" Morris encouraged Ness. "Worry about these guys!" He added, stabbing Ness's attacker in the shoulder for good measure with his poisonous tail.

Rachel dropped down beside Marik, her trembling hands reaching down to him. "Marik? Please, say something!"

The Sorceror did not move from his sprawled position, but a few moments later, he did speak, gasping as he drew in a painful breath. "I'm not…dead…" He reassured the healer.

Rachel's concern began to fade. "Don't do that to me. Don't make me worry about you!" She added with irritation.

"I didn't say I wasn't hurting…" Marik added, a little surprised at her.

Rachel cast one of her last healing spells on him, and the Sorceror began to sir.

"Just what happened?" She asked, when he seemed more cognizant.

Marik sat up on his left elbow and gave his head a shake. "She used a poisonous dart on me." He followed with a watery gurgle. "Too bad for her I built up a resistance to Morris' venom. It didn't work as well as she had hoped." He glanced over at Ness and nodded. "It seems that 'The Cursed Blade' is doing well for himself."

"It's good to see him like this." Rachel nodded, resting a hand on Marik's shoulder. "I didn't like seeing him so somber."

"He was too much like me." Marik agreed. Rachel looked down at the mage with a curious smile.

"What do you mean? You're not a defeatist, Marik."

"…Not for a while." The Sorceror agreed, finding that her glowing eyes blasted away any lingering doubts in his mind.

A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to level his left hand quickly, jerking it out of his sleeve. Green light seeped out from his fingers, then shot off in three bolts, striking down the two green goblins which had thought to ambush them while Marik lay there, still recovering.

Rachel looked back at him in surprise, and Marik retracted his slender, deformed and discolored hand back into his robes.

"You have to be careful about goblins." Marik noted, and Rachel found herself laughing at the comment. It felt good to laugh.

"You go low, I'm going high!" Morris squawked, dancing away from the stab of another shortspear. Ness grinned at the comment and swung Brightflame about in a wide arc, forcing the last three greens and two reds to backpedal from the dangerous blade.

"Stinger ahoy!" Morris howled, snapping his tail down and injecting another dose of paralyzing venom into the ear of the nearest red. The beast grunted and slapped at Morris, managing a decent enough hit to send the devil spiraling out of control for a few moments. It was enough of a distraction for Ness to come in with a brutal slash into the beast's torso, dropping it down. Brightflame seemed to burn a little bit hotter just then, and with a roar, Ness tore into a nearby green. It managed only one cry before Ness ended its life, then turned to the next…and the next…

The last foe in the cluster surrounding him had his head nearly severed clean off before he hit the ground, and only then did the fire surrounding Brightflame's long blade extinguish, leaving the length of tempered steel to glimmer with its own inner light.

Ness' eyes darted around, looking for anything else which would dare to rise up against him. Nothing moved, save for a slightly bruised Morris, and Marik and Rachel. The girl was leaning beside the mage, and beaming at Ness with a look of triumph.

"By the Dark Lady's mysteries…" Ness began, realizing what they had done.

Morris Redtail landed on his shoulder and gave the swordsman one of his cockiest grins ever. "Yeah, I don't believe it either."

"We did it." Ness breathed. "We did it!"

Slowly, Marik pulled himself back up to his feet and gave a nod of his head. Ness nodded back, but he found himself staring with more adoration to the girl still hanging on to Marik's sleeved arm, holding him up.

In her laughing smile, Ness' heart found release.

You are not the Cursed Blade…Not if you believe in us!

"I'm beginning to think we might be able to pull this off." Ness murmured to the imp on his shoulder.

"Of course we will!" Morris lambasted him. "Was there ever any doubt?"

Ness recalled that only minutes before, the imp had suggested they were all going to die. He finally laughed, and felt the somber cloud over his heart shattering apart.

It felt good to laugh.

---

Denvale had waited anxiously the entire night, and its citizens all breathed easy as the full reach of daylight showed their town was still standing. Milon Friss took one last walk around the southern perimeter of the settlement, rubbing a ring on his finger. Outside of a brief skirmish he'd had with a small raiding band of two greens, three reds, and a brown, it had been a quiet night. Such odds no longer left him worried, though; protected by a steelskin enchantment, he'd calmly weaved through with impunity while blasting them with rays of fire and bolts of lightning. It may have been a little excessive, but while he may have been indifferent most of the time, he wasn't one to pull a punch.

Satisfied, he walked back onto Denvale's main street and entered the lodge. Mayor Elise Sartis was standing behind the counter, anxiously awaiting news of Ness and his band. "Well, are they here yet?" She demanded.

Milon let out a harrumph and rolled his eyes. "Patience, woman. Patience."

She slammed down the glass she had been cleaning and shook her head at him. "How can you be so calm, when we don't know what's happened to them?!"

"Simple." Milon said, taking a seat at the counter and picking up his abandoned glass of honeywine. "I don't care."

She glowered at him, and the wizard lifted his glass in a silent toast. Taking an appreciative sip, he continued. "Besides, my dear lady, I do know what happened to them."

With strength the mage hadn't thought possible, she reached across the bar and pulled the wiry man up by the front of his robes. He yelped a little, somehow managing not to spill his drink. "Then tell me." She hissed, fast tiring of the game.

Smoothing out the wrinkles as she set him down, Milon exhaled. "Ask them yourself." He muttered, and pointed to the door. Surprised, she turned her head to look. At that very moment, a triumphant Ness Benson came through the lodge's doorway, with his companions falling in step behind him.

"You won't have to worry about those goblins anymore, Mayor." Ness announced, beaming. "We met them, and stopped them."

"Almost all of them, you mean." Milon spoke up, giving them all a polite nod. "A small skirmishing party decided to head north anyhow, but I dealt with them. It was probably one of their loose patrols." He thought for a moment, then cleared his throat. "It occurs to me, Mr. Benson, there is still the small matter of payment for services rendered to you yesterday."

Almost as if he had anticipated the question, Marik's conjured Sorceror's hand flew over a thick spellbook; the one they had taken from the tent of the pale-skinned wizard Marik had fought against. Marik dropped it on the counter beside him, and the clever little imp spoke up.

"We took that from the leader of the band following you…a user of the dark arts by the name of Piella Xan'Khul, according to the insert."

Milon couldn't help smiling at the pleasant surprise, and traced two fingers across its surface. "Well, now…A valuable trophy indeed. And a dark wizard? I wonder what manner of arcane secrets she developed in the course of her unnaturally altered life." He stopped his musing and stood up, looking to them all. "Consider your debt paid, Mr. Benson. As for you, though, Marik…"

The Sorceror stirred inside of his hood, turning to affix the man with an expressionless gaze. Milon smiled at him, as a wolf might to a sheep. "…I think there's something I can do for you." Ness nodded, for he had remembered to tell the Sorceror that there was something Milon wanted to give him.

---

Two minutes later, Ness, Rachel and Morris stood beside Mayor Sartis out on the open street of Denvale, watching curiously as Marik and Milon stood twenty paces apart, staring at each other.

Marik threw a cautious glance to his friends, and Ness gave him an apologetic shrug.

"Up until now, you've meandered about with a few spells on hand. Likely in your struggle last night, you learned the danger of facing an opponent who has a wider variety of options to choose from."

Morris flew over beside Milon, voicing Marik's thoughts. "She wasn't easy. I was able to counterspell one of her attacks, but the others…"

"Precisely my point." Milon continued, interrupting the imp. He pointed a finger towards Marik. "Last night, you might have enjoyed having the ability to stop a few more of her attacks, but you couldn't." To this, he put his mirthful expression back on. "So tell me, Mr. Observant, how would you like to learn how to stop that from happening again?"

Marik mulled over it in his mind, coming to one simple conclusion. "You're talking about dispelling, aren't you?" Morris queried.

Milon grinned. "Aah, the youth can learn. Yes, that's precisely what I'm talking about. Do you know how to yet?"

Marik shook his head. "I wasn't strong enough to learn how to before."

"You might be now." Milon straightened his gray robe. "Tell me, Mr. Observant, is it true what they say about your kind?" Marik seemed to freeze for a moment before Milon added, "Sorcerors. Is it true that you learn more by example and…an innate talent?" Slowly, Marik nodded. Rodian loved to tell him the story of when he'd first used magic, at the age of four to blind half of a classroom. "Good." Milon said, harrumphing. "This will make it easier then. I don't have the time to show you the precise arcane formula and all that rot, so just pay careful attention to what I do." He pointed to Marik. "Can you cast an enchantment on yourself?"

Marik thought for a moment, then growled and forged an intangible green field about his body.

"Aah, good." Milon noted musingly, rubbing at his chin. "Simple enough. It will do for our purposes." He nodded to Marik. "Are you ready, Sorceror? Watch carefully, I don't want to have to do this more than twice."

Marik braced himself, holding his arms at his sides. Inside of the darkness of his hood, he watched the wizard priest of Margrave; how he held himself, what his hands did, and how he moved.

Words, Marik didn't need to make his magic work.

Milon began a short string of syllables, completing the long formula of the spell while his right hand weaved in an intricate pattern. When he finished the last syllable, he swung his hand out in front of him in a wave, and a shimmering field, like heat over desert sand, rushed out towards Marik.

It hit, and the Sorceror could feel his protective aura beginning to weaken and fluctuate under the assault. It gave out with a noiseless sigh, and the shimmering green field vanished.

Marik stood there for a few moments, trying to place what exactly had happened. Something seemed to click in the back of his mind, as he recalled how Milon had waved his hands about.

Like washing away dirt from a window…

And just as fast as that, his moment of insight solidified into a definite pattern in the back of his mind. Marik found himself nodding, enthused with it.

Milon tilted his head to the side. "You think you have it down already?" Marik nodded again, definite. Milon tsked for a bit, but brought a similar green light to rest about his form as well. "All right then, Mr. Observant. Show me what you have learned."

Marik wasted no time. Growling in a mockery of Milon's more precise arcane speech, his left hand clenched and unclenched rapidly as though squeezing a ball of dough into shape, finally ending with a backhanded wave out in front of him.

The shimmering field of air went out and away, wrapping itself around Milon Friss' intangible spell. Again the magic struggled, but Marik's dispel won out, and the force aura flashed defiantly one last time before disappearing. Rachel clapped and laughed at the sight, and Morris guffawed. "Attaboy, boss!"

Milon seemed unperturbed, still smiling in his own superior fashion. "So the old stories about Sorcerors were true. You learned that faster than I thought you would." He paused, then let his hands go to work again. "But now for a real test, Marik. Can you stop a spell meant to claim your life?!"

Nearly too late, Marik noticed that Milon was preparing to launch a lightning bolt towards him. Not willing to risk the chance that his natural resistances would prevent it from blasting him into oblivion, he slipped back in to the silent dance of his spellcasting.

The electrical force crackled in Milon's hands, and the wizard roared as he flung it out towards Marik. In the same moment, Marik unleashed another wave of dispelling force. The lightning crashed against the shimmering haze, fought angrily against it…And disappeared.

"Mr. Friss!" Ness exclaimed in alarm. "Was that really necessary?! You could have killed him!"

"And the next time that some other mage, like the unfortunate thaumaturgist from your battle decides to hurl something at him, they will mean to kill him as well." Milon retorted, folding his arms with satisfaction. "I had to know that Marik could cast it when his life was on the line…" He paused and glanced back to Ness and Rachel, "…Or when one of his friend's lives were."

"You really are uncaring." Mayor Sartis grunted.

"But he is wise." Morris said, blinking after he'd said it. "Boss! What the Hell…How can you say that?"

Milon heard it and gave a smile towards Marik, and the Sorceror gave him a brief wave with his magical hand. "Because it's the truth, and Marik has wisdom as well." The wizard gave a shrug of his shoulders and hefted his traveling backpack, complete with the recovered spellbook, over his shoulder. "There are many miles ahead of me yet. I need to get this crystal back to the Mandrake Shores. It was once the foundation for the Staff of Siryn, a relic whose purpose even the oldest writings do not cover. Only at home, in the sanctum of my fellows, can we hope to fully unravel its secrets."

He clapped his hands in front of him, then raised his right one, palm facing outward in blessing. "What you have done to save the crystal…and coincidentally, this town…will not be forgotten by Margrave the Indifferent."

"Take care of yourself." Morris announced, in the same dull tone that meant it was Marik speaking.

Milon nodded to him. "And you keep yourself alive, Sorceror. We'll be watching you."

That was the end of the goodbyes, for in a flash of light and shimmers, Milon disappeared in a beam of white light, teleporting off for places unknown.

"He was a strange man." Rachel commented, twirling and untwirling her scarf about her arm.

"But he was a good man, as much as he tried not to let on." Ness observed, and Marik nodded in agreement.

"I'm still going to stab him in the hindquarters the next time we meet." Morris grumbled.

Marik calmly strolled back to his friends, and Ness yawned. "Well, I suppose we should continue on our own path. Istus…and the Grey Shadow…still awaits us."

"So soon?" Mayor Sartis said, a little disappointed. "At least let me give you all a decent meal before you go off. It's the least I can do for Denvale's rescuers."

Rachel set a hand on Ness' arm before the swordsman could voice a complaint. "I'm sure one meal couldn't hurt. Right, Ness?"

Ness had meant to say that they had to continue on, that the road wasn't getting any shorter. As always, though, the desires of his new comrades, his friends, took precedence.

"I suppose not." The Cursed Blade finally said, giving the young healer a wink. "After all…It is the right thing to do."

Mayor Sartis led them back into her lodge, and gave them a sumptuous and hearty dinner. The road was still there.

It would be there two hours from now.

---

I'm telling you, Morris, you just have to start having more faith in people. Milon wasn't so bad, he was just gruff on the exterior.

He was a jerk!

…True, but he meant well.

He was still a jerk, boss.

The two friends were strolling along the highway leading west into Istus, a fair distance ahead of Ness and Rachel as they'd opted to take point. The focus of their conversation, unsurprisingly, was people, trust, and moods; A topic which the two always reverted to.

Nonetheless, he taught me how to dispel other magics. That speaks to his character.

Feh! Think whatever you want, I give up. Morris exclaimed in exasperation, throwing up his arms as well. All in all, I'm just glad we walked out of that alive.

True. Not even Ness' reputation seems to be capable of ruining us.

Yeah, that Cursed Blade thing? Morris questioned. Hogwash, if you ask me. We make our own lives, our own destiny. You and I are proving that every day we breathe.

All it took was a little faith.

That and one damned good healer. I tell you, boss, it's a good thing Rachel's around.

Yes…she does much to lighten the mood. And my heart. Marik nodded, smiling as they went.

The imp easily noticed the change in Marik when the Sorceror said that. I still can't believe that you let her see your hand.

At the time, I really didn't have a choice in the matter, you know. Marik reminded him. And it was worth it. She didn't panic, Morris. She didn't run, or see me as a monster. She accepted it.

So she's naïve. Terrific. Morris shot back, rolling his eyes. Count your blessings and move on.

Marik shook his head at that. It's…It's more than that, Morris. She genuinely cares for me. And I…

He froze, feeling Morris' beady eyes burn into him.

"Don't say that." Morris growled, stunned by the very notion of it. "Crackers, don't you say that."

"I care for her." Marik announced in his rasping wheeze, defying Morris' order. The imp scowled, and his tail swished behind him.

"Wonderful. Just frigging wonderful. Marik, don't make me be the logical one here. That's supposed to be your job!"

And you're telling me that it isn't logical? Marik asked. We're going into Istus. We're going to be facing the Grey Shadow soon enough, and probably a few more things along the way. I trust her, Morris. She cares about me, and I care for her.

"Trust is fine!" Morris exploded, shaking his head. "All I'm saying, even though I know you're not going to listen, is that there isn't anything beyond it! You're getting all your hopes up, and seeing things that aren't there."

Marik shook his head. Am I?

"She's a friend, Marik. An ally. That's it."

Is she? Marik wondered, and he relived the memory of when she had kissed his hand. I find myself thinking otherwise.

A quarter mile behind them, at the bottom of the hill that Marik and Morris had already crested over, Rachel and Ness walked at a casual pace. Shyly, she had let her hand fall into his, and he hadn't given her time to pull it back.

"Thank you." Ness said softly. The Calyssan looked up to him, her mirthful blue eyes glimmering.

"For what, Ness?"

"For believing in me." He answered, and came to a stop in the road. He lifted his hands up to her shoulders and looked at her square, happiness and a deeper, more overwhelming emotion in his face. "Maybe I'm not the Cursed Blade. Maybe…maybe at last I can be something else than what everyone else believes I am."

Rachel giggled at that, ever the optimist. "Ness, it doesn't matter what anyone else believes. The only thing that matters is how you see yourself."

"And how should I see myself?" Ness asked her, reaching a hand up to dance in her soft brown hair.

"Like I see you." The young woman insisted, her heart beginning to beat faster. "A man whose heart is as beautiful as his face."

All the troubles of his spirit seemingly worlds away, Ness' other hand came up and cradled her cheek, his gentle fingers causing her to shiver in anticipation. "You should see the rest of me." He whispered to her, his blue eyes dimming out as he leaned in close.

By luck, or perhaps fortune, Marik thought, he found a patch of lilacs growing at the roadside. Morris continued to harangue him as he knelt down and carefully plucked himself a bouquet, seeing no point in it.

"Boss, you know I want you to be happy. All I'm saying is, how likely is it that Rachel sees anything more in you than a Sorceror she can rely on?"

How likely was it that there was an imp which was not evil? Or that I would be raised and nurtured, instead of killed? She has touched me, Morris. Kissed my hand. Nobody…nobody has ever cared that much.

Morris exhaled. "Marik, please, for once in your life, think rationally. You were nearly dead at the time. We lived in a makeshift hospital, for crying out loud. Don't you remember all those old stories about war veterans falling in love with their caretakers? It was never what they thought it was!"

Morris, you're wrong. Marik finally said, tired of arguing, and tired of the devil's pragmatism. It was in a sense, the winged creature's worst flaw, he thought. That dismal outlook which made him question and second-guess every favor and every conversation. She does care for me. And I'm tired of hiding.

Do you really think she would accept you? Morris asked, feeling the argument slipping from him. Knowing what you are? I want you to be happy, boss…but…

Then be happy for me. And have some faith, for once in your life. The Sorceror chastised him. He stood back up, placing the gathered bouquet of flowers in the glowing green hand floating beside him. I'm going to take these flowers to Rachel. She's always looking for beauty…She'll love them. And then…

Silently, he rested his hand against the medallion hidden underneath all his robes and mythril chain. Again, he felt the Shadow's question run through him.

Who are you?

"I'm Marik Observant," He rasped, and began to walk back towards the rest of their companions with Morris flying close nearby, and the flowers trailing at his side. "And I believe in my feelings."

The Medallion kept silent after that. Marik came back up the hill, expecting that Rachel and Ness would not be far behind. His heart sang for the joy of the day, and joys he never thought he would be able to express.

When he saw his companions, though, all that stopped. His heart froze in his chest, and his legs became lead. Stunned and confused at first, he could see Rachel Skyler Ashbury at the bottom of the hill with Ness.

Kissing Ness. Not just any kiss…but a passionate kiss, the kind that stirred the soul.

Too hurt to speak, too injured to move, the Sorceror just stood there, wondering where it had all gone wrong.

She was kissing him…And it looked for all the world as if they were meant for each other. Morris fluttered up and hovered there, saying nothing as his own disbelief and Marik's confusion over their telepathic link grew in him.

"Oh no." Morris mumbled, shaking his head back and forth. "Marik, I'm sorry…I…"

Marik Observant closed his eyes, blocking out the sight and struggling without success against the burning sensation which made him start to tear up. You warned me. You warned me, Morris. His thoughts were so quiet now, so deflated, that Morris felt horrible for ever being the voice of doubt in the first place.

Boss…I…

I was just too blind to see the truth. Marik continued, his usual composure fast failing him. You were right, Morris. You were right about it all.

I…I'm what?

Marik opened his eyes back up and stared at them again, not wanting to believe it. Yet it was still happening. No, he'd been wishfully hoping. He could see the adoration in how they held each other, the passion and proximity. Bitterly, he realized after the fact that even if Rachel had taken a shine to him, he could never be with her. Not like Ness could. He felt sick, and the bouquet of lilacs floating beside him carried a warm smell which made him sicker.

I'm just the mage. Marik snapped bitterly, and he threw the carefully collected lilacs to the roadside beside him. I'm just here for the mission. And the only person I can trust is you, Morris.

Just because she and Ness…Marik, that doesn't mean…

You've said it yourself a hundred times over, Morris. Underneath all these robes, it doesn't matter what I do. No matter what, I'll always just be a monster.

Ness and Rachel finally pulled apart from their fiery kiss, and the girl was blushing brightly. "Wow." Ness uttered, when he could speak again.

"Wow yourself." The healer said, blushing all the harder. "That was wonderful."

"The next time we set up camp, we'll have to see where else a simple kiss can take us." Ness suggested slyly. Rachel giggled and batted playfully at his arm.

She veered her eyes away from Ness and looked up the hill, seeing Marik standing like a statue at the top, watching them. "I think we've tarried a bit too long." Rachel said, suddenly very self-conscious under the watchful gaze of their Sorceror, and the imp fluttering by his shoulder.

"True enough." Ness agreed. "There's miles left to go yet today."

Marik didn't want to look at them any longer. It hurt too much, and his heart and mind were too lost and confused to try and make much more sense out of it. He needed to get away…away from them, from the idea of them, and from the failed hopeful notions he'd held about Rachel.

He turned about, growling and casting a spell of invisibility on himself as he walked off.

…And nobody could ever love a monster.

Confused, Rachel watched as Marik turned about and disappeared into thin air as he went back over the hill again. A disoriented and deflated Morris came fluttering down towards them, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, I guess we should get going." He finally said.

Walking on, Rachel looked to the grim imp. "Is something wrong, Morris?"

The imp thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "No."

"Where did Marik go?" Ness asked curiously.

"He's going on ahead." Morris advised them, and left it at that. Ness accepted the excuse at face value, and trudged on, with Rachel coming up behind them.

At the top of the hill, Morris and Ness continued on, but something caught Rachel's eye, causing her to stop and look.

She knelt down at the roadside, her gloved hand tracing a lightly scattered collection of lilac flowers. "These are beautiful." She murmured to herself, noting that they were still fresh. "But where did they come from?"

A few moments passed before she recalled that Marik had been standing at the top of the hill when he had seen her and Ness kissing. She picked one of the lilacs, then stood up and cradled it in her hand.

Turning to face the west, she realized only after the fact that Marik had picked them. Then it all made sense. Why he'd chosen to disappear, why Morris seemed so cold.

Those flowers had been meant for her.

A little saddened, and wishing that she could speak with the quiet mage in black, Rachel trudged on, keeping the lilac in her hand. It smelled sweet, even after being picked. It still smelled sweet hours later, when she finally tossed it aside and moved on.

Istus loomed closer.