~~~~~~~~~

Chapter Four

~~~~~~~~~

The female adventurer they had rescued from the Underworld released the breath she was holding once they reached the Surface.

Stepping out from the tombstone that marked the entrance into the Underworld, she stiffened suddenly and the odd pallor of her skin seemed to glow for a moment. She gasped in surprise and the light disappeared as she buckled to her knees.

"Kestrelle!" Faustis exclaimed, kneeling next to her. "Are you okay? What was that?"

He looked at her closely and was surprised when he saw that her skin had darkened to a more normal color. Her hair had darkened to a fuller blue as well. His eyes widened. "You're alive now, aren't you?"

Kestrelle smiled.

Elazul suddenly spoke. "Faustis...there's something out there." He was standing on the path, looking out into the night with an intense look on his face. His hands drifted to the hilt of his sword. "It's not right..."

Faustis stood up abruptly and loosened his sword in its sheath as well. When things weren't right, they usually were painful, evil, or both.

Kestrelle slowly stood up. She extended her hand, fingers hanging low and seemed to be holding something. Her golden eyes were sharp. "The Dead are coming. I can feel them."

Faustis blanched. "H-how do you know? Maybe it's just a Zombie monster. You know how those things look like the Dead..."

She met his gaze squarely. "Do you think that I wouldn't have learned to tell when the Dead are nearby after spending seven long years trapped in the World of the Dead? I know what I am sensing."

Faustis shrugged. "How was I to know that you didn't spend all your time thinking up ways to get that tick in Olbohn's eye throbbing?"

Kestrelle paused. "It does look a little like that, didn't it?"

"More than a little."

Elazul's eyes were glazed over and Faustis sensed his touch to the Mana Flow. "They know we're here," the Jumi knight murmured. His eyes focused. "They're here."

Almost as if on cue, dozens of glowing lights emerged in the relative darkness of the night. Then they appeared.

Faustis took an involuntary step back. He had never seen any of the Dead before. Sure, he had heard stories about them and how they looked like—and what they ate—but absolutely none of the stories even came close to seeing the real thing. No tales of fear, no matter how eloquent, could describe this.

Of course, standing in front of a tombstone which led to the Underworld in the middle of the night and seeing millions of dead yet glowing eyes popping up everywhere could have had something to do with elevating the terror he felt.

And the lifeless and endless moaning didn't help any either.

Not to mention the stench of rotting skin.

"Ugh!" he yelped. "Horrible smell! Horrible smell!" He could even almost taste it if he breathed through his mouth. "This is terrific."

Elazul grunted, clapping his hand over the lower part of his face. "No kidding."

Kestrelle was least affected by the odorous fragrance emitted by the decomposing bodies. She wrinkled her nose but straightened in an undeniable battle position. "They don't look like they're here to welcome us back," she warned. Her extended hand suddenly clenched into a fist, and a golden dagger-like saber appeared in her hand with a brief shimmer. She smiled at it. "I've missed you."

Faustis didn't bother to wonder how she did that—Elazul could do it, Farryn had told him. He had done it to give her the Sword of the Jumi. So he decided not to act surprised. Faustis was supposed to have seen it before anyway.

Elazul nodded and disappointed Faustis by drawing his sword out from his sheath instead of thin air. Faustis sighed and followed suit, wondering if he could get Elazul to teach him how to unsheathe his sword out of nothing.

It would impress the ladies for sure.

Unless they've seen it before, of course.

"Maybe they don't want to attack us," Faustis hoped, knowing the chances of that (very fat ones). "Maybe they just want to go back into the Underworld. You know, having been away from home for so long..."

One of the Dead suddenly lunged at him, arms flailing and putrid skin flying around everywhere. Stumbling back and flailing his arms as well, Faustis was able to run it through with a miraculous thrust of the sword he had forgotten he was holding.

"Scratch that," Elazul remarked, grinning at him and crouched low for a moment, his cape billowing around him at the sudden movement. His fingers balanced the sword between them. Then he lunged forward, released like a coiled spring, into the mass of Dead.

Kestrelle let out a wild laugh and spun once, reveling in being alive and eager, and followed, acrobatically weaving in and out of the fray.

Faustis sighed, scrutinizing the battle. "Why don't they ever want to just play a nice, un-violent game of chess?" Then he moved into battle as well, only without so much theatrics and fancy maneuvers.

The Dead were relatively easy to knock down and their assaults were easy for them to dodge (except for Faustis, of course). They were easy to fight because...well, they were already dead. But their state of Undead gave them an advantage. A stab through the heart wouldn't put it out of commission. No. One would have to dismember the corpse's entire body. And even then, it wouldn't be dead yet.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

Inside the rotting throng, Faustis gagged and often keeled over whenever he lopped off a fetid body part. The smell of the Dead on the outside was bad enough. The innards...they put a whole new meaning to the word 'stink'.

"Gah!" he exclaimed, after cutting down another monster. "Don't these things ever bathe?"

Kestrelle, who was fighting behind him, answered, "There is no water for them to wash in deep in the Underworld. All there is," she paused to expertly slice a Dead in half, "is fire."

"Watch out!" Elazul shouted and slashed at the Dead which was stumbling up behind her. "This isn't working. We have to stick together," he snapped. "Cover each others' backs. Quickly!"

Faustis dodged a blow and hurried to raise his sword against the zombie he was against when suddenly, he tripped over a dismembered arm. "Aah!" he cried, falling into his opponent sword-first. He knocked it down and scrambled to get up. Another one lunged at him the moment he regained his balance, knocking him back into the corpse he had fallen on.

Wincing at the mess he made falling flat onto the dead body, he turned around and saw the Dead which had knocked him down looming above him, a blank look in its glowing eyes. Faustis fought the urge to retch, opting instead to impale the thing on his sword.

Getting rid of that one, he stood and stepped back, only to fall into another one. It grabbed at him and he slashed its hands off, recoiling from the rank smell and running into another Dead.

"This is not my day!" he yelled angrily and swept his sword across the Dead. It fell, only to be replaced by another over-eager corpse.

"There are too many of them," Elazul observed, after clinically dispatching of three of the Dead with a single powered strike. "There is no way for us to win this battle. We will tire ourselves out soon and the sun does not come up until a few hours."

"Are you telling me that we are to retreat from this fight?" Kestrelle snapped, beheading her adversary with her golden blade.

"You may stay if you like. But I can see that there are more reinforcements on the way. Can you last out the night fighting this rabble?" Elazul had replied in an amazingly calm voice, considering they were in the middle of an unholy mass battling for their lives with no hope of winning and more enemies coming to make sure they didn't.

Faustis blanched. "More Dead coming?" He felled the Dead he was grappling with and vaulted into the air, using its body as a springboard. Using the moon jump and soaring above the battle, he could see that Elazul was right. A black roiling carpet of Dead covered the horizon and was making its way towards the tombstone.

He flipped backwards, falling to the ground and landing faultily on a moaning Dead warrior. "Elazul is right," he announced, willing the ground to stop spinning. He tripped into a zombie that was about to attack Kestrelle. "Ow..." he muttered, then stood up, decapitating the Dead for good measure. "We need to leave now. Unless you're eager to see Olbohn again."

Kestrelle scowled, her anger clear in her strike. "It will be as you say." She turned away and struck out with her blade, clearing a brief path in the throng. "Come on!" She plowed in, her blade flashing everywhere.

Elazul and Faustis exchanged a glance. Faustis noted, "She's very efficient, isn't she?"

Elazul rolled his eyes. "Let's just get out of here. My skin feels like it's crumpling up from all the stink."

Faustis grinned. "Can't have that now, can we?" he drawled. "Wrinkles are the penultimate evil."

"Cram it. You don't ever shut up, do you?"

"Not very often, no, sorry."

The two followed in Kestrelle's wake, cutting down whatever ran into their path. But there seemed to be no end to the Dead. Faustis realized that both armies had merged. The reinforcements had arrived.

Not good.

Elazul seemed to have noticed this as well. He cursed fluently and stopped running. He gripped his sword tightly and Faustis felt a trickle of Mana flow into the Jumi Knight. Faustis skidded to a halt, staring at Elazul. "What are you doing?"

Kestrelle stopped as well, looking back. "What is happening?"

Elazul focused his gaze on his sword and slowly, it began to glow with a fierce blue light. His lapis lazuli core had also begun to emanate an indigo light. He raised his sword, pointing the end up and stated quietly, voice brimming with Mana, "Motion of Truth."

Instead of assaulting an opponent, as the attack was supposed to do, the light increased in his sword, becoming blindingly bright. The area flooded with pale blue light and the Dead all flinched and froze in the glare. Faustis staggered to one knee, bowled over by the intense wave of Mana.

But it didn't hurt him. It hurt the Dead, though, if their unholy screams were any indication of their agony.

If anything, it gave Faustis a sense of peace. He looked around in awe and saw that the night sky had lightened slightly and that the stars were giving off a pale blue light. The moon glowed so serenely that Faustis found himself smiling at it.

The sky was so beautiful that his troubles didn't seem to be so important anymore. After all, who cared if he was in the middle of an Undead army? Who cared if they were all quite eager to take him down?

But an image of Farryn crossed his mind and he closed his eyes. Of course. He couldn't ever forget Farryn. She was important. Everything else mattered little in comparison to her. He smiled.

Elazul lowered his sword, still glowing in the aftermath. "We go now," he commanded.

Faustis nodded and lunged forward, following the already running Kestrelle. "Where did you learn that trick?" he asked, sprinting along beside the running Knight.

Elazul's mouth turned up in a wry smile. "I've been practicing it for the last two months. It's pretty difficult to learn—" He paused to brush aside the undead corpse blocking his way. "And I've still got a pretty long way to go before I master it." He lifted his hand and Faustis saw that it was trembling. "Once I do, this won't happen anymore."

"You're pretty drained, huh?" Faustis remarked, shoving aside several Dead. "Wow—you've stunned all of them. It'll make the escape much easier."

Elazul grimaced. "Yeah, well, don't take a leisurely stroll, Faustis. It's not permanent."

"What do you mean?" Kestrelle demanded. "Are you saying that they could wake up any moment?" She gestured to the field of frozen Dead. "That we could find ourselves in the same predicament if they do?"

The Jumi smiled apologetically. "I'll get the hang of it soon. But it would be wise right now if we picked up the pace. Sticking around isn't a very good idea and we'd better put some distance between us and the army. A few miles wouldn't hurt."

"What for?" Faustis shrugged. "I mean, they're heading towards the tombstone, anyway? They'll probably just forget about snacking on us once they get into the Underworld and find some other poor monsters to eat."

Kestrelle shook her head, skirting around a zombie frozen in the act of swinging its arm. She turned to look at the two warriors. "The zombies stayed away from the tombstone. None of them moved toward it, much less touched it to trigger the entrance spell."

"None of them?"

"They were moving toward us," Elazul informed him. "They ignored the Underworld entrance. It may as well have not been there."

"What are you saying?" Faustis had a feeling he knew already.

Elazul looked at him. "They weren't heading home. And they were all drawn toward us, ignoring other monsters. I saw several "

"And?"

Elazul smiled grimly. "They were after us."

~~~~~~~~~

They reached the Tree the next day and found out that Pearl and Lisa had gone ahead to Geo. A note left on the dinner table informed them to meet them in Lumina. So after taking some much-needed rest, they headed on to Lumina.

It was only two days worth of traveling, so they arrived at the city easily, not running across any of the Dead on the way. Which isn't to say that they had dropped their guard, of course. Faustis was many things: paranoid was one of them.

They went to the inn and found Pearl, Lisa, and Bud's prostrate body waiting for them. Lisa and Pearl were thrilled to have them back and curious to know who Kestrelle was. The stony warrior eventually warmed up to them, but it softened her harsh disposition very little. Faustis wasn't surprised.

After resting for a while from their trip, they gathered around for the evening.

"Kestrelle," Faustis said presently. "We'd like to hear the information you have. About the fellow who raised the Dead. Who was he?"

Kestrelle regarded him silently, eyes grave. "Very well. It is time for me to uphold my end of the bargain."

"All right, then." Faustis nodded. "To start with, do you know who he was? He was a necromancer, I'm certain, but what was his name?"

Kestrelle closed her eyes for a moment, folding her arms and leaning against the wall. "I know him." She opened her eyes. "His name is Ryath."

"Go on," Pearl smiled encouragingly.

The girl smiled thinly. "I met him twice before. And I regret each meeting." Her smile disappeared, and her eyes seemed distant, as though she was seeing the events unfold again.

"The first time I ran into Ryath the Necromancer, I was still fully alive and wandering around the area around that dreadful tombstone. I had traveled a long way from my village and I was tired, but I enjoyed the adventure. I was walking through some unnamed area when I ran into him."

"Did you talk to him?" Lisa asked eagerly. "Was he handsome?"

"Lisa!" Faustis groaned.

Lisa grinned and stuck her tongue out at him.

Kestrelle laughed. "Yes, I did. And yes, he could be considered handsome if you like the pale, arrogant type. I had never seen anyone like him before. He was tall—taller than you, Elazul—and very pale. His hair was colorless and he had strange armor on. I didn't know where he was from, but he seemed to know about me.

"I was instantly on guard with him. I didn't like people knowing things about me when I hardly had a clue who he was. Besides, the arrogant way he spoke irritated me." She shrugged. "I asked him who he was, and he told me that I didn't deserve to know his name. That helped very little to ease my growing annoyance with him."

Elazul sighed. "I have a vague idea of what happened next."

She smirked. "If your guess is hostility and the eventual bringing out of weapons, you're right."

The Lapis Lazuli Knight shrugged. "Replace 'eventual' with 'instant'."

"You fought the guy?" Faustis exclaimed in disbelief. "But you hardly knew him!"

She waved that aside. "That didn't matter." She looked at him with a serious expression. "He insulted my village. He insulted my pride. He had it coming. I even believe he provoked me deliberately."

"So who won?" Lisa asked.

Kestrelle was quiet for a moment. "I'd like to think that no one won, but he did, in the end."

"Why?"

"We were at it for hours. I suppose he got tired of playing around." The blue-haired warrior smiled bleakly. "He used his powers and trapped me in the Underworld." Her eyes were hard as agates.

Faustis gaped. "…Wow. He's got that much power?"

"Necromancy," Elazul said quietly. "The power over the Dead and Life."

"…What about the second time?" Lisa inquired, looking at Kestrelle.

Kestrelle smiled. "I was already trapped in the Underworld. It was the second year I was lost, and I was giving up all hope of ever leaving. But that isn't to say that I had stopped attempting to escape."

"He was in the Underworld before?" Faustis leaned in intently. "This Ryath fellow? What was he doing there?"

She answered slowly, "I didn't know back then, and I still don't know." She continued, "I was roaming around the levels when he appeared. I was startled, to say the least."

"What happened next?" Lisa sat on the edge of her seat.

Kestrelle's eyes became distant again. "He was looking for me, I think. Of course, I didn't really give him the chance to explain himself, so I can't be sure."

"What do you mean?" Elazul asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Don't tell me…"

She grinned. "Yeah. I attacked him." At their surprised looks, she defended herself. "What do you expect? I was furious at him. He trapped me in that hell! Did you think I'd pat him on the back? Take him aside so I could tell him about life in the Underworld? Have tea with him??" She laughed. "Of course I attacked. He took away my life."

Faustis thought it over for a moment. "Well, I suppose you had reason enough."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but I lost anyway. He summoned two large Behemoths to cover him. When he saw it was me, he told them to attack. I couldn't handle them, since my blade only existed in Life, so all I had was some rusty sword I took from a rotten skeleton." She preened a little. "I took one out, though."

"And then?" Pearl asked. "What did he do?"

Kestrelle frowned. "Well, I was cornered." Her face darkened. "He was laughing at me and he said a couple of things I would have annihilated him for had I not been pinned under that stupid monster. Then he left." She scowled. "I think he was in the Underworld looking for me just to make me angry.

"And the third time was just recently. A week or so ago."

"When he was recruiting the Dead for his army?" Faustis guessed.

"Yes. I heard a commotion in the higher levels—where the recently Dead were."

"That was him, right?" Pearl asked. "Ryath."

Kestrelle nodded. "I was on my way to attempt to escape once more when I came upon a group of souls. They were terrified. One of them noticed me and recognized me. Told me to run away."

"But you didn't, right?" Lisa interjected.

"Of course not," Kestrelle scoffed. "I thought that it could have been my chance to escape at last."

"But it wasn't," Faustis stated.

"Obviously, Elazul grumbled. "Will you let her go on with the story? Night is falling. Do you want to stay here all night or not?"

"Touchy," Faustis muttered.

Kestrelle resumed her story. "I headed in the direction the souls seemed to be fleeing from. It took me some time to get there, but then again, time doesn't really mean anything in the Underworld. Anyway, I got to the center of all the furor and there Ryath stood, right smack in the center and looking as smug as ever." She rolled her eyes, scowling.

"Did he see you?" Pearl asked, eyes wide.

Kestrelle nodded her head. "Yeah. He talked to me, like he expected me to be there. He was very civil—although I don't know whether I returned the courtesy. I was going to attack him—he was alone this time—when suddenly, he summoned the Dead." She closed her eyes. "I recognized some of the Souls inside them. Many were harmless specters." She sighed.

"That's horrible," Pearl murmured.

"I was angry—No." Kestrelle's eyes were dark. "Angry is an understatement of what I felt. I wanted to kill him, but I couldn't—he was surrounded by his Dead, and I was unarmed. But that didn't matter to me. All I saw were the images of the Souls he had destroyed."

"But then he suddenly turned away from me. He was speaking to someone, only I didn't understand what he was saying. Someone else did, though. There was this horrible voice…" She trailed off, closing her eyes.

An inappropriate expression flitted over her face. Faustis realized that it was fear. Immediately, Faustis was on guard. Kestrelle obviously wasn't a person who scared easily.

Lisa blinked and suddenly leaned forward, intently looking at the warrior. "Kestrelle, can you describe how it sounded? Can you tell me?" Faustis wondered why Lisa was so focused on the voice.

"It was…" Kestrelle swallowed. "It was beautiful at first. My soul…my soul felt like it had come to life when I heard it. Like it had come home. But the words…" She opened her eyes. "It was some ancient language. But it scared me. Not the words—I couldn't understand them, remember? But they made my heart feel like sinking to the very depths of the Underworld, where damned scream in pain for eternity because of their unjust lives."

Lisa nodded slowly, looking sad. "It was evil, wasn't it." It was more of a statement than a question. "Pure evil. At first, so beautiful—lifting all the sadness from your shoulders. Then you'd feel the undertones, the evil…the sadness would fall back onto you, and fear would make you cringe away…"

Faustis blinked. "Lisa, where did you get all this? I think you should stay away from my ale and from Farryn's books. Between the both of them, your bright young mind would rot before you even turn properly senile!"

"You know something, don't you, Lisa?" Elazul studied the girl. "These aren't simply educated guesses or results of a drunken reverie." He glanced at Faustis meaningfully.

Faustis rolled his eyes. "Well, how was I to know?"

"I'm sure you'll figure that out once you yank your head out from the bottom of an ale barrel, Faustis," Elazul told him mildly. "It'll be hard work, but I have that much faith in you."

"I'm offended! Deeply wounded!"

"Then I have done my work well," Elazul said, smirking slightly. He turned to Lisa. "Go on."

Lisa smiled gratefully at the Jumi Knight. "I said all those things because I think that I know this Ryath person. Bud and I have seen him, and we also have heard the voice." She glanced at Kestrelle. "Did the Ryath fellow have white hair and grey eyes? Wore blue—almost black—ribbed armor?"

The blue-haired warrior nodded. "Yes. And I told you his hair was colorless."

"Isn't white a color?" Faustis wondered.

Kestrelle looked pensive. "I guess that this man you know is Ryath as well, Lisa. But how did you come to meet him? And what about the voice?"

"The voice…I heard the voice when Ryath was around and…" Lisa stared at her hands for a moment, then looked up, meeting Faustis' gaze. "And it is Ryath who kidnapped Farryn."

Faustis met her look, all seriousness now. "We will get her back." He shifted his glance to Kestrelle. "Have you any idea where he's headed?"

She smiled. "I got the hint that they're going to Geo." She flexed her fingers. "I made sure to find out. I have some things I would like to say to him."

Lisa's face brightened. "That's good! We're going to Geo to wake Bud, too!"

Faustis nodded, his face set with determination. "All right. To Geo, then."

~~~~~~~~~

She watched them.

Six left the inn of Lumina once the sun had risen and made to travel west. One of them was carried on a litter, yet brought with him immense power. A girl, hardly older than a decade, walked along beside him, also throbbing with magical energy. Two were Children of the Earth Stars, Lifelings who called themselves Jumi. Both with formidable Mana attractions.

And what was this? An escapee from the Underworld?

A frown marred the perfection of Her face. Desdemona had not done her job well. She scrutinized the warrior. She was potent in the Mana flow as well, but not so much as the Jumi. Yet something there was something about her…

The Mana Goddess turned Her attention away and fixed it on the Sprite.

There he was. He was talking rather animatedly to the group and gesturing wildly. She watched. So much power lying untapped within him. But he never relied on it. Always stumbling through battles, possessing the best of luck.

She frowned. No…not just luck. Something watched over him. Something…

"Goddess!" A man strode into the cavernous room and bowed before straightening up to look at Her. He was handsome, to say the least, and his silver hair and gray eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.

"Ryath." She nodded to him. Her eyes slid to the form beside him. "Desdemona," She murmured, eyes hardening slightly.

The Daughter curtsied warily. "Goddess…forgive me. I come to beg Your clemency. In the Mana-fortified base in the Underworld—"

"I know what happened," She snapped. "You were irresponsible. And you failed Me."

"Divinity, I had no idea that two mere mortals could be enough to defeat the Enawerion!" she protested. "My creature has demolished armies of the Undead and slain countless heroes."

The Goddess narrowed Her eyes. "Was your head turned off, Desdemona?" She asked frigidly. "Did it occur to you that perhaps these two who can brave the Underworld weren't 'mere mortals'?"

Desdemona lowered her head humbly, although the Goddess could see the hatred burning in the soulless blood-colored eyes. "Forgive me, Mistress. I wasn't thinking properly."

She stared at the demoness coldly. "I thought the same as well." She then turned to Ryath. "How is the girl?"

Ryath smiled slightly. "She is well, my Lady. Once she gave into Your will—and that of the Crystal Arrow, of course, her disease washed away and I find her pleasant to converse with."

The Goddess nodded thoughtfully. "It is amazing that she has managed to resist My will for so long…" she mused.

The necromancer told Her, "She has great power, my Lady. The Mana emanating from her throbs with unimaginable potency, and more so now, what with the Arrow embedded into the core of her aura."

A thin smile graced Her lips. "She is perfect, then." She raised Her hand. "Present her to Me, Ryath."

The pale man bowed. "As you wish, my Lady." He bowed again and strode out of the room.

The Goddess returned to Desdemona. She stared at the demoness for a moment, then said harshly, "You have failed me, Desdemona, and I do not take lightly to failure. I want you to cease this at once. You will return to direct the Dead. Accompany Ryath to the Ancient City and aid him in adding to our number. Perhaps that would be an easier task for you to handle."

She could see the demoness bristle with anger, but Desdemona bowed her head. "Yes, Divinity."

The Goddess looked at her imperiously. "Do not fail."

Desdemona barely controlled the hatred on her expression. "Not again." And she vanished.

The Goddess turned away and stared back into the column of light. The six travelers were settling for the night. She watched coldly as they sat down around a fire, burning wood that had protected the towering forms of Mana. Angrily, She turned away.

The doors opened and Ryath stepped in. "Your Holiness, I wish to present you with the fruit of your endless labor." He bowed and offered his arm to the girl beside him.

The Goddess then saw her—the Mana Angel.

She was clothed all in white and the light from the outside filtered through her golden hair, making it glow like the sun. She was unadorned with jewels and trinkets, but for a simple gold band around her temples and the small arrow-shaped crystal embedded in her forehead. She was the epitome of simple beauty.

Ryath led her to the Goddess' throne. The Sprite's steps were graceful and delicate, the undeniable walk of a lethal warrior, as she curtsied to the divine woman on the throne.

"My Lady," the Angel murmured softly. "Long have I waited to meet You."

The Goddess rose and studied her. Here was the fruit of Her plans. The fulfillment of millions of years of planning. The end to all hateful Life and the beginning of blissful oblivion.

She was perfect. The flawless warrior. The ideal tool. The Mana Angel. Power came from her in torrents, amplified by the stone in her forehead.

The Goddess regarded her with her myriad-colored eyes, remembering when the Arrow had first touched the struggling Sprite's skin. The girl had let out an horrible scream of unbearable pain. Of unimaginable loss.

It was the other baby, She remembered. The mistake—the result of the Star's meddling. The Angel's earthly twin.

The two children had shared an inscrutably deep bond as siblings, twins and friends. The Goddess had admired their closeness but knew that it was necessary to sever their Bond. The Mana Angel should not be bound by earthly ties.

And when the Crystal Arrow embedded the Sprite's forehead, it reached within and cut all the strings of Bondage. She would remember the boy no more. She would remember nothing.

Yet still the girl struggled against the Stone, even though she was broken and knew not why. She had resisted, erecting a barrier of pure Mana to protect her will, even though her memory was gone.

But all would have to bow to the will of the Mana Goddess.

And so, the Sprite's surprisingly stubborn will was overcome by that of the goddess' and the Crystal Arrow enveloped the girl's entire being.

The Mana Goddess sent a thought into the Angel's mind and saw that the girl's thoughts were completely devoted to Her. But there was something else in the mind that was strange, unknown.

Never mind. It was unimportant.

The Goddess continued to sift through the girl's mind and recovered one fragment of her memory. Her name was Farryn.

"The Wanderer," She murmured. "A name fitting for a mortal, lost in the treacherous breach of Life. But you are the Mana Angel. Long awaited by history to end its miserable existence. No mortal name could suit you."

"Name me as You wish, Milady," the girl once known as Farryn entreated. "Whatever it may be, it will be perfect, for surely You know all."

The Goddess smiled. "You will be Ancelin.

"The Handmaiden."

~~~~~~~~~

Well? I know that there are many things here that are a little more than fuzzy. Like Ryath and Kestrelle, for one thing. Don't worry, they'll work out eventually and things will become as fuzz-less as an egg.

Yuck.

Anyway, things are coming around now, but they still have to gather the party together. BTW, Faustis still likes Pearl, OK? And Elazul…well. We'll see about that.

I support Heroine + Elazul. Just so you know. Don't want people getting the wrong idea.