The day dawned bright, clear, and cold. Adahni shivered while pulling on her leathers, and a set of roughspun woolen clothes on top of them. Safiya and Gann were grim, but Kaelyn seemed calm and serene, as they silently ate a stack of dark flour pancakes, spread liberally with sour cream. Rashemi cuisine was certainly odd, but it was heavy and would keep you warm through the chilly nights.
"There's not much we can do about this," Adahni said, looking at her companions and breaking the icy silence that had hung over their heads.
"We all knew what we were signing on for," Kaelyn said. Over the day or so that they'd known each other, Adahni realized that her most dove-like feature was the fact that the woman barely blinked. It unnerved her a bit, but she was getting used to it.
"I didn't," Safiya muttered.
"Seeing as you were present when he was provoked in the first place," Adahni admonished her, "I think you're as much at fault as I am."
Safiya sighed, acknowledging that she had a point. They finished their food, under the watchful eyes of the denizens of the inn. Adahni had always had a knack for getting people in her corner. Ever since she'd been accused of the slaughter of the Luskan village of Ember, she'd paid very close attention to how to convince people she was on their side. The others who had been staying in the inn liked her if only because she was charming as all the hells, and a foreigner and thus exotic. The other Rashemi she had encountered avoided her like the plague, knowing that he was she who had brought down that scourge that awaited outside the city walls upon them.
After she had eaten, Adahni still felt hungry, though her belly was full. She stretched and sighed, "Well I suppose there's no sense in putting it off any longer."
Her companions nodded their agreement, and they walked, two by two, through the empty streets of Mulsantir. Someone must have alerted the townsfolk that the day was today that the battle would take place, and everyone had shuttered themselves in their homes
"Okku!" she called as she strode through the gate, "I am coming for you!"
"And I have been waiting for you!" the bear god roared his reply. He rose up on his hind paws, his iridescent coat shimmering in the early morning sun. Adahni saw as other spirits materialized around them. Her stomach growled and rumbled involuntarily. She looked at Safiya, who knitted her brows and shook her head, clearly anticipating a repeat of the carnage that had occurred beneath the earth.
"He draws his power from the spirits around him, if we take them down, he will weaken," Gann murmured in Adahni's ear, putting his mouth closer to her than was necessary, so his hot breath tickled her ear and sent a jolt down the side of her body. She blushed and pulled away.
"Why not say it so we all can hear it?" she replied, irritably, rubbing at her ear.
"We heard him," Kaelyn said. If Adahni hadn't known the half-celestial better, she would have sworn that there was an amused smile on her face.
"Wipe that smirk off your face," she spat, "If you hadn't notice, we may be facing our impending doom."
"At last, you acknowledge the reality of your situation," Okku called, "Let us finish this."
It was as thought something switched on in Addie. The world seemed to fall silent, as she turned on her heel, her blade clearing its scabbard with a cold hiss. Okku was hanging back, behind his hoard of spirits. Gann nocked an arrow to his bow, and sent it whizzing through the air to strike a spectral entity in its throat. Safiya summoned magic from her fingertips, and Kaelyn drew her blade. She and Adahni exchanged a look, nodded to each other, and rushed forward, using their shields to ward off the worst of the blows. She stuck her blade into on spirit, and then the next. They didn't bleed, like normal creatures, but Adahni could sense something on the air as she cut them down, not quite a smell per se, but something like a smell.
She felt something within her open, like it had in the barrow. This time, though, she did not black out. It was as though Adahni had left her body and floated free. She watched herself, but it was not herself, only her body, from above the battle, at once feeling powerful and powerless. She watched her body, brown and bleeding, rush around the battlefield. She saw the other Addie cast away her blade and go at the spirits with her bare hands and teeth. She saw her companions recoil from her in fear, and saw the other spirits pause their fights to watch what she was doing with disgust and fear. Then, they began to run.
"No!" Okku roared, "Do not fear her! Cowards!"
But no, the spirits did not heed his shaming. They moved like an iridescent wave over the planes outside Mulsantir, fading into the landscape as they returned from whence they came. Soon, the great Bear God was alone on the field of battle.
Oh hells no, that's my body, she thought, and with whatever energy she could summon, she pushed herself towards where the entity that had taken her over was kneeling, the iridescent blood of spirits dripping from her chin. In a rush that left her staggering, she returned to her body with a snap. She shook her head, suddenly not so hungry anymore. She picked up her blade from the ground, and faced Okku, sword in hand.
"Your minions have left you," she said, resolving that she would deal with what she had just seen –what she had just done – once the imminent threat to her life was over, "Do you surrender?"
Okku roared, though she could hear something new – was it fear? – in his low and rumbling voice, "I know what you are, mortal." Adahni thought she saw the corners of his mouth turn up in something like a smile. She had seen Karnwyr the Wolf and her son Davy make what she referred to as dog-smiles, mimicking humans she thought, but evidently Okku had figured out how to smile all on his own. It made him look more, rather than less, menacing. She winced, a bit, but held firm, her blade in her hand.
"I know perfectly well what I am, bear-god," she replied, summoning this new energy she felt, with the spirit-blood of the spirit-beings she had devoured flowing from the corners of her mouth, to sing her own praises convincingly, "I am many things. I am a noble slayer of ancient guardians. I am a vengeful goddess against those who prey upon the weak. But mostly, right now, I am only a stranger in this land, and it has proven to be a hostile land indeed, one which I would leave as soon as I am allowed back to the road."
The bear god paused, and stomped the ground with his forepaws, "You are a cold woman from a cold place, Rashemen should suit you. But moreover, you are an eater of spirits."
"Fascinating!" she heard Gann exclaim. She had developed a sixth sense for when he was sneaking up on her, but this time he caught her off guard, appearing behind her, examining her closely, his face much too close to the back of her neck so as to obey the personal space rules she'd been taught since she was a child. She shoved him away gently, and continued talking to the bear. He continued to observe her from a more appropriate distance of several feet.
"How very descriptive," Adahni said, "Seeing as I hadn't had this problem since I woke up in your barrow, can I assume you had something to do with this?"
"You could," Okku rumbled, "But you would be wrong. I did not curse you with this particular curse."
"So it's a curse," Adahni deduced, "Tell me. Tell me of this curse or I'll devour you too!"
Okku looked to the left and the right, "If that is your choice, I can do nothing to stop you."
Her belly rumbled loudly and embarrassingly. Behind her, she sense the dreamwalker snap straight upright as though someone had dropped an ice cube down his back. She felt it rumble again, and though she had fed on spirits galore only a few minutes before, something was telling her that this one, this Okku, would be exceptionally delicious….. and powerful. She did not hunger, though, and she looked at Okku rather like he was a delicate dessert served after a hearty meal. She did not feel the need to suck his soul dry like she had the others…
Oh, but it would feel so good to do so, wouldn't it Addie? She smiled in spite of herself. For a moment, a brief moment, she felt as she had during the battle, as though she were standing outside herself, and the woman she was staring at looked like her, but was not. Other-Addie grinned a ghoulish grin, her teeth white and wolfish. But which is me? she thought. She tried to look down at her hands, but it was as though she were entirely disembodied, only a floating spirit on the wind, as insubstantial as any of the Telthor she had just felled and feasted on.
She looked at Other-Addie, this other entity that had taken over her body, that was smiling with her mouth. She reached out, with hands she could not see, and took herself by the throat. Other-Addie looked surprised for a moment.
Let me in, Addie said. The entity that was inhabiting her resisted for a moment. Other-Addie struggled, trying to pry her hands lose from her throat, but eventually gave in, surrendering her body back with a groan and a sigh. She snapped back to reality, but for the first time, was aware of a very strange feeling. A feeling of not being alone in her own body.
It's getting crowded in here, a voice within her said, Soon you will have to bargain with me, or I will cast you out entirely.
Shut up. I just fed you, she said to Other-Addie, You are not needed now.
Recovering control of her head and hands, she looked the bear-god in the eye. "No," she said, shaking her head after a long moment's pause, "I will not be dining upon you today."
She could sense the tension seep from the old bear's body. He had been more frightened than she had at first thought, and even the limited expression's available to a bear's features betrayed this. "I thank you," the bear said, "I was… worried for a moment there."
Adahni nodded without speaking.
"I once faced one of your kind," Okku went on, "One of your predecessors, I should said, for the curse of the Spirit-Eater is one that is passed from one to another, down the line. I remember, in the icy north, the Spirit-Eater spared my life when he could have eaten me and fended off his inevitable death for many weeks that way…"
"Whoa… what's that? Inevitable death?" Adahni asked in alarm.
"It is a curse," Kaelyn chimed in, "A legend in Rashemen. The curse makes the host hungers for spirits. The host goes to feast upon the spirits of the land, but over time, the hunger grows until it devours the host itself. And then the curse goes on to find a new host, a new shell that will feed it."
"So…" Adahni said, her heart sinking to her uncomfortably full stomach, "How long do I have?" She experienced yet another distortion of her perception that day as time seemed to slow and the bright morning sky went dim around the edges. How much time? Long enough to find my way to the Dance? Long enough to see him one more time? She turned the ring on her finger, the unbearable fear dying alone whipping her insides into a frenzy. She cast about frantically, to the left, to the right. Downriver… I must get downriver…
"That's the question you asked?" Gannayev asked, looking at her oddly, cocking his head to the side, "If I were to hear that, my first question would be how to end the curse?"
"You heard the bear," Adahni said, her voice moving thickly past her leaden tongue, "Inevitable death."
"Oh, come now, my lemming," Gann said, "How many times have you survived inevitable death?"
She looked at the dreamwalker despairingly, her topaz eyes locking on to his blue ones. She saw sympathy somewhere deep in their depth, beyond the sparkling amusement that they usually expressed.
"I once swore an oath," Okku rumbled, "I swore an oath to the spirit-eater who spared me to free him from his curse. I am ashamed to tell you that I have failed, though you must have figured that out by now. To you, Adahni Farishta, I swear the same oath. And I swear that this time, I will not fail."
Adahni stared at the bear king in astonishment, "So you believe it can be done?" A slim candle's flame of hope ignited atop the despair in her chest.
"I do," the bear-god said, "Do you accept my company?"
"I don't think I have much of a choice," Adahni sighed, "I do believe this is my only chance."
"Oh please, my lemming," Gann said, slinging an arm around her shoulder and guiding her back towards the city gates. Feeling weak and sapped, she did not push him away as she normally would have, but leaned on him, appreciating the strength of his broad shoulders, "How many 'only chances' have you blown, only to pick yourself back up and find another?"
"Who are you, my personal praise-signer?" she asked, making a face at the hagspawn, but putting her hand on his arm to assure him that she was only joking.
The dreamwalker chuckled, "It sounds like you could use one."
"Good gods, I suppose you have a point," Adahni sighed.
"Why, Addie, that's the first nice thing you've ever said to me," Gann exclaimed.
"Sometimes people grow on me," Adahni said, "You know, like a foot fungus I can't be bothered to treat." She paused, trying to remember where she had heard that particular backhanded compliment. Sand, she thought, Sand… talking about Bishop. She chuckled at the memory of the Moon Elf and his wry sense of humor. He had escaped the collapsing cave, Neeshka on his arm. If Neeshka had lived to become the Captain of Crossroad, then Sand must have gotten out as well, "I suppose I'd rather take the chance on living."
This she said, but her thoughts went somewhere darker. Two weeks, she thought, I'll give it two weeks. If I haven't figured it out by then, I will go to the South. I will track down the Dance of the Damned, and at least if I'm going to die this time, it will be in the right man's arms.