I can see inside you, the sickness is rising
Don't try to deny what you feel
It seems that all that was good has died
And is decaying in me

- Disturbed, "Down With the Sickness"

~*~
Chapter 26: Disease
~*~

A stream of elven curses chased us out of the cave.

Deekin scampered up a rock a safe distance away before stopping, turning, and looking back. "Wow," he said. "Are queens supposed to be like that? She be almost as catank…canker…grumpy as you, boss."

I pulled a handkerchief out of a belt pouch and dabbed a few droplets of queenly spittle off of my chest. "Thanks for that glowing review, Deeks."

Valen moved past me warily, his eyes searching the shadows. From the way his shoulders lost a little of their stiffness, he didn't sense any threats, although he didn't relax his vigilance any. "You do have an unusually colorful vocabulary for a noblewoman," he pointed out before appending his usual, grudging, "My lady."

I wondered if the Seer would mind if I tied her favorite bodyguard's tail in a neat little bow. And then strangled him with it. "For the last time, I'm not a lady," I said from between clenched teeth.

Valen cocked his head at me. A lock of loose hair fell across his cheek, a sudden and vivid streak of crimson against alabaster. He swiped it out of the way almost absent-mindedly. "The Seer believes that you are. Is she mistaken?"

His face was unreadable, but the very tip of his tail was twitching in that cat-at-an-aviary-window kind of way again, and his eyes were intent on my face. "In other words, you want to know whether I'm lying," I concluded.

He frowned slightly. "That is not what I said."

"You didn't have to." Your tail did the talking for you. That thing was turning out to be as good as a weathervane for predicting his moods. Just a shame his moods were so often bad. It was practically the first time he'd spoken since we left the tower, and it had to be more of this? "I used to be an heiress," I said shortly. Maybe a little honest disclosure would shut him up. Besides, at least he was talking again. "I'm not anymore, because I got tired of being the black sheep of the family and left. Okay? That clear enough for you?"

"Ah." The tiefling hesitated. The edges of his ears turned slightly pink. "Actually. No. What does 'black sheep of the family' mean?"

I blinked, my irritation fading into confused surprise. I knew people in this world used that phrase – I'd heard them use it. How had he not heard of it? "Oh, uh. It means..." I thought about it. "It means the one who doesn't fit in with the others. Doesn't, you know, look or act the way they're supposed to."

Valen's face cleared. "Ah. Like an Indep among Hardheads. That does make sense."

I stared at him. "Okay," I said slowly. "Now it's my turn to have no idea what you just said."

The tiefling made a dismissive gesture. "The details are not important. Both sayings mean the same thing, if I am understanding you correctly," he said. He looked around. "But we should move on. This is getting nothing done."

He was right, even if he was evading the question. I clammed up and led the way back down the winding path to the city proper.

Deekin hadn't been exaggerating by much. Shaori, the avariel queen, had been holed up in a cave, about as queenly as a hobgoblin and totally disgusted with her people's endless requests for governance. She'd sent us packing, though not before letting on that she'd been the one playing with the mirror that had sent everyone down here.

Fucking Halaster and his fucking pranks, I thought bitterly. I was pretty sure he peeped on everyone else. He'd looked like a peeper, like some smelly old pervert who spent his days sitting by his window with a pair of binoculars in one hand and his junk in the other. But just let somebody peep on him with a magic mirror, and suddenly he's teleporting their city from the top of the mountain to the bottom and twisting everyone who lived there inside out.

There was Shaori, a queen who'd rejected her throne. There was the librarian, who'd been a beautiful elven woman who lived for her books but was now a book-burning medusa. The wizard who gave up magic, the pimply apprentice who became the wizard and swapped his girly mags for a pentagram, the merchant who hated nothing more than having to deal with customers, and a city full of avariel who smiled and smiled while shadows crept into their eyes and their wings rotted on their backs.

I stepped past an avariel woman happily washing herself in handfuls of dust outside an abandoned shop. Her efforts had caked her with filth from head to toe. I looked away, anger surging through me with such force that goosebumps rose all over my skin and my jaw clenched. Halaster had a lot to answer for. He'd plucked the feathers from the wings of angels. "It's like it's Opposite Day, every day, down here," I muttered to myself.

Valen looked at me sharply. "What?"

I shrugged one shoulder. "It's a game we used to play as kids," I explained. "You announce that today's Opposite Day, and from then on, everything you say or do is the opposite of what you really mean." I nodded at the dusty avariel. "These people are trapped in one long Opposite Day."

A little furrow appeared in Valen's forehead. "You are right." Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. "A reflection. That is what they are. They are all reflections of their true selves."

Deekin was nodding. "Yeah. That make sense. It be almost like the mirror cast a mirror image spell, only the real person went poof!"

Valen growled a little under his breath. "Yes, I understand what you are saying, kobold, but if you do not stop making that damnable 'poof' noise I shall be forced to behead you."

"That not be good. Deekin not be able to write epic tale about Boss with no head."

"You did it last time," I muttered. "Why should this time be any different?"

Faintly, Valen snickered.

Deekin rolled his eyes. "Everybody gotta be a critic and make poor little Deekin suffer for his art," he lamented.

"Hate to tell you this, little buddy, but when it comes to your art, everybody suffers."

Valen snickered a little more audibly.

Deekin blinked. Then he grinned. "Ooh. Good one, Boss." He groped for his quill. "Deekin gotta write that one down."

"Thanks. I think." Frowning, I pulled Kelavir's fluorspar stone out of my pocket and bounced it in my hand. I wondered what he would have to say about this situation, but really, I didn't have to wonder. He'd say that birds didn't belong in cages, and neither did people. I couldn't just leave the avariel trapped in this. If I did, the guilt would dog me to my grave. I closed my fingers over the stone until it hurt my fingers, as if I could draw strength out of it if I just held it hard enough. "We have to get these people out of here. Somehow."

Valen's head turned to me. His eyebrows climbed in clear surprise. "I am glad to hear you say that."

I shrugged, looking away. "What am I supposed to do?" I grumbled. "Walk away?" I bounced the fluorspar one last time, then dropped it back into my pocket. "Besides, Halaster and the Valsharess put a spoke in my wheels. This looks like a chance to return the favor."

Valen's voice sounded a little disappointed. "Is that what this is about? Revenge on Halaster and the Valsharess?"

My shoulders hitched irritably. "This is about fixing shit that they broke," I snapped. "And if I have to wreck their shit to do it, that's just fine by me." Then I stomped away without waiting to hear the next argument or disapproving comment that was, I had no doubt, on its way.

We turned down another path, one we'd never been down before. I remembered looking west and seeing more buildings from the wizard's window, and though I couldn't see them from the ground, I'd marked the direction in my head. Now I just kept heading towards them, guided by the pull of my internal compass. Where there were buildings, there were people, and where there were people, maybe there'd be help, or at least information.

Eventually, the path opened up and deposited us in front of a temple. Deekin crept up to the temple's door. He ran his hands along the door's carvings, his palms flat and fingers wide, as if trying to absorb the knowledge in it through touch alone. "Aerdrie Faenya," he said, pointing at the carving of a flying bird over the door. "She be a friend of your god, Boss. She be the elven sky lady."

I raised my eyebrows. "Really? Let's go in, then. Maybe we'll find somebody nice," I said, stepping over the threshold. The smell of dead, rotting things hit me like a hammer. I clapped my hand over my nose and mouth. Too late, I remembered about Opposite Day. "Or…not."

The temple's entrance hall had been gleaming white marble, but now it was streaked with black and green mold. Trash rotted in corners, flies buzzed, cockroaches scurried, slime oozed down the once pristine walls, and greasy, horrible puddles pooled all over the floor.

"Lovely." Valen's voice was as flat as a pancake. "This almost reminds me of home." He sniffed the air. "Smells like it, too."

I spared him a sharp glance over my shoulder. "Where the hell are you from? Jersey?"

He blinked at me. "Where?"

I turned to face front again. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."

The temple was empty except for a man. He was facing the altar in the patient pose of a priest, hands clasped and eyes upraised. Behind the altar was a cage, strands of moss and strange fungus hanging from its bars.

My steps slowed when I saw him. The man was an avariel, but he'd lost his wings. Scabbed and mutilated stumps were all that remained.

Then the mutilated avariel turned, and his eyes fell on me, green and cold and cutting.

I jerked to a stop. Hot and cold ran through me in waves. I touched my forehead with a suddenly shaking hand. My fingers came away damp with sweat. I frowned at them, then looked up. The avariel man's face was bone-white and scarred, and when he saw my holy symbol, his lips twisted as if he'd tasted something bitter. "Shaundakul," he said, his voice dripping with loathing. "Here?"

I managed to find my voice. It was a croak. "That's his name," I said. I started walking again, a measured and careful pace towards the altar. My eyes fell on the other priest's holy symbol. Talona. I made myself smile. "Careful you don't catch his attention," I went on, low and slow. This shitlicker could insult me all he wanted, but nobody named my salvation in that tone. "He doesn't like it when people threaten us."

The priest's lip curled. "I do not fear Shaundakul. He is weak – the failed god of failed souls."

Anger coiled in my stomach like a kindling fire. "Weak? You ever hear the wind roar, little man?"

The avariel shrugged. "Roar all you wish. The winds hold no sway here, and they cannot cleanse you of Talona's rot." He gave me a mocking little bow. "But where are my manners? Welcome, Windwalker. I am Lomylithrar the Rotting, and I am the keeper of your disease."

I felt a hot-and-cold shiver run through me and gritted my teeth. "Fine. Just keep it to yourself, would you?"

The avariel's eyes searched my face. "Your flippant words will not hide the truth. I see Talona's poison already seeping through your veins. You can feel it, can't you?"

I didn't answer. Maybe Valen had a point about being careful which doors you walked through. I was starting to wish I hadn't walked through this one.

A hand touched my shoulder. "My la-" Valen stopped and cleared his throat. "Windwalker. Are you…well?"

I shook his hand off and put on a disarming smile. "I'm fine," I lied. I didn't take my eyes off the Talontar, whose smile only grew.

Deekin picked his way to my side, careful to avoid putting his feet near anything gross and almost succeeding. "What happened to him, Boss?" he asked me. He eyed the priest, seeming a little reluctant to talk to the crazy mutilated guy directly, for some reason. "He followed the nice lady Aerdrie, didn't he? Why he follow the stinky goddess now?"

Finally, some emotion other than sadistic glee crossed Lomylithrar's face. It was white-knuckled fury. "Do not utter that name in this place," he spat. He drew in a breath, steadying himself. "Yes, I followed that flighty slut, but when I came down here, I saw the error of my ways. The crisp, clean air of the soaring mountains suddenly disgusted me. I yearned for the cloying decay of pestilence and disease." He shrugged. "Talona just seemed the logical choice."

I stared at him. "Doesn't that strike you as a little strange? From Aerdrie-" I saw his scowl, and smiled a little more. "-to this?"

The priest shrugged again. "There are many things about this world that I find odd, but I do not let them trouble me. I let my thoughts dwell on the scarred face of my goddess. I let her rotting embrace envelop me, and I feel peace."

I stared at him a moment longer. Then, without breaking eye contact, I moved my head enough to talk to the others out of the corner of my mouth. "Okay. This guy's nuts."

Valen had that confused look on his face again. "Nuts?"

I blinked. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I tried to ignore it. "Insane," I translated.

Comprehension reached Valen's eyes. "Ah. Barmy. Now I understand." He looked at me more closely. Suddenly, he reached out, turning my face to his with his fingertips on my chin. His eyes searched mine, then widened a little in alarm. "I knew it," he growled. "I knew that sphinx's smile. You were lying. You are not well." He let go of me, and his head swung balefully towards the priest. For once, his glower wasn't aimed at me. "What have you done?"

Lomylithrar smiled with queerly tranquil malice. "Talona has chosen her for a trial." He chuckled for a moment before the stumps of his wings moved, and then his chuckle turned into a hiss of pain. Still, he never lost his smile. "The irony is delicious, is it not? The ignorant say that the wind will cleanse disease, and yet Talona has reached out her hand and touched one of Shaundakul's own."

Valen's tail lashed. "I know nothing of this Shaundakul, but I know something of Talona," he said, his voice quiet and hard-edged with anger. "She is a vile goddess, and if she has a purpose here, it is anything but lofty."

The scarred avariel shrugged. "That is a matter of perspective, is it not?" He turned to me, visibly dismissing the tiefling. "Talona wishes to test you. She has infected you with her burning essence, and the only way to be free of this sickness is to prove yourself worthy."

This was ridiculous. I didn't have time for this. Anger simmered in my throat and ran away with my mouth. "Worthy? How? By making a donation so your goddess can buy herself a new face and a pair of tits that doesn't sag?" I started patting my pockets. "All right. Hold on. I think I've got some spare change here somewhere…"

Lomylithrar's smile got even more twisted. "Your words are air. My goddess hears them, and is unmoved. What are words in the face of death?" He gestured to the cage behind the altar. "If you wish her hand to be lifted from you, you must prove yourself in combat. If you are strong enough to survive in battle while infected, then you are worthy of life."

I snorted. "What, against you?" He looked skinny and sickly. Valen would probably smash him into a pulp. "Right on."

Lomylithrar shook his head. "No. Against a minion of Talona." His eyes gleamed. "Alone."

I tried not to shiver. It felt like the chills were getting worse, together with the fever and a pain in my throat as if I'd swallowed stinging nettles. Sweat was beading on my forehead. My eyes roamed, looking for a way out. They fell on a pile of trash, and then lower still, to where something pale protruded. For a second, I couldn't figure out what it was. Then I saw the black fingertips, and the blotchy discoloration of rot on bloodless skin, and the shudder that went through me then had nothing to do with fever.

I lifted my eyes. The elf was watching me and smiling. Heat chased away my chills. Son of a bitch. He'd done this before. I looked at the other piles, and there, too, I saw shapes that looked like they'd once been people. At least one of those shapes had feathers.

At last, my eyes went to the altar. There was a sliver of mirrored glass there. The sullen, flat buzz of carrion flies filled my ears. "I'll do it," I heard myself say. Anger rimed my voice, made it come out hard and cold and biting. "If you give me that mirror shard." If I could fix the mirror, maybe I could stop this. I couldn't fix it. Not for those poor bastards. But maybe I could stop it from happening again.

Lomylithrar glanced behind him. "Something to sweeten the deal?" he asked. He turned back to me and nodded. "Very well. The shard is quite useless to me, now that the mirror is broken. If you survive Talona's trials, you may have it – and the cure." He pulled a small clay bottle out from a hidden pocket in his robes, shook it at me so that it sloshed, and returned it to his pocket. "It is the only cure, I am afraid. Divinely inflicted disease will not respond to mundane cures, or even to your healing magic. You may make the attempt, but you will not succeed."

I stared at the priest, then looked down at my hand. My vision shifted. I could see the heat of disease running through me. Summoning my power, I breathed in, trying to draw a cleansing wind into my lungs and force it through my veins, to hunt down and tear apart whatever nasty little microscopic critters were making me sick. This was the only kind of healing I was good at, and I wasn't even sure it was healing so much as destruction in another form. This time, though, I couldn't even seem to find anything to destroy. It was as if the sickness was encased in some slimy, airtight film that my power couldn't penetrate.

I looked up and saw Lomylithrar watching me and smiling. "As I said," he told me. He tapped his chest where the potion lay in a hidden pocket.

I felt Valen grab my shoulder. "Do not," he warned. "He is toying with you. We should kill him and take the cure."

The priest was watching us with an unpleasant smile. It occurred to me that maybe we shouldn't plot his murder in front of him. "Excuse me," I told him, swaying slightly. "I have to consult with my colleague here." I was aware that I was starting to feel a little lightheaded. I would never have come up with a sentence like that in a normal frame of mind.

I hustled Valen out of earshot, or maybe he hustled me – it was kind of hard to tell – and I lowered my voice. "I think I have to do it," I said. "I tried to cure myself. It didn't work."

The tiefling glared at me. Why was he glaring at me? I wasn't the plague-worshipping maniac here. "I have met creatures like this one before. He will make you suffer, and that includes allowing you to hope for success until all hope is lost. I know how these games work. The only way to win them is not to play."

I was already shaking my head, even as he spoke. "No. Listen to me." I coughed and winced. My throat was on fire. "You remember? About Opposite Day?" At his nod, I went on. "If this guy is this evil after the mirror changed him, then he must have been an angel before. You wanna be the one who murdered an angel, when all is said and done?"

Valen drew back a little, frowning. "I see your point. Although I think you mean 'celestial'. I would not recommend using the word 'angel' in front of a celestial, if you value your ears." He let go of me, doubt carved in every stiff line of his face. "Very well. I will stay my hand. For now."

I nodded curtly and turned away. My fingernails drummed on Enserric's blade. "Enserric. Wake up. I need to talk to you."

Glitters rippled across the black blade. "Ye gods!" Enserric's librarian-in-a-tin-can voice said. "What is that stench?" I felt that weird stuttering, fluttering sensation that meant Enserric was going through my head. Red light flared deep in the blade, and his voice turned alarmed. "Wielder, what have you gotten yourself into?" He paused, then added, "This time?"

I sighed. "You know what." You just went through my head, so don't act surprised, I added silently.

Well, forgive me for my optimism, but I did not expect you to be so foolish as to volunteer for a fight, under the circumstances, the sword answered, his mental voice waspish.

It's not like I had a choice, and you know it. I walked back towards the priest, who was waiting with a gleefully malevolent smile. Just…if you've figured anything out, now would be the time to tell me.

The sword pulsed red. I….I am not certain, he answered, and I didn't need to hear his hesitation to feel his doubt. Red shivered down the blade. Proceed, wielder. I will try my best.

Oh, that makes me feel so much better, I thought morosely, and stopped in front of the smirking elf. "All right," I said. I grounded Enserric and stood with my hands folded on his pommel. I blinked a stinging bead of sweat out of my eyes and tried to breathe through the dread building in my chest. "We'll do it your way. For now."

The elf smiled. "Excellent." He opened the cage, which rattled and screeched on rusty hinges. "When you are ready for your challenge, enter."

The fever-shivers were starting to get harder to hide. "Fine," I snapped, and stalked past him.

The cage closed behind me with a clang. The sound of chanting rose. I mopped my forehead with the back of my hand, settled my grip on Enserric, and frantically sorted through Drogan's lessons and the lessons I'd learned in my travels since then. There was nothing with me in the cage except for some piles of trash, or at least nothing visible, which meant that the priest was likely to summon some creature to fight me. That meant I probably didn't need to shield against spells or arrows, especially since the space was too small for anything but a hand-to-hand fight. But what creature? When a Windwalker called, birds and wolves and deer and other fast, far-roaming animals answered. What would answer to a Talontar?

My question was answered by a squeak and the scratching of lots of little claws.

A nose poked out of the nearest trash pile, whiskers twitching. Then another, and another, and suddenly there were four filthy, stinking, coarse-furred bodies heaving themselves out of each corner, each one at least two feet long from their noses to the tips of their naked tails.

I settled into a fighting stance. "Oh, rats," I said in disgust, right before the first one came at me.

The first dire rat jumped up like an overexcited puppy, its bloodshot eyes at least half-mad and its claws out. I batted it aside with Enserric and felt a moment's resistance before the sword bit in, shearing through fur and flesh and bone so easily it caught me by surprise. Silent Partner usually needed a lot more force behind its blows. I staggered a half-step in the direction of my swing, almost losing my balance as that strange wash of cold went through me again.

Enserric spoke up suddenly, right in my brain. To your left!

I turned and struck out again, shaky from a sudden bout of shivers – whether from fever or Enserric's enchantment, I couldn't even tell. Half a rat's leg thunked to the ground, and its previous owner tumbled away, chittering so loudly that I didn't hear the last rat coming up behind me until I heard a growl and felt the tug of a heavy weight climbing up my pants leg.

I spun, kicking out reflexively, but all that did was knock the rat my ass off long enough for it to bounce back up and latch on to my knee instead. Claws dug into my thigh as the thing made straight for my face, yellow teeth bared and long black tongue uncurling in a hiss.

A memory of Kelavir in action flared, and in a rush I shifted my grip on Enserric until I had one hand on the hilt and the other on the blade and I lifted the sword up and drove the point down into the dire rat, yelling something even I didn't quite catch. The black blade slid down the rat's gullet, and the animal's sudden, choking spasms vibrated all the way up the sword. I yanked Enserric back up, bracing myself against the now-familiar wash of cold. My clawed thigh went numb for a split-second, and the rat dropped, writhing.

Behind you! Enserric screamed into my head, and almost before the words had finished I was turning, lashing out as a hideous rat-thing rose through the air at me, claws out.

Fortunately, the dire rat was a big target, and the black blade thrashed the thing, throwing it aside like a ragdoll. I followed the sword's arc all the way around, its point sparking against the ground as it hit.

As soon as my last opponent stopped moving, the cage clanked open.

I staggered out of the cage, holding Enserric one-handed and bracing myself on the doorframe. "That it?" I asked Lomylithrar. "We done?"

The elf considered. "Not yet."

I stared at him. "Whaddya mean, 'not yet'? You said I had to fight. I fought."

The avariel inclined his head. "I did. But we do not choose how sickness afflicts us, nor through how many stages a disease may pass." He smiled at me unpleasantly. "You have proven yourself worthy of continuance. Of survival…that, we shall see."

I looked at the elf's scarred face, and I imagined killing him and just taking the potion and the shard from his corpse. It was a horrible thought. I didn't know how it had come into my brain. I had never been a killer. What had this life made of me? "How many more stages?" I demanded.

Lomylithrar bowed his head in thought. "Two more, perhaps three. I cannot be certain. You are strong. To test you lightly would do you a disservice."

"Oh, please," I snarled. "Do me a disservice. Degrade me." I'd degraded myself enough in the past – there was nothing I hadn't drunk or smoked or snorted or shot into my veins, no surface I hadn't vomited on, no orifice I hadn't let someone do something to. What was a little more? "I can take it."

The avariel was unmoved. "It is Talona's will that you face her trials. It is not her will that you be degraded. Only…tested."

I stared at him. "Her will?" A shudder wracked me. I had to lean on Enserric to keep from falling. "Or yours?" He didn't answer.

Valen moved up next to me. "You were serious when you said you were no warrior," he observed in a low voice. "Are you sure you can do this?"

Well, there went my ego. And here I thought I'd done okay. "Yeah, well. I'm gonna have to become a warrior in the next-" I looked at my wrist as if checking a watch. "-oh, let's say five minutes. Any professional advice?"

The tiefling stood stiff-backed and tense. "Don't die."

I blinked, hard. My vision was swimming. "Thank you, you've been very helpful," I said, and went back into the cage. My shoulder bumped the doorframe, making the metal ring and my scales jingle. The door slammed behind me.

A little snippet of song came back to me from my childhood. Second round, same as the first, I thought. A little bit louder and a little bit worse! A nostalgic grin crooked my lips, and I stood, waiting and trying not to giggle. The fever was getting worse, I knew. I was having trouble focusing, and my knees were trembling as if they wanted to fold. It took most of my focus just to stay upright.

The priest chanted, and slowly, something materialized in front of me. It was dark, hyena-shaped, and snarling. Cold steam poured off it like dry ice.

A voice hit my ears, and I the relief I felt when I heard it damn near floored me. Or maybe that was the fever. "That is a vorr – an Abyssal hound!" Valen called through the bars. "Make light, if you can! They hate the light!"

I didn't argue. I threw Enserric into my right hand and reached into my pocket with my left. The fluorspar stone glittered in my hand, and I breathed on it, willing it to shine.

Light started to streak out through my fingers, white and bright. The vorr yipped and scuttled back, trying to escape the circle of light. I threw the stone down at its feet, nice and close, and swung Enserric with both hands.

Blinded and stunned by the light, the vorr didn't even try to dodge. A hyena-like head thudded to the ground.

The door swung open. I scrabbled on the floor for my stone, then reeled around and stumbled through the door without stopping. Deekin and Valen both stepped forward. I waved them back, my stomach roiling. "'Scuse me," I slurred, and lurched towards a handy ceremonial urn. "Gotta hurl."

The bile tasted as awful as I remembered from the last time I'd worshipped the porcelain goddess, and I had the dry heaves for a few long, humiliating moments afterwards. I hung face down in the urn for a few more breaths after that, then spat the last of the taste out of my mouth and pushed myself back upright. That maneuver had apparently been premature, because my knees buckled, and I had to grab the rim of the urn to hold myself up, panting, until the worst of the weakness had passed. I was drenched with sweat. I didn't want to think about how I must have smelled.

When I felt like I could at least sort of trust my legs, I pried my fingers away from the mouth of the urn. I turned, one hand planted on the urn's side to keep me from toppling over. Then I pushed myself off and wove my way back to the cage, the floor seeming to tilt underfoot like a boat's deck. Spots danced in front of my eyes. By dint of a lot of squinting, I managed to make some of the spots resolve themselves in the shape of Valen. He was easy to spot, at least – white skin, red hair, green mithril. In some countries back in my old world, his coloring probably would have been considered patriotic. I held back a giggle, and some part of me was aware that I was heading rapidly from not-in-my-right-mind to totally-out-of-my-mind.

I clapped the tiefling's shoulder as I passed, or tried to. My aim was a little off, and the gesture ended up being glancing. "Thanks," I croaked. My voice had gone down by about an octave and gotten gravelly besides. "I owe you one."

Valen was frowning. "You owe me nothing," he said dismissively, but he still watched me as if he was waiting to catch me when, not if, I collapsed.

Lomylithrar was frowning, too, but unlike Valen, he was less worried and more disapproving. "This fight is the Windwalker's, and hers alone," he told the tiefling, ignoring me. "It is not for you to aid her, even with advice. Do not do that again."

Red flashed in Valen's eyes, and his nostrils flared. "You do not play fair, and she is my ally," he said darkly. "If we must do this, then we must, but I will not stand by and watch her fall."

The avariel's frown turned upside down. "Oh, but you will, or she will never find her cure." He turned and held out a hand. "Are you ready for the next challenge?"

I swallowed hard and wondered how Lomylithrar's face would look, decorated with puke. It would probably be an improvement. Wordlessly, I pushed past him and into the cage again.

Third round, same as the first, I thought, and wheezed a humorless laugh. It was getting hard to breathe. My heart raced, buzzing dumbly against my ribs like a fly against a windowpane. A fit of coughing made my ribs creak, and after it was done, I tasted bile and something underneath it, a familiar copper reek. I worked a wad of spit to my tongue and spat. My phlegm was bloody. Gross, I thought, and laughed again. Then I stood in the center of the cage and waited, swaying.

The ground under my feet shuddered. It took me a moment to realize it wasn't just the fever that made everything feel like it was moving – everything really was moving.

Then the ground startled to buckle, and two tooth-studded tentacles reached up out of it and pulled a pulsating garbage sack of a body out of the floor itself. A slavering, tooth-lined maw opened and a smell that went beyond mere halitosis came out of it, along with a deep, gurgling growl.

I backed into the corner. My back hit the cage. That's an otyugh, I thought, a little hysterically, only this one was no normal otyugh. This one stank with sickness and madness in equal measure, Talona's creature in every way.

The otyugh heaved its body around. Tentacles lashed out, and all that saved me was that the thing was sloppy in its madness, and the tentacles crashed into the cage above my head, shaking the bars.

I tried to focus. "Otyughs are slow, lass," Drogan said, only I didn't know how he was talking. He was dead. I'd seen the ceiling come down on him. "Never mind that, lass," Drogan reassured me, and when I turned, I saw his familiar silhouette, standing half in light and half in shadow right beside me with his gnarled hands resting calmly on his cane. "Just ye listen to me. If ye must fight these ponderous beasties, get behind 'em where they can't get at ye."

I stared at my teacher, my eyes tracing every line of his dear old face. Tears blurred my vision. "I've missed you," I said hoarsely. "So much."

Drogan's eyes twinkled at me from behind his spectacles. "I've missed ye, too, lass, but ye need to focus, now. Can ye do that for me?"

I could. I thought I could. It was getting harder to think, and the otyugh was moving again, but I saw an opening under its waving tentacles and stumbled for it, just as Drogan had told me.

The otyugh roared. It started to turn, and I moved, trying to stay behind it.

A shadow flickered from the corner of my eye. "Wielder!" it shouted. "I have it! Attend me!"

I half-turned and blinked. There was a man standing next to me. He was a spare man with a haughty face and longish black hair going white at the temples. Something about him seemed familiar. "Enserric?" I asked.

"No," the man answered in Enserric's voice, minus the metallic overtones. "Or rather, yes, but not as you see here. You are hallucinating. Rather violently, I might add, but never mind that, for the moment." He had piercing grey eyes. They held mine. "I think I have the solution. That power in you. We must-"

Creeping shadows and flickering lights moved in my peripheral vision. I'd already jerked around before I realized that they weren't really there, just in time to hear a roar rattle the cage and – too late – to see the otyugh closing on me, its awful jawless mouth looming wide.

Then a shadow swept over my head, thrumming like singing steel, and the otyugh bounced off of a wall of air as solid as stone.

Shaundakul. He was here – I could feel him. I found myself laughing in crazy gratitude, at least until a glittering red-black hand reached in front of my face and snapped its fingers. "Wielder!" Enserric shouted in my ear. "I. Need. You. To. Pay. Attention!"

I swung my head around. "Huh? Yeah. Sorry. What?"

He grabbed me by the hand. "What weapon does your god use?" he yelled. "Think! No – actually, do not think, we do not have time for experiments. Just answer!"

I blinked and tried to think. "Uh. A greatsword?"

"Exactly!" Enserric screamed at me exultantly. "You may not know how to use me, but your god does!" He jabbed me in the chest with a remarkably solid-feeling finger. "Just let me through, you bloody blockhead!"

The otyugh raged and began feeling its way around the invisible wall between us. I felt another wall slam into place, keeping it at bay. "To what?"

Enserric shook me. "To Shaundakul's gift! The knowledge of how to use me is in the power he gave you! You must use it!"

I stared at the otyugh, thrashing just a few feet away. "How?"

"Do not think!" Enserric snapped at me desperately. His eyes were black now, pupil and iris, with red sparks in their depths. "For the love of the gods, your only saving grace is that your power does not require thinking! Stop thinking and just use it!"

I stared at him a moment longer, entranced by the red sparkles in his eyes. Then the otyugh roared, and I blinked, and I saw the blade in front of my face, black and hungry as an open grave.

The world tilted. I felt like I was falling, falling into the black, and I closed my eyes, instinctively reaching down into the spark of divine power that hummed in my heart and in my throat and in my head.

When I opened my eyes again, the world looked…different.

Enserric pulsed red, burning as cold as a dying star. I stared into the blade's red flicker and felt its soul-sucking chill and followed that shivering trail in, into the sword's glassy depths and into the pulse of my blood and then deeper still, to where its dark energy had wrapped itself around my heart. Holding the cold and my pulse and the hum of power in my mind, I tried to see how they might fit together….

And then, suddenly, they did. The separate threads of rushing blood and storm-driven power and dark energy came together in a crazy rhythm, like the players in a jazz combo. I jerked. Cold howled through me like a blizzard, and for a moment I thought I was going to come apart, that the blizzard would shatter me and the pieces it left behind would melt into the stone and vanish like ice in a thaw.

And then a shadow moved over me, like a cloud passing over the sun, and the storm of ice steadied until I felt it running through me like a whitewater river, frigid and roaring but still somehow contained.

A silk-wrapped hilt settled into my hands, and I flexed my fingers, seeing a blade like a night sky in front of me and feeling its vicious edge like the boundary of my own soul and I thought, Shaundakul help me. This feels…right. Then: I'm sorry, Harry.

The otyugh broke through Shaundakul's wall. I saw a tentacle flash towards me, its tooth-studded pad open to strike, and I twisted in place, swinging Enserric up and around even as I felt the blade quiver in excitement and hurl itself into my swing, or maybe I was hurling myself into his - for a split second, it was hard to tell who was swinging whom, and for a split second I didn't even care.

The sword's shadow flashed, and the severed end of a tentacle thudded down near my feet.

Unfortunately, the otyugh had two tentacles, and the next one hit me in the side, right under the ribs.

My back hit the cage. I heard the bars rattle and heard a weirdly merry little tinkle and patter of scales falling to the ground, but noise was a distant second to the hot, tearing pain in my side.

I couldn't see. A hand slapped my face, none too gently. "Move, you idiot woman!" Xanos roared. "Did Drogan teach you nothing? Fight! I did not save you to see you die to a sentient cesspit!"

My eyes stung. I've missed you, too. Asshole. I couldn't see where Xanos was, which was weird because it wasn't like he was the kind of person who blended into the background, but no matter, he was right, I had to move. There was a big, ugly otyugh mouth in front of me, but there was clear air to the side. Somehow, I managed to throw myself at it. Something hot trickled down my side, and I felt my skin move and slide and pull strangely where the otyugh had hit me, like it wasn't quite holding together any more.

My shoulder hit something that rattled. A hideous, pustule-ridden flank heaved, or maybe it was a shadow. Either way, I thought I should hit it, so I turned and spun Enserric like a spear, my hands moving as if they'd played this tune before and had just been waiting for the rest of me to remember the way the notes went. I raised the sword high before driving it, point-down, into the otyugh's side. Then I yanked the sword back out with a wrenching pull, feeling Enserric slice easily through flesh and opening a wound that stank like a million landfills.

Blood steamed on the glassy black blade, and the cold that went through me then bit all the way into my bones. I would have screamed if I had the breath. Red light flared, and I felt my torn skin moving, pulling, twisting, stitching itself back together. It was relief and agony all in one, and when it was done, I was amazed to find myself still standing.

I blinked and shook my head muzzily, chasing shadows away from the corner of my vision. In front of me, a heap of flesh sagged.

Quietly, the cage door clinked open.

My head swung. I saw a fallen angel with filthy, shattered wings, grinning like a hyena at my pain. "You," I rasped. Rage rose in me, bright and hot. Toy with me, will you? I thought, or Enserric thought, or maybe we both thought. Well, we'll just see about that. I shifted my grip on the sword, my eyes on the elf's throat.

Lomylithrar looked at me, then spread his hands in a bow. "I am impressed. Talona's plague has brought you great suffering, and yet you continue to fight it. Your will to live is strong, Windwalker."

My shoulder slammed into the cage door as I went through it, but my eyes didn't leave the elf. "You want suffering, motherfucker?" I snarled, maddened with fever and fury and hatred and other things I had no name for. "I'll show you suffering." I reached the elf and, without pausing, bashed his face with the crossguard of my sword, feeling his nose give way. The elf went down, clutching at his face. He went still when he felt Enserric's point press beneath his chin. The red in the sword had almost swallowed the black. "Enough games." The elf's nose was gushing a satisfying amount of blood. I could feel Enserric's spiteful satisfaction at the sight of it, or was the feeling mine? I couldn't tell anymore where I ended and the blade began. "Give me the vial. Now."

The elf held my eyes, unblinking. "You may rest easy." There was a strange note in his voice, almost like respect. "You have passed Talona's trials and proven yourself stronger than her servants. If you release me, I will give you the cure."

I didn't let him go. "Why release you?" I asked. I was unclean, but he was filth. It would be so easy to end him, to throw open the doors to his temple and let the clean air come in and scour all of this sickness and cruelty away. "I could just take it off your corpse. No one would miss you."

I felt a hand grab my arm, restraining me. "Windwalker," a soft, husky voice said. "Do not do this. Remember what you said to me."

I didn't look back. "I changed my mind. You were right. The world would be a better place without him."

The hand on my arm was gentle but insistent, not quite pulling me back but not letting me move forward an inch, either. "No. I know how you are feeling, but if you give in now, you will hate yourself for it later. Trust me."

Another voice spoke, this one low to the ground and squeaky. "Boss?" it said. A tentative hand touched my knee. "You don't kill people, Boss. Not like this. This not be like you."

How did he know what I was? I didn't even know what I was, and I was me.

Then, with a faint noise, some awful growth up on the ceiling popped, and a sudden stream of something liquid suddenly came showering down on my head.

Goo pattered over me. I didn't know what was, but it was green and slimy and stank and did the job a thousand calming words couldn't do. My head cleared. I spat out a glob of I didn't even want to know what. "That. Wasn't. Water!" I shouted in the general direction of the sky. I lifted Enserric from Lomylithrar's throat. "Give me the shard and the cure," I told the elf. My legs were shaking so badly that if it wasn't for Valen's hand, now cupping my elbow, I would have collapsed. "Now."

The elf got slowly to his feet, his hand on his bloodied nose and his eyes on mine, wary yet oddly calm. He handed me the shard, then fished the vial out of his robes and gave it to me. I uncorked it, and without hesitating, tossed the whole thing down. I didn't care if it was poison. I felt like I was about to die, anyway.

The stuff tasted like cough syrup and was ice cold. I stood, blinking, as it slid into my stomach. A tingle went through me. "Oh," I said. The fever was gone, and the dizziness, and the nausea, and the weird little capering shadow gremlins that had been dancing at the corners of my vision, and I had to say that it was a huge relief to see those little shits gone.

The weakness wasn't gone, though. My legs finally gave out, and without any further ceremony, I fell over.

Strong arms caught me before I hit the ground. "I have you," Valen said in my ear. "Are you hurt? Can you stand?"

I clutched blindly for support. My hands felt cold, hard metal, and a leather-wrapped arm that was a hell of a lot warmer but not much softer. "Not hurt. Can't stand, though," I croaked. My heart was beating way too fast, and my muscles were shaking with exhaustion.

Valen paused. "You truly cannot, can you?" He sounded resigned. "Very well. Hold on." His grip on me shifted, one arm going behind my knees as the other slipped more securely around my shoulders, and then gravity abruptly stopped applying to me as he lifted me off my feet with a grunt of effort.

I would have liked to complain about being carted around like a helpless invalid, but the sudden shift was making my head spin and I couldn't quite seem to get my tongue to work. By the time I regained a few of my senses, we were already moving. My arm was trapped between me and what felt like a solid wall of metal. I tried to shift, failed, gave up, and resigned myself to being carried, as I didn't seem to have the strength to do anything else. Besides, I was kind of impressed. I wasn't Mags, but I wasn't petite by any stretch of the imagination, either. Swinging that monstrous flail around had obviously worked wonders for the man's upper body strength.

The cavern outside was musty, but it was still a fair sight better than Talona's stink, and I breathed the relatively fresh air in with relief. My eyes couldn't seem to stay open, so after a couple of half-hearted attempts to pry my eyelids apart, I let them stay securely stuck together. Valen said something to someone, probably Deekin. I didn't understand the words, but that was actually fine, because as it turned out his voice was awfully nice to listen to as long as I didn't have to pay attention to what he was saying.

Lulled by that voice and a steady sensation of movement, I fell into a doze. I had no idea how much time passed. All I knew was that at a certain point, I stopped moving, and then there was cold rock against my back, and I made a little noise of protest in my throat because I'd gotten all nice and warm and comfy and now I wasn't any of those things.

Metal jingled. Hands pressed against my side. I felt dizzy. Without managing to open my eyes, I moved my fingers and shifted uneasily, searching for something, I wasn't sure what. A silk-wrapped hilt was slipped under my hand. It felt wrong. I should have felt wood, warm and softly buzzing, but when my fingers closed around the weapon under my hand, a soothing coolness ran through me like a mountain stream, and suddenly it didn't feel so wrong anymore.

Half-conscious, I traced the stream back to its source and found a familiar presence lodging not-so-comfortably in the back of my mind, like a splinter. Was that really you I saw? I asked the little splinter of awareness. The way you were before….you know.

Enserric seemed to consider that for several moments before answering. I do not know. I…can no longer remember what I looked like.

There was an echo of sadness in his tone, or maybe the sadness was mine. I'm sorry.

The sword's voice was light, indifferent. Do not be. Perhaps it was me. Perhaps our connection has unearthed memories I believed lost. Or perhaps it was just a fever dream. Does it matter? That life is over. That man is gone.

I remembered the grey-eyed man. There'd been a sadness to him, underneath the haughtiness. Not entirely.

Enserric's voice held a wistful note. Is that so? I am not so certain. Am I the soul of a man in a sword, or am I a sword which holds nothing more than a soul's echo?

I don't know. Does it matter?

No. Not really. Whatever I was before, now, I am just a weapon. A sigh echoed in my head. Perhaps that is for the best. I have had years to ponder the poor choices I made in life. To be free of the burden of choosing is…remarkably liberating.

That was a hell of a sad way to look at it – especially because I hadn't been making the greatest choices lately, myself, so I didn't think I was the best person for Enserric to be passing the buck to.

Enserric answered as if I'd spoken out loud. Perhaps, perhaps not, but we are bound to each other until your death frees us both, so we might as well make the best of it. He paused. Although I will grant that it is not so poor a match as I feared at first.

What do you mean?

I mean, dear wielder, that while I may be a weapon with the soul of a man, you are surely a woman with the soul of a weapon.

I remembered my rage, red-hot and cutting, and I couldn't disagree – damn Enserric. Damn me. Was that what Shaundakul had seen in me, all that time ago? Was that why he'd given me his power? So I could be a weapon? God knew I had always been better at wrecking shit than fixing it, but this…

The real world broke through my cocoon of semi-consciousness. Cool, dry hands were on me. I kind of wanted them to stop, but they were persistent. "Deekin coulda sworn that otyugh poked a big hole in Boss, but now there just be lots of blood and no hole. Her sword do all that?"

"Quite possibly. The enchantment on that thing is almost tangible. It makes my blood curdle." Another hand was pressed to my forehead, quick and impersonal. "Her fever is gone, as well. That armor will need repair, however."

"Long as Boss doesn't need repair, that all Deekin saying."

"You are a loyal friend, kobold. I will give you that much."

My chapped lips parted, with some difficulty. "He is," I said. My voice was barely a whisper, even to my own ears. "More than I deserve, all things considered." It occurred to me that I had no idea where I was, and maybe I should sit up and take a look around. Feebly, I tried.

An arm snaked under my shoulders. "Careful, Boss," Deekin cautioned. "Deekin pretty sure you not supposed to be that color. Maybe you should take it slow."

Unless I was purple with yellow polka dots, I was probably okay. "'m fine," I said, and peeled my eyes open. Stone swam into view. I sucked in a breath and shrank back against Deekin's arm. The ceiling was way too close. I hated the whining edge of anxiety that crept into my voice. So much for heroism. "W-where are we?"

"Goat man found a hidey-hole. We think it's safe. For now, anyway." A reptilian hand offered a waterskin. "Here. Drink. And don't look up. Deekin'll keep an eye on the ceiling for you, don't worry."

I shuddered. Then I took his advice and looked down, even though I could have sworn that I could still feel the weight of stone above me. My fingers shook on the skin, and Deekin had to uncork it for me and help me bring it to my lips. A few swallows of water went a long way towards soothing my parched throat and clearing my head.

With my head clearer, memories trickled back. Alarm hit me, and I struggled to sit up straighter. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the ceiling looming a little closer, and once again I shrank away. My breath got shallow and quick. I fought to control it, to keep myself from hyperventilating, to just not think about all that stone up there.

Desperate, I looked straight ahead. We were in some kind of cave, barely more than an indentation in the rock large enough for the three of us to sit, and I could see relatively open space just beyond the cave's mouth. I tried to focus on that. "The shard," I said. My voice shook. "Tell me we have it."

Valen spoke. "Relax. Deekin picked it up when you fell. We have it."

I blew out a relieved breath. "Good. Thanks, Deeks. You're a life saver." I wiped my face. My hand came away covered in blood and ichor and I didn't even want to know what else. I stared at it in disgust. "At least I didn't go through all of that for nothing."

"No, you did not," Valen said. His voice had a note of grudging admiration. "You do not give up easily, do you? I suspect that if that elf had succeeded in killing you, you would have clawed your way across the Planes and back to life just to spite him."

I turned my head to look at the redhead. He was crouched easily with his back to the wall, one forearm across his thigh, and his other resting, as always, on his weapon's hilt. I realized that I'd never actually seen him sitting, only standing or crouching as if he might have to spring up at any moment, and his eyes, as always, never stopped moving, as if he saw potential threats in every shadow.

His mannerisms niggled at my memory, and after a few moments, it came to me. He reminded me of the people I'd met the time I'd gone to do aid work in a war zone. The aid workers had had soldiers stationed at our compound, combat vets whose haunted eyes had seen some shit and which never stopped moving in case more shit was just coming over the horizon, men and women whose hands flashed to their weapons every time they heard a noise, who jumped if you came up to them too fast or touched them when they weren't expecting it, who always stood with their backs to the wall and sat only on the edges of their seats and if they slept it was with one hand on their sidearm, one eye open, and, from the way they thrashed sometimes in their sleep, one foot in Hell. That was what Valen acted like – an ex-soldier with the war still hanging over him like a headsman's axe. What kind of soldier and in what kind of war, though, I had no idea. "Was that a compliment?" I asked at last. "Or an insult?"

Valen raised his eyebrows. "It was an observation," he said. His eyes roamed over my face. Reaching out, he handed me a small scrap of cloth. "Here."

I took the cloth with a rueful grimace. "Do I want to look in a mirror right now?"

A smile flickered briefly across the tiefling's face. "Probably not."

I dampened the cloth with a little water and set to work mopping the worst of the mess from my face. There was probably nothing to be done about the rest of me. My hand shook a little. I wasn't sure if it was pure post-healing exhaustion or the aftershocks of adrenaline or the realization that I'd come close to fatally losing my temper. Again. "Thanks," I said abruptly. "For…you know. Everything."

Valen studied me a moment longer, then nodded and looked away - scanning the world outside our little shelter for signs of danger, as always. "You are welcome."