15.
There's nothing…
…and then there's light….
…and air…
…and reason.
Adele sits up, gasping the cool air, slightly smelling of smoke, like it is balm to her lungs, and for a split second she thinks she's really, really tired of losing consciousness and coming back feeling like she'd been repeatedly slammed against a huge boulder, sliced open from head to toe and tossed about like a dishrag in a busy kitchen.
Then the memories return, and in their wake, panic wells up, rolling like a huge dark cloud, extinguishing everything else, choking her breath and sending her down, down, down on the floor again, hand grasping for something to hold on and body shaking uncontrollably. With the ugly, heaving, sobbing sounds from her throat come the memories, flashing through the black curtain of dread like lightning…
"I shall not do as you say…" The rumbling voice of the archdevil, topaz-colored eyes gleaming, all-too-long teeth showing in a gleeful smile.
The utter disbelief on the Valsharess' face, so haughty and proud a moment before…
The feel of being released from a cage, hands curved on Enserric's hilt, as she is at last free to spring on the drow who haunted her and the Seer's people… her people…so long…Unthinking, only the moment exists, the knowledge that she's been given the chance to perform her duty, to unleash the righteous fury of her lord and god on the woman who haunted them for so long…The chance to end it.
…The feel of hot blood on her hand and her face, the graceful arc of crimson death spurting from the Valsharess's neck as her sword finally found its mark, unerring…
The feeling of victory, pulsing and triumphant; her face, splattered in blood, rising above the crumpled form of the dead drow woman, blade held high, spine erect and proud…
…and that laughter again, low, rich, cultured-sounding, and yet utterly chilling in its inhuman glee.
"You have done well, mortal."
"No." Adele gasps, nails scraping on cold stone, lungs striving for air, mind grasping to stay sane as she remembers…
…remembers…
"Ever since you found my relic within the Plane of Shadow, you have been bound to me as it has been bound to you. A most fortuitous event, in my eyes."
"No!" Her voice is rising towards the dark ceiling of this place now, like a terrified bird trying to get free from a narrow cage, thrashing around blindly, heart beating faster and faster…
…because it's there, oh it's there, and it's smiling at her with its terrible eyes and rich-red lips and long teeth and she can't escape, can't shut it out, and can't deny the horrible truth of what it's saying…
"I am free. A great lord of the devils able to roam amongst the mortals and bring suffering to them as I wish, with not a one who possesses the power to stop me!" That amused laugher again: terrible topaz eyes focusing on her. "And the delicious irony that it was you who'd set me free, my little one. A favored of the Lord of Duty and Righteousness indeed. Perfect."
"No…" Adele whimpers, curling up into a little ball, rocking back and forth. She feels the black cloud rolling over her, covering her completely, and that laugh, that horrible laugh ebbs and flows in her head like a tide, like the end of all hope…
No. The whisper is tiny, almost like a sigh, almost like the last breath of wind at dawn, when it's still dark but the first rays of the sun are already trembling just beneath the horizon. It comes with the faint scent of roses, and the roar of a lion underscores the whisper, just beneath the edge of hearing.
She's mine. She's still mine. She never wavered in her Duty, and she was tempered in the fires of compassion.
The roar of the lion gets stronger. Beyond the edge of Adele's vision, under her closely shut eyelids, dim outlines coalesce: the figure of a huge man, clad in armor, hair wildly streaming about like the mane of a lion, all golden and glorious, bathed in the light of his face.
Thrice she's been touched by Love, and thrice she's been saved by it. She's not yours, and she never will be.
Adele sits up, still trembling. Her wildly beating heart slows, and her body takes up the traditional meditation position of her order on its own volition. Open palms on thighs, she sits back on her heels, head held high, and her breath is coming slow and even between her slightly parted lips, along with the barely audible syllables of Torm's Litany of Duty.
Her thoughts are coming into focus, like the colors of a prism, and the thread of connection is there suddenly, springing up from the middle of her mind like water from a rock; her soul is stretching towards her god with the speed of wildfire. Thoughts still tinged with the bitter taste of failure, the dread of what those topaz-colored eyes and long-toothed mouth revealed to her and the desolation of being alone…but steeled with the never-extinguished determination to duty, and to do what needs to be done: towards her god, towards those she protects….towards those she loves.
That last one reverberates up and down on the thin golden thread connecting her to the divine, clear as a bell, and brings images into her mind: the smiling face of her parents, the feel of her nieces and nephews' warm hands; the distant image of a city on white cliffs and golden beaches, the sound of a hundred clear bells ringing above its red-tiled towers and roofs; a fierce, tooth-filled grin of a winged kobold; the gentle violet eyes of a dark-skinned prophet and wide smile of an ex-assassin; and finally, clearer than all of them, the touch of lips on her own and the feel of flame-colored hair brushing her face, with the clean smell of steel armor, distant fires and burnt amber.
There, my paladin. The whisper is feather-light again, like that touch on her hair, almost, but not quite there, lighting her heart with a thousand rays of the sun she hasn't seen in so long. Stay true, and you'll never be alone.
The touch lingers, and then fades, bit by bit, like a slowly retreating ray of sun. Adele is left with the warmth of it, spreading from the crown of her head down to the toes of her feet, and finds that she has the strength to stand up at last. She stretches slowly, as if waking from a deep slumber (and, in a way, she really is, she thinks), looks down on herself, and notices with a grimace that the dirt, blood and grime of battle, and all the dents on her armor are gone. Her hands are clean, her hair is no longer sticky and matted… and there's nothing but a faint itch remaining from the chest wound she'd received in the Valsharess's throne room from the freed archdevil; the wound that ended her life on the Prime.
So that's where I am then. The pocket plane of the Reaper, she thinks as she looks around in the cavernous hall.
And yes, I've died. She checks for her equipment: like a couple of times before, she also notices that everything she had on her body is with her—the baldric of potions, Enserric in his sheath, her side dagger, even her helmet, hanging on its guard chain from her back. It never gets any better.
The rest of the stuff is probably in the Pool over there. Just like old times.
Alive again. Time to finish the mission; time to fulfill the Duty.
Her voice isn't trembling anymore as she calls out.
"Reaper! It is time for you to return me to the land of the living."
I sure hope he doesn't need new books because I don't think I got any on me…
"Sojourner." Adele still takes an involuntary step backwards, like many times before, when the Reaper glides up, out of the gloom of the Gatehouse, and comes to an undulating semi-still in front of her. She tries to make out anything but distant flickers of flames on the mirror-like surface beneath his hood where his face should be, and shudders when the booming voice rings out. "You are barred from the Prime Material Plane. If you are about to ask me to return you there, I'm sorry but I cannot comply."
Well, that was not what I expected.
"I'm sorry?" she asks, politely, even though she feels the first tremblings of impatience in her limbs, because you're always polite when you're a paladin and even more when you talk to someone who's ten feet tall, doesn't have a face and is called The Reaper and the Gatekeeper. "This was not a problem before. What has changed?"
"The devil, Mephistopheles, has commanded me with my True Name. Commands thus given none can disobey. You are to remain here." The Reaper's voice just as booming as before, but Adele thinks she can detect just a faint hint of regret in it, and that makes her breath come faster again, remembering those topaz eyes and wide smile…
Calm, Special Envoy Welters. Calm. Remember to breathe. We'll assess the damage later: now concentrate on getting information.
"Let me see, then." Adele taps her chin with a finger, digs into her memories as a novice on power summons, and regards the Reaper with a wan smile. "I do not assume you could give me your True Name out of the goodness of your heart, could you?"
The great head moves slowly from side to side.
"I am sorry, Sojourner. Mephistopheles, of course, bid me to never share it with you." The Reaper pauses, and bobs up and down before he speaks, a careful edge in his voice that makes him enunciate the words he speaks very clearly and slowly. "But yes, your assumption was correct. If you commanded me with my True Name to send you home, I would have no choice but to comply."
Now we're getting somewhere. One step at a time, but we are. Lord of Duty, this might be a slow march, but I shall see its end, I swear!
"I see," she says out loud, and looks around. "So: how one goes about acquiring your True Name? No wait, you probably can't answer that. Let's go back a step. Since I am barred from the Prime, where can I go in order to find out of your True Name? I don't assume I have to spend the rest of my days here with you? I don't cook, I can't sing to save my life and let's not talk about my conversational skills."
There is a prolonged silence from the Reaper before he points behind him, at a brightly outlined doorway that swirls with white and grey: the only gateway, Adele realizes, in the place that used to be filled with quietly pulsing doors to other locations.
"There is one Gate that was always sealed to you before." He pauses again, almost as if he didn't want to say what he says next. "It leads to the surface of Cania and the City of Lost Souls that gather there. It is open to you now."
"Cania." Adele almost expected that, really; when she turns it around in her mind in a logical way, the way some of her cousins-in-faith, the followers of Tyr do, it all makes sense in a very, very twisted, wrong and yes, horribly infernal way. She's actually proud of herself that she can make a joke about it, even if only to herself: but admission and being able to laugh about something are the first steps towards healing, she knows this by now. "That would be… the Eighth Circle of Baator." She grimaces. "It seems we've traded places with Mephistopheles." She is proud of herself that she can say his name without flinching: even though her teeth clench uncomfortably on each other while doing so.
"Yes, the Eighth Hell, the Frozen Wastes of Cania, the Dreaded Depths of Baator. Whatever name one gives it, it remains the same and, for you, it is a prison." The Reaper nods, his voice back to its usual expressionless depths and formal cadences.
"Thank you for the encouragement." Adele mutters under her breath. "Watch me: I'll be home before it gets to be Midwinter. Otherwise my mother will slay me," she adds, wincing as she remembers the last time she missed the family gathering.
"There is no such thing as home for one such as you." The Reaper shakes his head, and now there's a definite sadness in his voice. "You must forget what you knew of the Prime Material for you are never going back."
"That's an absolutely rotten attitude to have." Adele realizes she was pacing up and down in front of the great pool of quiet water that resided in the hall ever since first time she saw it, and stops, hands on her hips. Good going, Special Envoy Welters: keep it up. One step at a time. "All I have to do is to get out there, find your True Name, get back to the Prime and send Mephistopheles back to where he came from. See? Clearly defined objectives; now I just need a plan."
She rubs her hands together: somehow there's cold seeping in from that swirling doorway.
And now: the hard part.
"So: since it would be a bit tedious to do it alone…" she hesitates, fear somehow creeping back to her heart, as if she knew the answer but doesn't want to face it, "could you tell me where my companions are? And don't say they are dead, please… we both know how that works here."
"Indeed." The Reaper makes a sound that from anyone else might be a faint chuckle. "A transitional state, as we know… but yes. Undeniably, they are dead."
Adele swallows again; and tries to remain coolly collected, as it befits a paladin even when what she really wants is scream her rage to the heavens.
Definitely the hard way, then. Onward, Special Envoy Welters, ever onward.
"I truly hate that I need to drag everything out of you with a plier." She looks the Reaper up and down with narrowed eyes. "I know you can reach them the way you plucked me out of the infinity of planes so many times, because the people I adventure with are, as you so cryptically but succinctly like to say, 'bound to me'. " She remembers an earlier time, the same place, of her arguing fiercely about Deekin with the Reaper. "So let's cut to the chase and if you would," she slows down and remembers that she is supposed to be polite, "please summon them to aid me one more time in this quest."
Please, Lord, please tell me it is possible. Please. Otherwise, I am not sure I can do this. You said thrice… you said thrice was I touched by love: don't let this end just like the other two times. Please.
The Reaper does that odd undulating bob in the air that always makes her slightly disoriented, and then tilts his cowled head to the side.
"They will agree to come or not, each according to their own wishes and desire, you know this? I cannot compel them."
Adele's nod is decidedly impatient; and as the Reaper asks his next question "Who shall I summon, then?" she doesn't even wait for him to finish. The name springs to her lips with such force that she sways, eyes closed to stop the sudden desire to cry, and she never prayed so hard in her life.
"Valen. Valen Shadowbreath."
First there's nothing…
…then there's a stir in air, the smallest of sounds, as if something, nay, someone took a first breath after a long silence…
Then there's… him. Out of the shadows of the gatehouse, Valen coalesces like a tall, imposing verdant statue, all in armor. Slightly bent shoulders, erect spine, wildly lashing tail; forehead furrowed in irritation, as if he's objecting to being summoned back.
So much like countless times before, and yet she stares as if she sees him for the first time, breathless and eyes tingling with tears. Adele clasps her hands on her mouth as a triumphant cry wants to escape from her chest, fierce and joyous, like the call of a falcon on a clear morning over tall mountains.
He's alive! He's here! Oh, sweet lord of the lion and the white rose, thanks be to you!
He appeared facing the Reaper, so he spots him first.
"The dark one." His shoulders sag and there's a deep sigh from him. "I should have known. Am I serving you now, then?"
"Gods, I hope not." There; she did it again. I really have to control my mouth, Adele thinks fleetingly, but…
He doesn't touch her. He just spins, lightning-fast, one hand on Devil's Bane's handle by his side: and his face flickers with so many emotions it's almost painful to see.
"He said he killed you." His voice is flat. "The archdevil. Mephistopheles. He said he crushed your heart in your chest and left you on the floor of the Valsharess' fortress to rot. He…" Adele can see his throat moving as he swallows, skin even paler than usually above his green gorget. "He laughed and swatted Deekin down like a fly; kicked Nathyrra into a wall, and…" he shrugs, almost absently, "…eventually he killed me too. After I bled him a little, anyway."
There is the faintest flicker of a smile on his face, and the hard-etched features soften. One hand reaches forward to trace Adele's profile with slightly trembling fingers: she doesn't dare to move as Valen's palm finally cups her cheek with infinite gentleness.
"I would very much like to believe I am not merely having a pleasant dream in the afterlife; or else that this isn't some kind of exquisitely planned torment Mephistopheles decided to inflict upon me for actually wounding him," he continues in the same inflectionless voice, and Adele shudders as she sees the storm raging in his clear blue eyes, so at odds with the tone of his words. "It would be a very, very good thing, my lady."
"Am I supposed to say something that convinces you I am real?" Adele finally finds her own voice; it is very hard to just stand there and not to move forward to embrace him, but, she thinks with the calculating mind of the Special Errant Envoy Plenipotentiary, that's exactly what a dream—or nightmare- would do now, right? "Fine: let me see… I could kill for a ham sandwich right now." She sees Valen rock a bit back on his heels, and some life return to his eyes. A-ha, he really didn't expect that one, she thinks, and continues, hurriedly. "A really greasy one that you can only make standing in your parents' kitchen late at night, when everyone else is sleeping but you absolutely must go and grope around blindly without a light to find that heel of bread under the checkered cloth in the breadbox and wipe it across the pan to sop up a bunch of grease and tear a chunk of ham off with your bare hands and put it on top and eat the whole thing standing there, hoping no one heard you bumbling about and brings down a candle from upstairs to catch you in the act. I could kill for that; but…" and her voice shakes just a little bit because gods, this is truth,"… a week locked in the best room of the Yawning Portal Inn in Waterdeep with you would also do nicely. I think."
"My lady tries to choose between me and a ham sandwich." The tiefling –her tiefling, her very much alive tiefling, she thinks giddily—closes his eyes for a second. "I am not sure if I should be flattered or insulted."
"Definitely flattered." Adele says, deadpanning and putting up everything on one bet. "My mother's baked ham is the best in Tantras, you know."
"It's really you then." Valen nods, almost tentatively, but his hand moves from Adele's cheek to her shoulder and she feels him dig his fingers in, as if he's still not quite sure she's corporeal… "No one else across the Planes would compare me to… baked ham."
"I will not make the obvious soldier-jokes about you being hot and red right now, if you are fine with that." Adele whispers, and fierce joy ripples through her as he bursts out in surprised laughter.
Gods, I love his laughter, she thinks as she's finally enfolded in his embrace, so tight and so strong that she can barely breathe. I love his hair, she thinks as she threads her gloved fingers through the red locks and pulls his head down to finally kiss. I love how his lips fit over mine so well, and the way his breath hitches on the second syllable of my name. He came through archdevil and otherworld to be with me and I don't ever want to be separated from him again.
Because by Lord Torm, I think I love him.