Disclaimer: It's been slow going these days! Anyway, I don't own anybody or anything except Veris, so please don't sue me, Kadokawa & co. – okay? Okay!
Chapter
Thirteen: Elven Sword
The promise of violence hung thick in the air, and Veris scarcely wanted to breathe against it, afraid she would upset the delicate balance. She stood frozen beside the table, her eyes unable to look anywhere but the dark lord that stood in the middle of the room.
Ash – Ashuram, rather - was poised, drawn taut like a bowstring ready to snap. Veris could hear him drawing breath: a slow, restrained hiss through his teeth. She could see the muscles in his arms raised to sharp definition by the powerful clenching of his fists.
"I don't believe it," he said in a barely audible growl to the mage that stood opposite him. She had never seen anyone look so furious…nor so hurt. The mage's words had struck a wound that needed Healing, Veris thought objectively, although that kind of wound was beyond her power to Heal.
"As you like," the man replied to Ashuram with a careless shrug, face still save for the inscrutable little smile that held the corners of his lips up.
Veris edged around the table.
"Perhaps you ought to leave now," she told the mage, preparing to step forward. She was not a tall woman, but she knew how to command attention, and she did it now, wanting to distract Ashuram until his rational mind took over again. She did not want anymore violence. Ever, if she could help it – but in Lodoss, that was almost impossible.
Ashuram was not to be distracted.
"Back," he hissed at her, flinging an arm up to block her way. He did not look at her at all, his attention riveted on the mage.
"Get a hold of yourself," Veris hissed right back, earning herself the barest flicker of furious dark eyes.
A low chuckle filled the room, and Veris darted her gaze to the mage's face. Who was this guy, anyway? He was really beginning to get on her nerves, with his enigmatic proclamations and penchant for melodramatic laughter.
"Ah," the mage said in a knowing voice to Ashuram, "here is one that will not worship you, my lord, nor take orders. Perhaps you ought to let the Forever Dreaming have her, as you did with-"
Veris was flung forcefully aside as Ashuram leapt for the mage with an inarticulate snarl of rage, finally pushed beyond all endurance.
* * * * * * *
He hardly knew what he was doing until his body was in motion, tossing the Healer out of the way roughly in his determination to get to the Witch. The blacksmith's sword came to his hand as he surged forward, springing at that smug smile with only one thought in his mind.
Pirotess. How many times must I lose you?
Karla did not even move aside as he came within striking distance, sword within an inch of thrusting through those purple robes and finding the heart of the body she wore.
"Now, now," he heard her murmur instead, and suddenly he was flung away as easily as if he were a rag.
With force that drove the air from his lungs with painful abruptness, he was slammed against the wall. He found himself on his knees all at once, head ringing with the impact, the thrum of collision vibrating through him. Shaking his head to clear it, he sprung to his feet once more. Pain added itself to anger, and he launched himself at the Witch again.
He was slammed back against the wall once more, dust raining down on him as the impact of his body shifted the foundation of the wall. He slid to his knees, catching himself just barely before he sprawled on the ground, senseless.
He hissed through the pain that shocked through him, fighting the power that kept him from his goal. Impotent fury coursed over him, and it drove him to keep struggling to his feet, the Witch's death smoldering in his dark eyes.
"Stop it, stop it!" he heard the Healer demand through the ringing in his ears. Before he could try to attack the Witch again, he was once more thrown against the wall, head bouncing hard. His sword hand was slammed against the wall to make him release his grip on the hilt, but he kept his hand clenched tight. Again and again his arm was smashed against the wall until he could feel the wood beginning to buckle under his knuckles. His fingers, however, did not loosen. He was far too stubborn for that.
"That's enough," he heard the Healer say in a calm, quiet voice, but the words echoed in his ears as if she had shouted them through a battle horn. He felt the spell holding him loosen, and looked up in befuddled curiosity.
She stood in the middle of the room, between him and the Grey Witch. Her back was to him, but he could see her sword was drawn. He blinked hard, not sure the impact to his head had made his vision strange. But no – the runes along the sword were glittering, with a fey luminosity that pulled at his eyes harshly. When he squinted his eyes against it and turned his head away slightly, he could see with his peripheral vision that both the sword and the Healer were bathed in a faint green glow that surrounded her like an aureole of flickering green flame. She seemed to be standing in a wind, although the air in the room was still; her robes and hair moved and stirred about her as if a stiff breeze plucked at them.
He could see the Witch's spell deflecting all around her, bouncing off an invisible barrier like hard rain hitting a window.
Ashuram straightened, pulling himself away from the wall with a grimace. He would be black and blue in a few hours and his head throbbed fiercely, but he had more important things to think about than how much his body ached. Like, what the hell was going on here? The Healer had collapsed just this morning – had it only been this morning? – from magic exhaustion. Where was this incredible power coming from?
Even the Witch seemed taken aback. Karla's spell stopped abruptly. Just as abruptly the glow faded from the runes on the thin Elven sword, although Ashuram could see the faint green aura still surrounded the Healer.
"Impressive," Karla murmured. "That is quite a talent you have, my dear."
"I think you ought to leave," Veris repeated her earlier demand, only her voice was leached now of warmth and feeling, as emotionless as if she were speaking through cold iron.
"I shall leave by and by," the Witch replied, beginning to move slightly to the left. She was circling, he saw at once, her purple gaze intent on the Healer. He saw Veris recognized her actions almost as soon as he did, for she moved as the Witch moved, making sure her sword was between her body and the Witch. Ashuram was shocked to see, as the Healer turned so her face was visible to him, that her eyes were swallowed in the same green glow that pulsed around her skin, her pupils completely lost in a sea of luminous malachite. What was this?
"You'll leave now," the Healer said, still in that detached voice, her face blank save for the feylight burning in her eyes. She took a step forward aggressively.
The Witch cast another spell. He only knew this because the Healer suddenly took a step back as though someone had shoved her, and again at the sword the spell parted to be deflected harmlessly around the petite half-Elf. Karla did not bother with chanting or waving her fingers in the way Wagnard had so loved to do, calling on his dark Goddess with such passionate abandon. She simply let the spell fly from her, and then he could see the Witch's power breaking around that rune-covered sword like water breaking around a rock. Water breaking around a rock…fire breaking around a slender Elven body… Ashuram shook his head to clear it.
"Where did you get such an interesting sword?" The Witch questioned, trying a different tactic. She cast a volley of spells, each one breaking in different colors around the Healer, pushing Veris back a step or half-step with every onslaught. The Witch kept circling, and Veris moved to face her.
Ashuram suddenly saw what the Witch was doing. She was maneuvering the Healer into a corner, intent on trapping her. He wanted to yell a warning, but was afraid to disturb the Healer's concentration.
All at once, the spells stopped. He saw Karla take a step back, her shoulders relaxing. There was sudden silence, and he could see the rune-light fade from the Healer's sword. As soon as it had begun, the magic show was over. The thief's long-fingered hands came up in an easily-understood gesture of peace.
"It is clear that your sword is more than I had bargained for," the Witch said in an inscrutable voice. "Put it away, now; I am through with testing for the moment."
Ashuram could not help snorting disrespectfully. He did not for a moment trust the Witch, and he could see it was clear the Healer did not, either. The green light still burned in her wide eyes and she did not move even to blink, staring at the Witch.
The Witch made an impatient gesture.
"I mean what I say," she said. "I will not try an enchantment on you again tonight."
"That's rather a tall order," The Healer replied. "If you don't mind I'll reserve judgment, thanks."
"Very well," Karla replied, "although it was not I who began this." A cool purple gaze swept across Ashuram's face pointedly.
There was a soft, contained sound of dispersed air from the fireplace, and all at once the room was lit by a cheerfully flickering fire that seemed to burn without wood. The lantern on the table lit itself, and a more cozy light returned to fill the small kitchen and front hallway.
"Let us declare a truce," Karla said, moving towards the table. "I shall admit my curiosity got the better of me, but after all – we are not barbarians."
Ashuram watched curiously as the feylight faded slowly from the Healer's eyes, the dark pupils reemerging from the green flood.
* * * * * * *
Veris felt the power gathered in her disperse, leaving a faint tingling behind that lingered in her fingertips and toes. The warmth of the spell suddenly gone, she shivered.
How long has it been?, she thought to herself, looking down at the Elven sword still in her grasp. Her hands trembled as they always did, afterwards. And what the hell was that all about…? Then, No, Ver- don't think about it now.
She walked over to the table purposefully, hiding the trembling by crossing her arms tightly. Veris pulled a chair out from the table and stood by it, pointedly looking from one to the other.
After a moment, Ashuram reluctantly pulled himself to his feet and sauntered over. He brushed dust from himself nonchalantly as he approached, as if getting flung up against a wall several times happened to him all the time. Despite the calm settled over him like a threadbare cloak, she could see murderous rage smoldering in his sable eyes, and the muscles of his jaw stood out in high relief as he clenched his teeth together. She knew it had to have hurt, but he seemed to be only furious and wary, not injured.
The other man – she still had yet to really catch his name – walked over with a curious stride, almost as if he had hips. Before sitting down, he ran a slender hand through shaggy long hair in a gesture that looked habitual and unaffected.
What the hell
is going on?, the Healer thought to herself before she joined them at the
table. She sat herself warily, looking
between Ashuram and the mage, laying her sword across her lap under the table
in case she should need it again. If
that lean mage is right and this truly*is* Lord Ashuram, then one of the most
famous villains in all of history is sitting at my kitchen table.
Veris'
irrepressible sense of humor bubbled up then, and she could not help but think funny,
he doesn't really seem all that scary. I mean, Goddess, I had to escort him to the privy once!
Yet
if he was Lord Ashuram – which she felt was more than a possibility: he had
seemed somehow familiar and he certainly knew what he was doing with a sword –
then here was the man responsible for many of the atrocities of the war against
Marmo, perhaps even the death of her parents; however, she rather doubted
that. He didn't look old enough. He didn't quite seem to be old enough to be
the legendary black knight either, although she did have to admit he had plenty
of scars to show his fluency in battle. Veris sobered, her good humor fading completely. She turned away to look at the mage.
Here was
something else entirely. This man, she
felt afraid of. She had never seen
somebody with such tremendous magical ability! He had so easily thrown Ashuram against the wall, without batting an
eyelash. It was like coming face to
face with one of the mages out of legend. Somehow, he didn't seem quite human.
And maybe she
was afraid of him because her immediate reaction to his spell had been one of
defense: one that burned through her, filled her mouth with heat, ran through
her veins and singed along all her nerve endings with a familiar power that she
had almost forgotten about-
Don't,
she told herself, shaking her head to clear it.
"I have to ask,"
Ashuram said at last, in an unwilling voice, looking as though it cost him a
great deal to force the words out, "what happened to…where is Pirotess?"
Hmm, Veris thought to herself, who,
or what, is Pirotess?
The mage leveled
a cool purplish gaze on him, long mouth curling up into the snide suggestion of
a smirk.
"You know very
well, Lord Ashuram," he replied in that strange voice that hovered somewhere
between being feminine and masculine and was neither in a way that sounded
merely inhuman.
Ashuram's eyes
closed with a look of pain, and she noticed that one of his hands crept up to
touch the pendant hanging about his throat. Ah ha. So that was the meaning
behind that particular piece of jewelry. Another bit of the mystery solved. She wondered briefly who Pirotess had been to him.
"Damn you,
Karla," Ashuram said softly, but with real hatred. "You old meddlesome bitch." Veris' eyebrows rose at the sound of the unmistakably feminine name and
the unmistakably feminine epithet. She
wondered if Ashuram were merely being extremely insulting – the man did look
somewhat effeminate, after all.
The man
chuckled, although it did not really seem to be in humor.
"How little you
truly know," he said. "All you
short-lived creatures, you are all blinded by the light of your own short
existence. Lodoss must survive, with or
without you." What was this about
Lodoss? Veris shifted in her chair,
made uneasy by the casual way this mage threw words of great import into the
conversation as if talking about the weather.
"And which
Goddess was it made you absolute authority in their place?" Ashuram asked
coolly. "Who are you to dictate the
fate of Lodoss?"
"Goddess?" The mage scathed. "Oh, I'm far more."
Veris
suddenly stood up.
"You know, from
the beginning this has obviously been a conversation between the two of you,"
she said, obviously uncomfortable. "I
shouldn't pry. I'll just be in the
next-"
"No, Healer, you
should stay," the mage said, taking hold of her wrist and pulling her back into her seat. "We do not mind, do we, my lord?" And the mage stroked Veris' hair as though
she were a favored pet, murmuring "lovely," in a quiet voice. Veris pulled away, alarmed and annoyed.
"Alright,
then. If you want me here, you can
answer some of my questions. Just who are
you?" Veris asked bluntly, turning to the mage. Her apprehension of him faded in the face of her irritation at
his manner of impossible arrogance.
"It's not who,
but what," Ashuram replied, sounding bitter. "That beside you is the Grey Witch Karla, an ancient entity, old as the
dragons. She has a vision for Lodoss
which no one else seems to be privy to… and a penchant for manipulation." His words were laced with heavy irony.
"How flattering
you are," the mage replied dryly.
"She?" Veris
repeated, confused.
"Oh, did I
forget to mention it?" Ashuram asked drolly. "She also steals b-"
"Silence," the
mage said, and Ashuram stopped speaking all at once as if his vocal chords had
been cut. "You would do well to
remember to be a little more respectful of me, my lord." Ashuram did not say a thing, coerced into
silence.
Veris shook her
head.
"I really have
no idea what you're talking about," she said with characteristic candidness,
"but I can tell you I want no part of it. If you're going to find the Demon sword, I suggest you leave sooner
rather than later. I fulfilled my
duties as a Healer to you," she said to Ashuram, "and as you pointed out, we're
quite even on that score. Feel free to
leave any time."
Ashuram, obviously in agreement, was gravely nodding.
However, she
found the mage slanting that sly fox-like gaze on her measuringly.
"We shall leave
soon enough, Healer," he said smoothly. "Do not fret about that."
"I'm not
fretting," she growled, exasperated, "I'm positively looking forward to your
going. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have
a clinic to put back into order." The
Healer got up and left, wanting to put some distance between herself and all of
the information she'd suddenly learned this evening about those in her house.
Grey Witch and Black Knight, she thought to herself with a snort of incredulity. Does that make me Green Healer, or what? When they go, life will get back to normal again….
Veris looked down at the Elven sword with an impassive stare.
* * * * * * * *
"I fear the
Healer is wroth with us," the Witch said to him when the Healer had left. "She has quite a temper. Still - she may be no Pirotess, but she is
very lovely. I see now why you have not
yet moved on."
"You ought to
leave her alone," Ashuram warned the Witch, trying hard to keep his voice
level. His anger only amused her. "She's insignificant." Karla fixed him with
a wily gaze, purple eyes smug.
"Oh, really?"
she drawled coldly in that strange asexual voice. "Not quite true. The
Healer is very significant. I, at
least, have great plans for her."
Ashuram could
only shake his head.
"Surely such a
powerful entity has better things to do than entangle the lives of a backwater
Healer and an ex-general," he said scathingly, arching an eyebrow.
The Witch chuckled. The thin furtive face of the thief made the amused expression devious.
"How little credit you give
yourselves," she said merely. Ashuram closed his eyes briefly, unwilling to put his resentment into
words. He
should have known - whatever opposition
he raised, she would only become more infuriating. This was the second time he'd had to recall this lesson, he
remembered; fighting the Grey Witch was nearly impossible.
"Oh,
hardly," Ashuram replied, but when he looked up again, the Witch had vanished,
as quietly and as suddenly as she had come.
Somehow, he thought to himself almost distantly, I have to find
a way to kill that Witch.
* * *