Decisions, Decisions
"Numair, you can't do this, not by yourself, it's a suicide mission!" Alanna paced the stables as Numair saddled Spots. He looked up from securing his bags and Alanna read him like a book. What she saw were lines of weariness around his eyes from no sleep, and around his mouth, the lines of hatred, anger, and frustration. She could see exactly what her friend was feeling and thinking and it grieved her immensely. She admired Numair greatly and it hurt to see him so torn and pained.
"I've waited too long. Jonathon thinks if we leave this thing alone long enough it'll go away on it's own, but it won't, it won't." He began to lead the horse out of the stall. As he walked by her, Alanna caught the horse's reins, forcing Numair to stop.
"But think my friend, what good will you do her running off on your own like this." Alanna spoke with a voice full of pleading. She knew Numair was a powerful mage, but some how she knew, this was even greater than he was, and if he tried to take it on by himself, he would pay dearly, one way or another.
Jerking the reins away from her, Numair kept walking. When he got to the door to the stables he turned to look back at Alanna and said, "a lot more than if I just sit around here twiddling my thumbs. Besides, this locator spell won't last long."
Then, without looking back, he mounted Spots and rode into the blackness. Alanna watched his reseeding form until the night swallowed him up.
+++
Daine's strength was ebbing fast. It had become a game for Ozorne and his shadows. She never got a proper view of them, all she saw were shifting forms that would dart out of gloom to touch her, and though it might be just a light tap, each one was like a knife searing her soul.
It had gotten to the point where she didn't even try to maintain consciousness, she simply drifted between waking and sleeping. Frankly, she preferred sleeping. In her sleep, she thought she saw visions of Numair, and Onua and Alanna, and all her other friends. And in her visions they were always trying to get to her and so close. She felt as though she could reach out and touch them, they were so close.
But then, just before she managed to reach them, she'd be ripped from her sleep into waking. Waking to the howling cackling voices of Ozorne and his shadows. As they watched her face, tormented with sadness and defeat.
Many times she had begged Ozorne to end it all and kill her. She told him all she wanted was to rest, but each time he refused. And so she was thrown back into the vicious cycle of waking and sleeping, never in one long enough to gain solace. She felt like the Dream God, as he had appeared to her in her dreams during the Immortals War, one foot in calm controlled land, and the other in a wild overgrown mass that was sucking her down into it. And in between a giant chasm threatening to split wider and make her loose her footing.
She tried to gather her strength through meditation, but when she did, she found she couldn't hold herself. There were so many holes and gaps in the well that was her wild magic, that she didn't have the strength to hold herself there. She tried to tell herself that Numair would come and he would have a solution to all this, that this would end like all the rest of their previous adventures; the two of them together and out of danger while their enemies suffered their due punishment. But somehow, this time it didn't seem very likely. Ozorne had succeeded in capturing and holding her, and Numair was nowhere to be found and she estimated that it had been a least three days since that morning in the grove.
No, she had to finally conclude. This time would not be the same, this time she and Numair would be the ones to receive punishment. This time they would not escape. With this new spell of despair, Daine slipped back into sleep, hoping to renew her hopes in her dreams.
+++
Finally, when Numair had lost all patience with Jonathon and his sitting tight solution, he'd used his locket focus on Daine to construct a stronger, longer lasting location spell. What it did was expanded his connection with into a visible trail that he could follow, rather than immediately transporting him to Daine.
While on one hand that was what he would have preferred, he wasn't as hot headed as his friends thought him. He knew just as well as they did that this was a trap for him, but that wasn't going to stop him from going. He also knew that he transported himself directly there, it would be playing into his unknown adversary's hands. If he blindly plunged himself into the depths of the enemy, he would not know who and what to expect. But if he picked his way there, gathering information as he went, he would be better armed for this final confrontation.
Now as he rode silently along an old beaten forest trail near the place where he'd last seen Daine he mentally review all of his old enemies searching for one that would still be around and capable of acting on revenge. Tristan Staghorn, dead. Inar Hadensra, dead. Alexander Reverire, a vegetable. Ozorne, dead and ROTTING! And so on and so on.
But when Numair came to the end of his list he still could not produce a former acquaintance who was capable of abducting his love without even managing to stir him in his sleep. There was also the steel feather to consider, and he turned his thoughts to that next.
Clearly it had come from a Stormwing and it had been left on purpose. Of that much he was sure, but beyond that he was at a lose. Most Stormwings had a great respect, or as much as they were capable of, for Daine, because she had stood up for them at the council of the gods and had persuaded them to allow the Stormwings to stay in the mortal realms. Further more, Numair didn't think that Stormwings themselves would be capable to planning and executing such a plan. A Stormwing's interest rested for the most part on the dead, rather than the living. There must be someone behind this, someone who held the reins.
And that thought was what jerked him back to himself. Because, almost as soon as the words "reins" had crossed his mind, he realized that, without Daine to remind him, he'd become engrossed and reverted back to his old habit of loosing his reins. What's more, Spots had become extremely agitated and was continually semi-rearing.
Looking around for the first time in a while, Numair noticed a small patch of glittering silver light in front of him. This must the cause of Spots agitation, Numair thought. Pulling him back a little, Numair watched with fascination as the patch began to materialize into, what he registered after a few moments, as a familiar form. Daine's friend the Badger god.
"Greetings Mage, now where is my young friend, I sensed she was near." The Badger looked around, clearly noticing the absence of Daine and Cloud.
Numair averted his eyes in a hurt gesture. It had been an innocent, expected remark, but all the same, it cut Numair to the quick. Pulling the chain from his pocket he held it out for the Badger's inspection. "This must have been what you sensed, Daine is not here, and I don't know where she is."
The Badger waddled forward and took the claw from Numair's outstretched hand. He held it in his paw for a moment before closing it into a grim fist. "Why would my kit leave my claw with you mage?" There was a new, bitter edge to the Badger's tone, but Numair was not offended. He could clearly spot the animal god's error, he assumed that Daine had willingly left his claw with Numair, either as a lovers token, or as a means of avoiding him.
Knowing of the god's deep affection for Daine, and how much this idea hurt him, Numair immediately attempted to put the god's mind at ease. "She did not leave it with me Badger, or at least not willingly. She was kidnapped several weeks ago. On the morning I discovered her gone, we were in that grove over there," Numair said indicating the enclosed area over to his left. "I awoke and found her gone. I went searching for her and all I found was a pile of her cloths, her necklace, and a steel feather, Neither I, nor anyone else has heard anything from Daine or her abductors since then."
After that, the Badger's face displayed an odd display of emotions. If it was possible, his face seemed to both lift and drop lower still at the same time. But Numair got the gist, he was happy that Daine had not purposely given away his gift, but was also worried that she had been abducted and no one was able to locate her.
He muttered to himself for several minutes before saying clearly, "Weiryn must hear of this, I must go back to him and Sarra at once, but after that, I will do my best to find Daine." Tossing the claw that, till this moment he had kept clutched in his fist, back to Numair he added, "and you mage, hold on to that, I will need it to get back to you, as I have no idea where you intend on heading."
Numair deftly caught the claw and wound the chain around his wrist, next to the locket. Nodding absently, he said, "neither do I, neither do I." But when he looked back to the Badger, he was already gone.
+++
Daine awoke from yet another pleasant dream of escape and safety by what she would later have described as a loud gong, which, other than dragging her back to cruel reality, had little affect on her. It continued at regular intervals, Daine found it annoying, but it didn't bother her too much, it was a noise, and she'd heard many in her life, plenty worse than this. But Ozorne, who she could now see at the far end of the hall, as well as all the other shadows, was clutching his ears and moaning as if he'd never heard such a terrible sound in all his life.
Sitting up with a renewed interest, Daine watched this strange scene. It seemed that everything from the hall walls, to Ozorne's ever changing hands, to the bars of her cage, were rippling uncomfortably. She didn't understand how this could be happening, but she thought she rather enjoyed it. It was a meager revenge, but still enough to satisfy her present thirst.
As Ozorne glanced up in between tremors, he saw Daine, sitting straighter than ever, look cool, aloof and unaffected. She caught his eye, shrugged her shoulders and smirked.
This was too much for Ozorne, letting out a shriek of dismay, he pointed his hand/claw at a near by wall and blasted it with power. The tremors stopped almost immediately, but other than Daine, the occupants of the hall were visibly affected. Ozorne barked something Daine could hear to a shadow standing by it. Daine leaned forward as far as she dared without touching the bars and was able to hear a few broken words, "couldn't be him, wouldn't have the strength to last, must renew the wall, see to it that no one else finds there way." Daine wanted to hear more, she was totally perplexed by what had just occurred, but before she had the chance to catch any more the shadow left to do Ozorne's bidding.
+++
Weiryn and Sarra sat in the back of the cottage, both too absorbed in their own thoughts and fears to talk to the other. It had been several hours since the Badger had first appeared in their doorway, announcing that he feared Daine was in grave danger. He had given them a broken retelling before telling Weiryn he would go look for her and would come back when he had something more to report.
Then as with an odd sounding "pop" the Badger appeared and almost immediately sprawled out on the rug he had landed on. His fur looked lighter and sparser than it had when he'd spoken to them earlier that day. He seemed to be covered in sweat, and he was trying very hard to catch his breath.
Sarra glanced at Weiryn who motioned to the well outside the back door. Quickly she rushed out and returned with a bowl full of water. She laid it carefully next the Badger than stepped back as he rolled onto his stomach and lapped gratefully.
They hardly waited till he was finished before Weiryn was upon him. "What happened, what did you find out!" The god had to hold himself back from grabbing the Badger and shaking an answer out of him.
Inhaling deeply, the Badger prepared to tell what he'd seen. "I tracked her through your blood sign," the Badger said, nodding at Weiryn. "It takes much longer, but she's lost my claw, so I have no way to link myself directly to her. Anyway, when I'd finally traced her I transported myself there. But I found myself outside a massive stone structure. I searched for an entrance, but there was none. So I tried hurling my magic at the wall. But I just lost my magic. Weiryn," the Badger clutched the god's ankle with his paw. "Weiryn, the wall was chaos, pure chaos. Someone has found a way of using Uusoae's power and they've constructed and entire hall of it and your daughter is trapped in it."
Weiryn moved away, but the Badger put up his paw. "There's more Weiryn, the human mage, the one who was here, he's gone after her, by himself. He has a locator spell to find her. But Weiryn, if he tried to penetrate the wall, his balance will be disturbed and he will die instantly. But he's our only hope, neither of you can leave here, and I am far to weak to do anything by myself."
At this Sarra lost herself to tears and fled to her garden. Weiryn turned to watch her go, his face grim set. "So, we have already lost."
The Badger had managed to pull himself to his feet. "No Weiryn, not yet, not if we don't give up."
Weiryn turned around to look at the Badger, he seemed very old as all men seem to appear in times of distress. He sighed and walked back to the Badger, "you have a plan then?"
The Badger nodded, "Yes, but we will need Sarra too, and it will take a great deal of maneuvering, but I fear it is our only hope."
"What is it?" Weiryn asked, his voice guarded.
The Badger beckoned him closer and the two began to whisper.