Chapter 6
The bard stood in the corner of the tavern, blending in easily with the shadows. Oobleck found himself returning to the past. Again his memories played themselves out as if he were watching them from the point of view of some non-existent bystander, a shadowy stalker of memories and dreams.
He and Tadaos had been meeting in the tavern once a day to discuss his progress. It was Oobleck’s chance to ask the Baron question, and listen carefully as the Baron explained things as he knew them. On this particular occasion, Oobleck had a very good question.
“What does it mean when I hear that you are a phoenix?”
“It means that I am a phoenix, just as you are a faerie or Ciena there is elven.” Tadaos nodded towards the barmaid.
“You don’t look like one.”
“And what does a phoenix look like?”
“Well, they are fiery, they fly, and they rise from their ashes.”
“And how do you know this?”
“Everybody knows it!”
“Look at me. Tell me what you see.”
Oobleck looked carefully at Tadaos; he saw nothing new and shrugged.
“Green eyes, Brown hair. What am I supposed to see?”
With a flick, Tadaos reached across the table and swatted Oobleck between the eyes. The faerie’s eyes teared immediately, as happens with a blow to the nose.
“Stop looking at my nose, or my eyes, or my face, and look at me.”
Oobleck couldn’t see any of Tadaos’ features through the mist covering his eyes, and his mind had gone completely blank when his friend had struck him. It had the intended affect, for a moment he saw Tadaos in a new way. He cowered before the visual onslaught; his voice left him and his breathing momentarily stopped. The apparition that he had seen bore very little resemblance to the man whose face he had memorized. His skin seemed to waver and glisten, as if waves of heat were rising from his body. Small flames licked at the air, and a short powerful beak occupied the space where Tadaos’ nose and mouth had once been. Familiar eyes gazed at him, a purer, deeper green than he had seen in a long, long time. Oobleck realized that rather than seeing any physical attributes, he was seeing the illusionist’s essence. He blinked, and Tadaos was back to his old familiar self. Tadaos knew from the young faerie’s reaction that he had been successful. He nodded at Oobleck, understanding what he had seen.
“Now which do you suppose is the real me?”
“The one I just saw?” Tadaos shook his head.
“The one I am looking at? How can that be?”
“I am both. Your reality does not except us all as we are, so we appear to you like this. I am both the beast you saw, and the beast you are looking at now. Look at your pretty barmaid there,” Tadaos pointed at Ciena, the barmaid. “Look at her, not at her.”
Oobleck looked intently at Ciena, shook is head, and looked again. He frowned, and surprised Tadaos by cracking himself on the nose. He gazed at Ciena for quite a while, Tadaos wasn’t sure how much of it was young love and how much was him actually trying to see into her. Finally he looked back at Tadaos, shaking his head.
“It’s no use, I can’t do it. Is there some way I can practice it?”
“Not really,” Tadaos said, “There really isn’t a reason to practice it either. In the old days it was more important, when entering this reality weakened us to certain spells or conditions. It’s still that way a little…you will have to be sure that you are not using a spell that the creature you are targeting is not immune to. There’s no use targeting me with fire or poisonous gas, and my enemies know it, because most of them know I am a phoenix and it has no affect on me. You can always ask if you are not sure, no one is likely to be offended. You will catch glimpses from the corner of your eyes; the first time was actually the hardest. My guess is that someday soon you will be able to catch them from the corners of your vision and from there look directly at them, if it’s something you wish to continue to learn.”
“When I do learn it, is it something I will do all the time?” Tadaos shook his head.
“No, and it’s a good thing too. It’s my opinion that a phoenix is a beautiful creature. I doubt there are many who would look upon us and know fear. We are more likely to inspire amazement or awe. There are other creatures out there, creatures that are a hundred times more horrible than me. The very sight of them is enough to chill the blood in your body.”
Oobleck nodded, trying to digest what he had been told. Tadaos rose and smiled at his young friend.
“I’m going to go, I have an engagement. You’ll find something to do for the day?” Oobleck nodded.
“I am going to pay a visit to the faeries today. We have some things to discuss.” Tadaos smiled; he had of course heard about the faeries from Oobleck, and he knew of his opinions relating to their pompous attitudes. He had a feeling Oobleck would come back with their blood thick on his dagger. Oobleck looked again at Ciena the barmaid, and turned to Tadaos, his eyebrows dropped in curiosity and uncertainty.
“Is she as beautiful…?” He trailed off. Tadaos smiled.
“She is more beautiful than you can possibly imagine.”
The memory should have ended there, but somehow it didn’t. Though Oobleck knew that Tadaos had gone his way and he had gone his, his memories somehow didn’t follow the rules. The unseen stalker of dreams followed Tadaos through the door of the tavern and south through the streets of Tier. It was quite discerning to see this happening; to remember something that he had no part of. He closed his eyes tightly, and in his dream they closed as well. He looked back over his head, and saw the front of War’s Tavern fading from sight, windows blazing gold in the noon sun. He could vaguely make out a small figure working its way east to the east gate of Tier and knew who that figure was. The shadowy stalker of dreams forced his head around as they were walking through the south gates of Tier. Tadaos paused and muttered a word of power, which Oobleck recognized as a spell of far sight. He knew that Tadaos would find nothing, though he wasn’t sure how. They continued; Tadaos was evidently satisfied with what he saw (or didn’t see).
He followed Tadaos to the plains south of Tier, where nomads dwelt and megatherions and wildebeests roamed. Oobleck had been here once or twice in hunting parties, long ago. Back then, it was a tough place to be for someone of limited power, like himself. He somehow knew that nothing would bother him on this day. Perhaps it was because he was but a specter, or perhaps he had some divine hand upon his shoulder, guiding him through peril and risk. He didn’t know, and at the moment, was concerned with other more interesting questions.
Why, for instance, was he was remembering what Tadaos was doing, when in his mind he knew that he had gone to the Faerie Grove and had been nowhere near the elder illusionist? Moreover, why was he following Tadaos when there were more important, influential, and powerful people around? Whose eyes was he looking through…Who was following Tadaos, if indeed there was anyone at all? Was he simply loosing his mind? He would have to consider the questions later, Tadaos was on the move.
They made their way through the plains, ignoring the wild beasts and nomadic peoples that lived there (of course they couldn’t see Tadaos, who had made himself invisible), and soon stood before a cave the Oobleck realized and still feared. Night Stalkers dwelt here; vicious beasts that were half teeth and half mean. Many a young adventurer had found themselves impaled upon the draconian fangs of these beasts, usually before their eyes had even adjusted to the dark. Tadaos waded into the room, unafraid of the fearsome creatures. Oobleck was forced to follow, though he was starting to feel nauseous. As they entered the cave he peered around, amazed to discover that while not as bright as the outside, it was by no means the black pit of despair that he had last seen. Features of the cave formerly draped in shadow were now visible; though this was not an entirely good thing.
Oobleck had never actually seen a Night Stalker in the way he saw them now. The stocky creature had massive arms the dangled almost to its knees, and ended in claws a hand long. Jagged yellowed teeth jutted from its blood covered mouth. Oobleck wondered if the creature had been eating something, and then realized that every time it closed its mouth its dagger sharp fangs sliced its lips apart. There were no discernable eyes on the monster, but huge bat-like ears stuck straight up on the top of its head. Oobleck was glad that he had never seen these foul creatures before, and only hoped that he would never see them again. They seemed to know that Tadaos could annihilate them with a word, and stayed huddled around a group of small figures…what might have been gnomes. He saw Tadaos kneel behind a boulder and knew immediately why he had come here.
The gossip around Tier was that a band of young adventurers had disappeared while hunting rhinoceros on the planes. No one was sure what had happened to them, but it was generally assumed that they had been captured or killed, though hopes for their safe return remained high. Those hopes had been dashed this morning when a lone nym had been found crawling on the road to Tier, bloody and delirious. The giant had been severely wounded, and it took some while before he was calmed enough to tell his story.
It seemed that the hunting party had been engaged in a battle with one of the huge grey beasts when a lone figure had appeared from nowhere. The monk was heavily armored, covered from head to toe, but the giant swore that it was a woman. She had devastated the party, killing one of his young friends before he had even seen her and scattering the rest. Though wounded, the nym (Oobleck though his name had been Verand) had managed to flee from her, and two of his group had followed. Unbeknownst to them, Verand had been blinded by smoke and was running straight from a certain death into a probable one. He never saw the cave, or the terrible beasts that waited within. The Night Stalkers had torn into his remaining group and finished the work the monk had started. Verand had managed to grab the corpse of one of his friends, and fled through the dark cave, ending up near a small village of green gnomes, over the hills from the plains. The young giant had made it back, nearly dead, with one small corpse tied over his shoulder, and it was said that as he was being carried into the city he cried for someone to retrieve the other corpses of his fallen team mates.
It appeared that Tadaos had come for that corpse.
Oobleck watched as the illusionist unrolled a saddle blanket and laid it on the ground. He lifted a small corpse from the crevice behind the boulder and laid it carefully upon the blanket, straightening its arms and legs. The stiffness associated with death had passed, and the body was once again malleable. The dead child (that’s what he really was, a child) looked to be a cleric. He had something clenched in his left fist, and Tadaos pried the hand open to see what it was. The cleric’s holy symbol, still affixed to its silver and gold chain, had been grasped so tightly that it had cut the young faerie’s palm in three places. There was a look of peace on his face, and only one apparent wound on his body. The young cleric had been run through with a fearsome weapon…the skin immediately around the wound was blackened and cauterized, and further in it turned almost white with frostbite. Small red lines ran under his skin at the outside edges of the wound, and Oobleck knew without looking that they would continue up on the way to his heart. He wasn’t sure if the faerie had lived long enough for the poison to make it that far, but it would have eventually. The vision was occurring with such clarity that he was aware of even the miserable equipment the cleric was wearing. He’d probably been proud of the steel armor, the glowing rings of protection…the shiny bracers made of hematite. They would have made him feel invincible.
Small drops of water landed upon the cleric’s face, and Oobleck instinctively looked to the ceiling, to see where they were dripping from. A moment later he realized they were tears. Tadaos knelt over the body, shoulders racking as he wept for the child he had likely never even met. Oobleck wanted to turn his head, but he could not. Seeing the man who had been like a father to him in this state was more painful than anything he could remember.
Oobleck screamed for mercy in is mind, but whatever had him in its thrall, whatever foul spawn of evil that was forcing him to watch this was refusing to release him. He could only weep himself, and though he knew that somewhere his body was raining tears, the stalker of dreams was not. He could feel something though…something that tinged his consciousness like a drop of blood in a pool water. He couldn’t identify it with certainty, but it seemed almost like despair.
They knelt there for some time, until Tadaos quietly rolled the blanket over the dead faerie and tied it carefully at the feet, the waist, the neck, and the head. He rose, lifting the small corpse as if it were no more than a bag of twigs and carrying it over his shoulder. When they stepped into the brightly lit plain again, he uttered a spell of far sight. This time he paused. As before, Oobleck knew a moment ahead of time what Tadaos would see. This time a voice rang out in his head, one he almost recognized as his own.
“LOOK OUT TADAOS! SHE’S BACK!”
Tadaos was oblivious to Oobleck’s warning, and broke into a trot in the general direction of the great wall of the plains. Just to the west of it he came upon the stunned monk.
She lay in a small pool of blood; the wrist thick log that had hit her on the back of the head was lying across her back. Through the purest of luck, she had stumbled upon a trap that had been there since who knew when. Tadaos had no way of knowing how long she had been unconscious, only that she was alone in the area. With a word he covered her with piles of sticky webbing, and magically blinded her. She was wearing a magical girdle that had nearly infinite space, and was almost surely loaded with magical potions to cure poison, blindness, curses, probably even a few for curing critical wounds. It could be serious trouble. Had she been wearing it, there would have been little Tadaos could have done, but she had the slung it over her shoulder like a sash and he delicately removed it from her. He took the small vials she had tucked under her belt, and turned his attention the girdle. He pulled out all the potions he could find, stowing them in his own. He uttered another spell and she seemed to move in slow motion. A few more took what magical energy she had. He ran to the east and conjured a wall to the north, making it invisible and armoring it. He than ran west of the monk and placed another wall to the north, ran west and placed one to the east, and circled to the south and around the walls, back to where she lay. He mentally checked himself, making sure that his protective magic was up and that his armor was all strapped tight. She was beginning to stir. Oobleck cried out in his mind.
“Kill her Tadaos! Kill her now, while you have the advantage!”
Instead, Tadaos sat and watched the monk as she gradually recovered from the blow to the head, and rose to her feet, immediately starting to struggle with the webs and waiting for the blows to start. Even unconscious she had been aware of some of what was going on. When she spoke Oobleck was surprised.
“I know you are there. Why do you not attack me?” Her voice was deep for a woman’s, smooth and commanding. To Oobleck, it sounded very dangerous. Tadaos must have heard it differently however; he remained seated and spoke calmly to the struggling monk.
“I have the corpse of the child that you killed. Would you that I add to this tragedy by taking more lives?” She seemed to ignore him and blindly searched for her girdle, and noticing that it was gone, the vials under her belt.
“You won’t find them. I have taken the liberty of removing them. I’m not completely stupid.”
“You must be, or you would be attacking me while you still held the advantage. When I break free, I am going to destroy you. Kael is already aware of my whereabouts and they’ll be here any moment. You will die today.” She continued to struggle with the tenacious webbing.
“You won’t be destroying me but for the simple fact that you can not see me, and I will not attack you. As for Kael coming to destroy me…well…I have heard word that at this very moment we have a party waiting outside your gates, and as of yet you are the first Kael face any Tierian has seen all day. I’m afraid you’ll be on your own today.”
She roared and leapt at his voice, but the netting still held her firmly.
“ATTACK ME!”
“No.”
“ATTACK ME!”
“No, and you can’t make me.” Tadaos sat upon the ground, legs splayed as if he were watching children at play. She sighed, thoroughly exasperated.
“You are acting like a little baby. Now do what you are supposed to be doing and attack me.”
“I’m acting like a baby? You are demanding that I try to kill you!”
“It’s your job. Now fall too it and let me kill you and get it over with.”
“I’m sorry,” Tadaos said, “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Who in hell are you, anyway?” She stopped struggling for a moment. Tadaos sat silently, watching the monk. She was fairly attractive, in that dangerous female sort of way.
“Who do you know of from Tier that is capable of webbing you, blinding you, and slowing you down on his own?”
“I was stunned as well, in case you didn’t notice. Did you do that as well?”
“No. I have no idea how long that trap was there. I don’t even know if it was one of ours. Do you believe that I am by myself?”
She tipped her nose in the air, smelling carefully, and cocked her head to the side. After several moments she nodded.
“That would make you an illusionist. I don’t know of many illusionists from Tier, and even fewer who would dare stand toe to toe with me without fighting. Are you extraordinarily brave, or just a foolish ass?”
“In truth,” Tadaos said, “I’m not sure myself most days. Why don’t you rest a moment? You have my word that I will not harm you or summon in others to harm you.” Abagail laughed at this.
“The word of a Tierian? You honestly expect me to take the word of a Tierian? Not very likely!” Oobleck noticed that even though she spoke harsh words, she seemed to have stopped struggling, if only for the moment.
“And I would be foolish to take the word of a Kaelian. How about I give you my word as Tadaos, son of William, and you can accept it as Abagail, daughter of Duncan. We could forgo me being a Tierian for the time being, if that would help you trust me.” At this she stopped struggling completely and dropped all pretences of machismo. Tadaos had truly mystified her.
“What do you want?”
”I just want to talk. I am sick of killing. I am tired of fighting. Do you realize I am more skilled at covering people with acid or sticking them to the ground than I am at doing something as mundane as ventriloquism, something that any illusionist should be able to do as if it were second nature? I don’t understand why we always have to fight. Neither one of us is particularly evil, why must we attempt to kill each other every chance we get?”
“Because you know that we will both kill again. Did it not occur to you that your refusal to attack me is treason to your city? Your promise of amnesty is more of a reason for me not to trust you than anything...what can guarantee me that a man who betrays his city would not think twice of deceiving an enemy?”
“I have no allegiance to the city. I serve the people. At this moment I carry the corpse of a cleric, a mere boy, back to his family and soul surviving friend. Does that seem like the action of a traitor?”
“If you were to kill me, you would save the lives of countless Tierians.”
“Perhaps if I were to talk you out of killing Tierians, I will have saved the lives of countless Tierians, as well as yours.”
“You are an odd person.”
“We are killing Kael to be just, Kael is killing us to be free, Undermountain kills just to watch us die, and Cairn is because they can. Who’s odd?”
She broke free from the webbing, but instead of fleeing as Tadaos and Oobleck expected, she simply stood, face to the sky.
“You know,” she said, “That this could be considered an affront to the Gods. We are meant to fight, and you know it.”
“Damn the Gods,” Tadaos said, though not as loudly and assertively as some Oobleck had heard. “Do they fight amongst themselves? No. Do they suffer as we do? No. They aren’t even capable of dying. What do they know of loss and pain? It’s easy for them to make rules like that for us when they themselves are above them.”
Oobleck felt a slight urge to reach out and touch Tadaos, to slay him in cold blood. He didn’t know where the thought had come from, but it frightened him, both because he knew Tadaos would kill him dead, and because he had never had such an idea in his life.
“The Gods will do as they please, when they please. Like it or not, questioning their methods is as pointless as fighting them. We are all pawns, Tadaos. Remember that. The next time we meet, I will have to kill you.” She prayed for transportation, and vanished in front of him. Tadaos sat for a few moments, then rose slowly to his feet and headed back to Tier. Oobleck’s vision started to fade, but he knew the body had been returned to Tier and the family; he remembered hearing about it. Tadaos had never said anything to him about the dead cleric or his conversation with the monk, however, and though Oobleck was concerned, he couldn’t say that that he was surprised.
The memory faded to blackness, and Oobleck shook his head, clearing the final residue from his mind. The shadows clung in the deepest corners of his consciousness like cobwebs. He had been having these flashbacks at an astounding rate; they’d come and go without warning, like a thief in the night, leaving him wondering what the significance was. He dearly hoped that he was not loosing his mind, but he could no longer say with certainty that it was not the case.
_________________ Hobbie Administrator, Act of War
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