27 Flamerule
Ajantis stripped his greaves from his shins, first; both smoke-stained, the left twisted and bent. Then cuisses, left and right thighs. His armoured gauntlets from his hands, then vambraces from forearms, jointed couters across his elbows, pauldrons over his shoulders. The cuirass on his chest and back, damaged from the battle. The gorget at his neck, and then the mail shirt he wore below his plate. He pulled the mail over his helm, and then the thick quilted wool he wore below that. He left his open-faced helm until last, laid it carefully atop his other arms, and stood in only tunic and breeches, unarmed and unprotected. Helm's gauntlet hung on a silver chain around his neck; he clasped it tightly in his right hand, and then removed that as well. He looked first at the Ilmatari, who shook his head.
"The gods are—merciful," the priest said. "The Watcher must know already of your sacrifice. I can give you Ilmater's Comfort."
"Then do it quickly," Ajantis said. It was so easy to see—signs, perhaps; glances at his body where you wondered how much he was already rotting like Grael, where his wounds had blackened edges and something else lived behind his eyes. "The—abomination is dead now," he said. "And that... It was worth this; it would have been worth far more than this." He groaned, leaning back against the wall. The middle-aged Ilmatari touched first his forehead, gently; then right shoulder, left shoulder, and lastly above the heart.
The priest closed his eyes briefly, seeking prayer to his god. "Ilmater grants succour to all suffering. Your cause was right. You have suffered pain for the sake of others. Ilmater's comfort and blessing lie upon you." It was quick, and I thought the priest had given it in a deliberate hurry, as if afraid what might spring from Ajantis' body and seek to devour him in the same endless hunger as Grael. He stepped back, still sweating from his castings against the demon. Viconia was not powerful enough to overcome this.
Ajantis looked again at us, his face hollowed. "I start to hunger," he said; "please, quickly, whilst I can still claim to have a soul, before I become a danger to others once more. Aquerna..." The squirrel looked up at him, and it seemed they passed a silent farewell between her small bright face and his dark eyes. "Tell my family that I died a human."
He didn't look at any of us in particular; but I offered. "An arrow," I said; for he wore no armour, and an arrow at close range can be a speedy kill. Shar-Teel flung a brief nod. He waited, raising his head deliberately, forcing himself to still as a target. To Grael was given a cruel charity; this, perhaps less cruel. Imoen turned away, her face in her hands, already weeping for him. Clear sight was needed. I drew the bow's string back and taut.
I would have released if Faldorn hadn't run in front of the bow.
"I've decided," she said to Ajantis, "you're alive, but your soul would die because you helped me, and so you must come with me now."
A grove of old trees stood not far from the deserted mansion. We watched from a distance; I kept the bow strung, in case it was needed. Faldorn risked her life. She stood him next to the widest and thickest of the trees, its leaves dark green and plentiful and its trunk brown and healthy; and she bent down to the earth and scraped dirt between her fingers. A brown stripe painted across Ajantis' forehead; a piece of tree-root dug up and fastened to his neck with her spit; even leaves to hold in his hands. She drew druidic runes of a circle of overturned dirt around both of them with a fallen branch, and touched both of them with grass she put back in the earth. Then she chanted, the rhythm of her words much like the dispelling she had invoked against the fiery blades of the dark warriors guarding Durlag's towers. Both her hands were raised, close to his tunic but not touching him, and she stared at both him and the tree's wide trunk behind them.
The squirrel bit at her own claws. "The young woman is quite gifted by her beliefs," Aquerna said, "If any divine caster within reasonable distance were strong enough to save the boy I should certainly say it was her..." The Ilmatari gave no sign, but Viconia one of her bitter glares. Aquerna simply ignored her. "What the girl appears to be doing is not quite banishing, but a simpler ritual of transference..."
I saw a pale blaze gather around Faldorn's hands, and then she shoved forward as if she wanted to topple Ajantis down. But she made no contact: the light she held forced itself forward and through him. Then behind his back the brightness seemed to erupt from him, mixed with something black and shapeless and horrible, flying out through the air as if another demon sought to feast upon the town: and then the tree caught it.
Faldorn's stick-drawn circle flashed white and green across its scratchings in the dirt. Her hair blew by no wind I could feel; leaves rushed through and about it in spirals blown by clear air. Green chased both of the figures that stood there, Ajantis' broad body and Faldorn's shorter height. Then I looked again at the tree behind. The trunk was blackened and broken and bent; the leaves withered and dark all at once; the wood was crumbling and rotten and ready to fall.
Faldorn's voice sounded heavy with misery. "The tree is dead. The Oak Father's teaching is that one life is only as valuable as any other." Ajantis watched her; he was free, and his body slumped in relief. I think that he might have cried. "You and the others have become pack, I start to believe," she said. She raised a hand, the nails suddenly sharpened into a wolf's claw; and she scraped it across Ajantis' shoulder, as if a declaration of blood-brotherhood, touching him. "I could not have allowed otherwise even if you are all arrogant defilers of Nature. As well, it was very stupid of you to give your remedy to me anyway and you're probably the reason why Nature only promotes the survival of the fittest. Now excuse me while I mourn this tree you killed and bury it."
The dawn had come. Pale rose and bold yellow approached the east, the sky a light clear blue that promised a calm day, four small cumulus clouds high and fluffy in the air. We went back to the inn, because after all there wasn't much else to do. The Ilmatari went within his temple; Hurgan Stoneblade came with us, resting on the wide benches at the long table. We were very tired.
"Ye saved the Sword Coast from a demon, friends," he said. He looked up at Shar-Teel. "I'd be proud to fight beside ye and your group at any time, lass." Then he unhooked the golden warhammer from his belt, and handed it to her; "Th' payment I promised: weapon of my ancestors. Ye've more than earned it."
"We did," Shar-Teel said, without a trace of humour, and threw it across to Viconia. Viconia took it and gave a few graceful swings into the air, for practice. She nodded, and then placed it in the holding straps behind her back; and for some reason did not then make any remarks on how her male duergar slaves back in the Underdark could have made a weapon three times as good in half the time and with only four times as much whipping.
"Heroes of Ulgoth's Beard," Hurgan said.
"Never got to kill a tanar'ri before," Shar-Teel replied, that scary smile on her face, rubbing her steel wool across her sword's blade to cleanse it from black blood.
"Nabassu," Viconia corrected; and I couldn't help wondering if those were the kind that drow...did things with; and thought I'd gossip about it with Imoen later and shock her about spikes. She sat next to me, her components and spellbook by her; and she was the one who'd defeated it.
"You were amazing, Imoen," I said; under the table we'd linked arms like sisters.
"I know," she said, posing dramatically and confidently, flinging a quick smile. "Told you it'd be all right, after all." Ajantis was alive and himself; he fed Aquerna with nuts he'd somehow procured, alive and ensouled, his symbol of Helm around his neck once more. No bright light had come down to proclaim him a paladin again, yet—but he'd fought a demon, he was trying...
We'd wanted to be quiet in the inn, perhaps to go to bed once more; drinking healing potions and relaxed. But Hurgan had told people, it seemed. Therella was one of the first to come to greet us once more; and then others from the village, Dushai and Ike Vendar and Calahan and Mistress Mallory. We rested out across that day and the next, lying in bed and coming down to the inn only for meals; and early in the afternoon of that second day a man called Mendas came with a reward that, to me, seemed greater than anything that anyone could have ever offered us.
We found Dalton. We saved the Sword Coast from a demon. Maybe at last it's all right to deserve something, to do something that we want to do—
"Sea-charts and sailors I do have," the burly, hairy scholar explained to us—his accent wasn't Waterdhavian, so although he'd studied there I supposed he'd come from elsewhere. "But last fighters did fail to travel on expedition. A strong group I want, to find lost papers of founder Balduran before merchants plunder and think valueless. Pay in advance, for knowledge is worth far above gold. Could heroes of Ulgoth's Beard depart very shortly, for ship is ready and provisioned?"
It took time to argue Shar-Teel into it, but after all a voyage to strange places probably has strange things to kill; and to Ajantis it sounded a noble enough mission for scholarship. What could be better for us than this? I'm a Baldurian historian and I've seen other samples of writing from Balduran, and I know the old-fashioned version of Common he spoke; and we're all seasoned adventurers who can fight sirines and sea-trolls and the like to get to his papers. (Probably. Somewhat seasoned. Shar-Teel's seasoned. Viconia's old.) It's as if... I'm not very devout in prayers, but as if someone approves of some of the more recent things we have done, and seeks to give a blessing. This is the perfect quest.
The ship departs on the next tide once we are ready. Imoen and I clinked wineglasses together; To Adventure.
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In the city, Edwin laid the heavy robes about his frame.
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