Was it Worth it?

by Rich G.

At school they taught me how to be
So pure in thought and word and deed
They didn’t quite succeed
For everything I long to do
No matter when or where or who
Has one thing in common, too

It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a sin
It’s a sin
Everything I’ve ever done
Everything I ever do
Every place I’ve ever been
Everywhere I’m going to
It’s a sin
- Pet Shop Boys “It’s A Sin”

Enter Christoph -

Hadriel listened to the woman scream for what he believed to be the third time in as many minutes. This one seemed stronger though, more immediate. He returned his attention to the scene before him and looked down at the sweating face of Jamella and her nervous husband, Halbu. It was hard to believe they did it at all with all the screaming they did. And she had nine months to get ready for this. It could hardly be considered a surprise and there she lay, screaming her head off. Hadriel clicked his teeth in disgust. And these two were to bear a son that was going to help defeat Diablo. Quickly Hadriel whispered a prayer that Tyrael hadn’t taken leave of his senses. Just as he finished Adria’s head popped up from between the bellowing Jamella’s legs, “I’ve got the head. One more push and the shoulders will be out and ye’ll be done. The next time ya feel it a-comin’ push as hard as ye can.”

“Jamella? Did you hear her? She said to… ” his words stopped as his wife’s knuckles went white around his hand and bones rubbed popped and snapped.

“I HEARD HEAaaaiiiiggghhhhhhhh!” With a final scream and a wet noise from further down the child was born.

“Aye, ‘e’s got a caul a coverin’ ‘is face. This one’s due for greatness.” With a finger she removed the caul and put it on the bed beside Jamella while she cut the cord and cleaned up the baby. Slowly she wrapped the infant in a blanket and handed it to Jamella. “Yer son. What do ye name him?”

Jamella looked over at Halbu who was grinning stupidly from ear to ear. No one noticed the caul disappear from the end of the bed as Halbu whispered “Christoph. ”

Hadriel distastefully held the caul between thumb and forefinger as his wings carried him through the walls and up to the heavens. Below him Pandemonium Fortress dwindled and vanished just as Christoph began his first wail. Hadriel winced, muttering to himself “Can’t they do anything quietly? ”

Enter Aimee -

“But I’ve done nothing wrong! Why must I leave? The plains are my home! You would send me to this SCHOOL? ” The young brown haired curl spat the word. “You weaken the clan for this? The elders allow it? I demand a council be called! ” Aimee’s mother looked at her steadily, her eyes ice blue shone in the near dark of the tent. “You are a child. You can no more call a council than you can defy me. Hear this Aimee. You will go to this place. You will learn what Deckard Cain has to teach you and you will bring it back here to teach the other members of your clan. This is your duty as my daughter and as a daughter of Athulua. If you refuse I will exile you. You will be without clan and without family. You will be cast out and none will take you in. You will die unmourned and your soul will never rest without a clan to sing it to the heavens. You will NEVER take that tone with me again or I will have your Father take you over his knee and redden your behind like the child you behave like.”

Aimee’s face went scarlet. A daughter was never disciplined by her father after she learned to walk on her own. To be threatened with that was the second highest form of humiliation. To have it carried out being the highest, and Aimee could hear the steel in her mother’s voice, this was no threat. “Yes, mother. I will go, learn, and return with what little they can teach. They are not of the plains. What they know cannot help us here.”

Aimee’s mother smiled, her face softening. “Ah, to be so young again and so confident. There is much of the world to see yet my Aimeechin. You leave tomorrow at first sun. It is a two week run to the coast where a person will meet you at Raven’s Rock. Tonight you will be at the Woman Fire. You get your spear tonight. You will leave as a woman.

Enter OogaBooga -

Meshif looked off into the distance, the sound of the waves against the side of his ship a steady background noise that he scarce noticed. He smiled faintly as he heard his only passenger ‘feeding the fishes’ over the side. He had done that all the way from Lut Gholein. Out of the mists ahead he began to see an outline of a shore. This must be what they were looking for. He had followed the instructions just as he had been given, after quite a lot of gold had exchanged hands.

“Well Drognan, it looks like I’m as far as I am going to go. I’ll get you within rowing distance of the shore but you’re on your own after that. I wait one day. If you aren’t back in that time you aren’t coming back and I’m going home without you.”

Drognan leaned over the rail again and closed his eyes as his stomach again tried to empty itself. His turban, usually wound perfectly and so tight a rock would bounce off it hung limply over one ear. “Just get me off this damned boat!”

Meshif laughed “I’ll have two of my men row you to shore. They will wait for you, but only one day and then we go back to Lut Gholein. I’ve been paid to get you here and back again but I’m not endangering myself or my ship. I’ll tell old Deckard you were eaten.”

Drognan winced at the mention of food but climbed slowly into the little boat that was lowered into the water. He leaned weakly against his staff as it was rowed the rest of the way to the shore. Every 20 years someone had to make this trip and it had yet to provide them anyone who could help against Mephisto or Diablo. Geglash had come last time and he wouldn’t go near the water now. After being on Meshif’s ship Drognan could understand it.

“I will be back shortly after nightfall. Don’t leave me on this confounded island!”

“Meshif said we was to stay until tomorrow night then we was to leave with or without you wizard.”

Drognan stood on the sand and looked up into the deep green of the forest that came within 20 feet of the shore. In the distance the great mountain Arreat rose out of the forest to disappear into the clouds. Somewhere in there was a tribe of barbarians and one of them would be leaving this forest to go join three others for a year of training in Pandemonium Fortress.

The old man squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and started for the forest edge. He got halfway there when he heard a scream coming from ahead and to the left. The scream chilled his blood but he stayed where he was and turned in time to see a 6 foot tall bear-like creature hurtling over his head and directly towards the boat. Drognan spun in the direction of the boat in time to see the two sailor running out into the water, still carrying the oars in their hands, screaming in fear.

The creature fell to the ground and rolled in the sand at the water’s edge. “Waaaaaaaah… Oh that was funny. Did you see the look in their faces?” The bear-like creature pushed himself up and Drognan was looking in the face of a boy with tears running down his cheeks, trying to catch his breath as his chest heaved with laughter. “Did you see that? Oh man, you’d think they’d never heard a war cry before. And I’m not even good at it yet.” The boy held his sides and gasped for a minute longer before he stood and extended a hand to Drognan “I’m OogaBooga, pleased to meet you. I assume you are the one that was sent to get me.”

Drognan swallowed twice and tried to introduce himself but still didn’t have his voice back. His heart was still stuck in his throat. “Drgnn, ahem, Drognan here. You say you’re ‘not good at it yet?’”

The boy, Drognan called him that because underneath all the skins was a face that still had the first peach fuzz of a beard never shaved, grinned broadly. “Yes, Father says I’ve got the volume but no control. Oh, dash it, they still haven’t turned around yet. Do you think they’ll swim all the way back out to your ship? They’ve got the oars.”

Drognan stared at OogaBooga as if he were a talking tree, “Your name?”

The boy looked at him, “Oh, it’s a joke on the outlanders. They all think we’re ignorant brutes. We prefer to keep it that way so we take these names and speak in monosyllables when strangers are about. It’s quite a hoot really. Ah, here come your friends, it seems they realized you hadn’t been eaten yet.”

“You’re kidding right? You can’t have fooled the entire world into thinking you’re that ignorant.”

“Me! OogaBooga! ” The barbarian thumped his chest and stared at Drognan and thumped the old man’s chest, “You?”

“Oh be still, this is quite insane.”

The conversation continued along those lines as the men rowed the four of them back to Meshif’s ship.

Enter Rueh -

The two gray haired women sat across from each other in silence. In front of them a list of names had been narrowed to just two. The oldest, evident only by the deeper wrinkles, coughed a rattling cough deep in her chest and spat on the floor, “Rueh is a dabbler. She has yet to master either of the three elements. Oh she can warm a cup of tea, or cool a bowl of soup, and I’ve seen her use static to cause her hair to move dramatically when she’s throwing a particularly wonderful tantrum. But truth to tell she’s never going to be more than a dilettante in any of them.”

“She’s better than you think. Specialization is good when searching for pure forms of magic, researching new spells, new powers, but to do what we want of her she’ll need this versatility. We don’t know what she’ll be up against. It may be that she will need frost when fire wouldn’t work, or electricity when neither of the other two seem to be enough. She’s my choice and I am going to stand by it.”

“You say that because you want her out of your class. She’s a constant reminder that 3 years ago when you recruited her you were doing so for the wrong reasons. Face it, she’s a mistake and shouldn’t even be here.”

“Fine! Let’s send her away! That’s what I’m trying to do!”

“You’re trying to pass her off as representative of the Zann Esu and she’s not.”

On the other side of the thick oak door the red haired girl sat and listened to the women. Her hair stirred softly in the still air and her green eyes flashed with anger as they discussed her that way. She knew that to let them know would seal her fate and she would not be chosen and she would remain trapped here in the cold stone walls. That was a fate worse than death. If they would only send her away from the hide bound rules of this place she could learn. The other students learned to harness the magic by using painstakingly learned gestures and words. She could do intuitively what it took them a week to learn to do. She had a knack, but because she was never sure how she did it, she sometimes had trouble duplicating the effect and had boiled more than one cup of water completely away when just trying to warm it, and nobody let her forget the time she set the entire table on fire trying to melt the butter so it would spread without tearing her bread. But she WAS right for this. She knew that.

Rueh rubbed her stomach and listened to them arguing. Her stomach had ached all day long. She had been unable to eat for fear of making it worse, but an empty stomach hadn’t seemed to help.

“Alright you old battle-axe. Tonight when the girls assemble for vespers, we will have her light the candles on the water. If she can do it without boiling the lake dry I will agree and Rueh can go.”

“I’m not that much older than you are, hag. You’ll see, I’m right. This will be the right decision. I’ll tell her.” The older lady leaned back in her chair and waved at the door and muttered the words that caused the door to swing open to reveal Rueh leaning against the door, straining to hear.

“You get that girl? You’re lighting the candles tonight. And quit lurking at doors, we taught you better than…” Her voice trailed off as she looked at Rueh’s face. “You got a stomach ache girl? Cramps maybe?”

Rueh stood up slowly, embarrassed at having been caught. “Yes’m”

The younger of the two sorceresses rose from the table slowly, her smile hidden from the student, “Well, I’ll leave you two to talk.”

The oldest whispered “Bitch! ” as she gestured for Rueh to come in. “There comes a time in every girl’s life when she becomes a woman…”

Part II: Christoph: The Early Years.

Jamella stood on the steps leading from Pandemonium Fortress to the Outer Steppes and called out for her Christoph again. Her voice was sore from the hot air rising up from below. The protective magics of the fortress didn’t cover much past the halfway point on the stairs, and the heat would get worse the closer she got to the Steppes. Christoph had been coming down here since he found the gesture that would allow him to pass through the shield. She and Halbu had decided to raise their son here where the Paladins could teach him the way. In the back of their minds as they watched their son grow up was the image of their nephew Wirt who had died when Tristram was razed. Rumors had it that he had lead Diablo’s minions up through the caves to attack the town at night. The fact that he too was killed, horribly, was used as evidence that he had been killed as a traitor by the very creatures he had led to the peaceful town. “Even evil despises traitors,” it was whispered.

Christoph watched his mother on the steps. He could see her mouth moving, but the winds were too strong and loud. He couldn’t hear her, not that he needed to. He knew if she found him down here he would get a dozen stations of the cross at least so he had to stay until she returned and try to convince her he had been in the library. He frowned at the thought of the library with all its old books about the Inquisition and religion and history and no mention at all of tales of heroes and villains that were even remotely interesting. The priests managed to squeeze all the excitement out of even Sister Ald’s battle with Diablo, which HAD to have been exciting.

Christoph’s mom went back up the stairs and towards the library leaving the seven year old Christoph armed with his wooden sword and old dented shield he had found on the Steppes. Neither of them saw the forms moving slowly towards the boy in the shadows.

Christoph knelt and tried to remember the prayer he had memorized the night before. It was allegedly the prayer the noble BKDaemon had used when he struck out against the traitorous Izuel. While it hadn’t worked for Sir BKDaemon Christoph pretended to pray with more conviction than any Paladin in the history of the church. He over pronounced the angel’s names and waved his small clenched fists with feigned emotion as he closed the prayer and opened his eyes to see two doom knights, the raised corpses of fallen knights who had died trying to clear the Steppes of the evil, recoil from him. Looking down at his wooden sword he saw a milky white aura surrounding it and him.

“In Hadriel’s name I injure YOU!” he yelled as he charged the doom knight, shield at the ready as he had been taught in class. Again the doom knight recoiled from the thigh high figure charging at him as the white light surrounding the child reached out and slapped the skeletal warrior again knocking him back against a broken arch.

“It’s ‘abjure,’ not injure. Although, it appears you are doing both little Christoph.” Christoph whirled around, the tip of his sword, made from the stave of an old broken barrel from behind the church, hitting the dirt. He looked up to see his weapons master glaring down at him. With snake-like quickness the man brought his maul down off his shoulder and into the sword, knocking it free from the boy’s hand and numbing his arm up to the shoulder. “NEVER turn your back on your opponent or lower your weapon until he is dead!” The maul continued it’s arc back up and over Christoph’s head smashing the forgotten doom knight to pieces.

Shame flushed Christoph’s face red “I wouldn’t have but you distracted me!” he yelled defensively. “If you hadn’t come up behind me I would have killed him myself!”

“You think they are going to politely line up in front of you in a real battle?” The maul continued to swing in front of the Paladins’ son. It was easily as big as he was and out weighed him by 20 pounds. “Did you think the second doom knight was going to wait its turn? It was about to add your head as a trophy to its belt, and you’d leave me to face your mother with the news that her son was too stupid to watch his back?”

“Well, I thought, ” Christoph began, kneeling to pick up his sword.

A rough kick to his backside sent him sprawling on the hot hard packed dirt. “What did I just tell you?!? You are hopeless. I refuse to teach you further. I would have better luck teaching this rock to wield a sword than I will have with you!”

Christoph pushed himself up from the ground, a gash in his forehead oozed blood into his eyes but he didn’t see it. Roughly, with the back of his hand he pushed the dirt and gravel out of his face and brought his sword up again. “I am NOT stupid. The wizard Cain says I’m smarter than any of his other students! Take that back!”

“He hasn’t GOT any other students, and neither have I. When you tell your mother and father what you did today and they ask me to take you back I will consider it. Until then I have NO students.” The weapons master snorted his contempt and spun on his heel to return to the Pandemonium Fortress.

A scream from behind him was the only warning before a ball of fury smashed into the small of his back. “I am NOT stupid!” the boy wailed as he grappled with the larger man, down on one knee now. The boys fingers clawed at his face from behind as he was repeatedly kicked in the left kidney. The man started laughing at the image it must have presented to any one that may have been watching. Reaching over his shoulder he pulled the boy over his head, ducking the kicking legs, and dropped him on the ground as the boys padded shirt hardened into razor sharp points pushing into the flesh in the mans hand.

Christoph looked up at the man, blood running down his face, sword drawn, brow wrinkled in concentration “Take it BACK! I’m NOT stupid! You’re stupid. You left your brother in Tristram and look what happened to HIM! Cain says he’s cursed now and is a slave to the Fallen that live there with the Goat men.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth Christoph knew he had said too much. The weapons master’s face froze and his eyes went dead as he looked at the boy in that unfocused way the people who made it back to the Fortress had after losing all their friends to the evils that lived on the Steppes. “I’m sorry.”

The weapons master closed his eyes and stood for a minute, swaying on his feet. When he opened them again he walked wordlessly up the stairs to the Fortress without looking back. Christoph followed him begging for forgiveness, but knowing that some words could never be taken back.

That night as he lay on his mat in his room his legs ached from the penance the priests had him do for leaving the Fortress and worrying his mother. No one knew what he had said to the weapons master. No one but the two of them. Over and over the sight of the strongest man in Christoph’s world rocking back on his feet as if a breeze could topple him rolled through the boys mind. He cried himself to sleep praying to Hadriel to make everything all right. The next morning he woke up and the Fortress was quieter than usual. He went to the front of the house, bare feet padding on the cool stone, nightshirt brushing his toes as his feet stuck through with each step. “Dad, what’s wrong? Why is it so quiet? I don’t hear the prayer-songs.”

Halbu looked up at his wife, Jamella, “He’ll hear soon enough. It might as well be from us. Come here son, sit down.” Christoph looked at his mom and saw she had been crying. Slowly he sat next to his father and reached out to trace the holy symbol on the breastplate covering his father’s chest. He only wore that to worship.

“Last night, late, the weapons master used a Horadrim Portal scroll to go to Tristram. The portal closed an hour later.”

“But why? They don’t close until the person that casts it comes back through, unless…”

“Unless the person who cast it is killed. The weapons master was killed last night by his own brother, Griswold. Deckard went to try and save him, or at least bring the body back for a decent funeral and burial, and he hasn’t been back. That was hours ago. We fear he may have died as well.”

Christoph’s eyes were brimming with tears as he ran to the church and to the high priest. “Father, I need confession. I’ve sinned terribly and now people are dead. Help me Father before I kill anybody else with my evil thoughts. I’m a tool of evil…” then he collapsed on the floor and cried, unable to talk through the choked sobs.

Part III: Aimee: The Journey

The sound of the crickets was all she heard as she ran through the knee high grass under the silvery-blue light of the moon. Dew clung to her legs as she ran. Tears streamed down her face as she jogged, breathing in two steps, out three steps, in two steps, out three steps. Over and over through her head were the last words her father had said to her “I love you.” Then she had run him through with her spear. As the only daughter of the ruler of her clan it was her duty. She had always known it. So had he. He had known it when he changed her diapers as a baby. He had known it when he taught her which trees in the jungles bore fruit that could be eaten, which leaves would staunch the bleeding of a wound, which animals would flee when scared and which would attack. He had always known that when she went to the Woman’s Fire for the first time he would die and yet he DID love her. And she loved him. Why was it that she didn’t know that until his body fell to the ground and blood dribbled from his mouth and onto the dirt? She continued to cry as she ran through the night.

The sun rose the next morning slowly, easing its way around Mount Karcheus. Its orange morning rays shone down on the small figure of the running girl and the smoke of a fire in the distance.

Aimee was no longer aware of her body as she ran. Her feet sought the next step automatically as her mind chanted a prayer to her father’s memory. The other girls in her clan would have symbolically killed their father by killing an animal that had been given his name. As the next ruler of the clan it was tradition that she show a willingness to kill and lose loved ones to maintain the balance. Had this happened even a month later the ceremony would have been in the temple, but her clan was hunting this month and so her father had died in the dirt with only a Priestess to pray his soul to heaven.

The acrid sting of smoke in her eyes brought her out of her reverie, causing her to stumble, almost headlong into a prickle-berry bush. When she regained her balance and looked west she saw the flames and the last of a thatch hut from one of the semi-nomadic tribes that lived here crash down. Raiders had been here, probably traveling up the river in long-boats. Without thinking she sprinted for the village in the hopes that all were not dead yet. A wail from within the circle of the five burning huts indicated that at least someone was alive.

The scene that greeted her when she rounded the burning building pulled last nights dinner up into her throat. The inhabitants of the village had been impaled on stakes. This was not the work of raiders! One of the women wailed again, she was still alive! Aimee couldn’t imagine the pain the woman was in yet she lived. Helpless the girl stood in front of the woman and moved her hands as if starting to do something, but stopping when she realized there was nothing she could do, over and over again. The woman seemed to see her and her eyes focused for a moment through the pain. “My son, in the well. Save my son!” Then she coughed once and her head fell forward. Finally free from the pain.

Aimee whirled to look at the well. Someone HAD survived. But how long would he in the well? Running to the well she leaned over trying to see the bottom in the darkness. She couldn’t. A rope led down from a barrel next to the well. Pulling the rope she felt a weight on the end, more than a bucket, even full of water. She pulled it up slowly, hoping that the boy was still alive.

As the bucket came into view she saw a baby, no more than a year old, impossibly small he seemed, curled in the bucket, holding a rattle and crying softly, too tired to really scream any more. Or so she thought until the boy came into the light and he squeezed his eyes shut against the brightness and let out a wail that would have done any mother proud. Aimee held the baby boy in her arms and wondered what to do next. She couldn’t run carrying a baby. She could barely run carrying the spear. She was only 10, she hadn’t even been visited by the moon yet.

Aimee sat in the shade of the well as the village burned around her and birds circled over head and stared at the boy trying to decide what to do next. She couldn’t take him back to her clan. They wouldn’t adopt a boy baby from the nomadic tribes of the plains. No, he had been entrusted to her by his mother’s dying wish. He would remain her responsibility until she got to Pandemonium Fortress. Then the paladins could raise him.

The baby, he really needed a name she thought, seemed to be looking around, and when his eyes fell on his mother he began to cry again, and reach out for her. Aimee stood slowly and carried the boy over to his mother’s body. “This is your mother. She saved your life and died with honor. Staying alive long enough to bring me to you. She is watching you now from Heaven. I know you can’t understand me yet, but remember her face because she loved you very much. The boy reached out his hand and touched his mother’s face and then touched Aimee’s face.

Aimee took him back to the well and kicked one of the barrels on its side so it would spill and she could put him inside it where he couldn’t see any more, or what she was going to do next. She had made up her mind about how to carry him. When he was safely in the barrel she pulled her knife and stripped the clothes off one of the bodies next to the mother and fashioned a sling for the baby that she could wear on her back. It was crude at best, but she thought it would hold him without too much bouncing around.

Fetching him from the barrel, still clinging to the rattle she tied him to her back and backed awkwardly up to the mother “Say good bye. I will take you to a place where they will take care of you.” The baby reached out with his rattle and touched his mother on the shoulder. Aimee stood for a minute and started jogging, slower than before, but in the direction she had been going. She never looked back so didn’t see the mother’s body waving at the boy as he bounced off into the distance strapped to the little girl’s back. Nor did she see the body collapse motionless after the boy fell asleep.

“I will call you Kethryes, after my father. ” Aimee said as she jogged. The boy slept for the next full day, exhausted from the crying and the exertion of getting his mother to say good-bye.

Part IV: OogaBooga in Lut Gholein.

The sun eased its way over the horizon, staining the ocean pink and orange before finally making up its mind to just get on with it and it lanced its way into Drognan’s eyes, waking him from his dream. The sailors had refused to have him or OogaBooga below decks after OogaBooga astounded them with his tonal quality shortly after a dinner of beans and dried meat.

A shadow passed over the sleepy wizard’s face and he looked up and just a few feet from the deck and over the water, glided the biggest bird he’d ever seen. “Good Lord!” He yelped as he scrambled away from the white bird whose wingspan looked to be at least 20 feet across. It didn’t move, but floated there, like a statue, pacing the ship.

OogaBooga’s voice was low, and filled with awe. “An albatross that large can only be a good omen. Our voyage has been blessed beyond belief. You should go tell the Captain.”

“Oh, sure, NOW you talk like a person. You think he’ll want me to bring it on board? I think I could get it to the deck with my staff and then a quick jolt of lightning to kill it and we can have a real meal. Excellent plan. I’ll go tell him lunch is on me.”

OogaBooga grabbed the wizard’s arm and held him in a vice like grip. “You will not hurt that bird. He is almost twice as big as any other of his kind. He is almost certainly the avatar of the entire species. He guards us on our voyage and blesses us with his presence. If you even tried to touch him with your staff I would hurl you over-board myself for the fish to eat.” A footstep coming from down below alerted them to the presence of someone else. “Bird Good.” OogaBooga finished somewhat lamely.

Meshif called out “Lord of the Seas this days is truly blessed above all others! Get up here boys, we’ve been visited by an Albatross!” The sound of footsteps clamoring up the stairs and gathering on the deck was all that could be heard. When the men saw the great bird they fell immediately silent. Whispered prayers of thanks could be heard faintly. Some knelt. All were in awe. The bird’s head turned and seemed to look directly at the men and even the whispered sounds of prayer stopped. The bird’s eyes, rather than black were brilliantly blue, almost white in the center. It turned and glided soundlessly across the deck of the ship. It’s wing passed within inches of Drognan’s nose.

A scream shattered the silence, coming from over head and directly towards them. All eyes went up to see the figure of a girl falling from the sky. The albatross’ eyes rolled up to look at the source of the sound and made it to the top of his head just in time for the green skirted girl to land with a crash directly on his back, bringing both of them smashing to the deck. The sound of the bird’s bones snapping was deafening in the stunned silence that followed. Half of the people on the ship were staring in shock and horror at the broken body of the beautiful bird, guts mashed out of his mouth and sides split open by bones. The other half of the people were looking at the girl, certainly no more than 11 that had killed the noble creature.

Rueh stood up and brushed off her dress and looked at the men on the ship. “Wow. Good thing that big ole bird was there or I could’ve been in some serious trouble. He softened my landing.” She noticed that they were looking at her in a lot of different ways, but none of them could be described as ‘friendly.’ Doggedly she continued, “You must be OogaBooga and Drognan. I cast my Horadrim Portal to get me close to you. Not bad for a first try eh? WHAT? What’d I do?!? It was just a stupid bird. Quit staring at me. Haven’t you ever seen a sorceress before?”

The three of them bobbed in the water watching the ship disappear in the distance, and treading water. “What do we do now?” Drognan asked OogaBooga. “I’m out of my element here. I’ve got no scrolls. I can’t keep this up forever and I very much doubt SHE is going to be much help, unless there is some giant whale she could land on and kill and we could ride THAT to shore with the tide.”

OogaBooga looked around “Sharks here last night. Take off clothes or we sink.”

Rueh sputtered as she caught a wave in her mouth “I’m right HERE you know. You can talk too me and not just about me. I think I can get us something to float on.”

Drognan looked at the girl “How?”

“I AM a sorceress aren’t I?” Saying this she turned away from the two of them and said something softly in a sing song voice and a roaring in their ears preceded a large piece of the ocean in front of her freezing and floating to the surface. “See, now help me up there first.”

OogaBooga swam towards the iceboat, “Why?”

“Because I’ve got my womanly visitor you oaf! The longer I’m in this water the more chance a shark is going to notice and if I die that ice boat right there is going to melt and sink away and then it will be big-ugly and old-ugly to entertain them after they finish eating me. Got it?”

Drognan swam away from Rueh “You’re a jinx. I swear by all things holy if I get even within sight of land ever again I’m never getting within 20 miles of you again.”

OogaBooga pushed the girl up onto the ice and then pulled himself up efore lowering a hand to pull up Drognan. “Well the good news is we didn’t strip naked before climbing on this thing.” Drognan muttered as he plopped down on the ice and tried to glare at both of them at once.

“Why, WHY did you have to say our names after you squished their holy bird?”

“Well, I WAS supposed to seek you out. I had a description from the Matron and thought this way would be faster than just waiting for you in Lut Gholein. It seems I was mostly right.”

“By my guess we’re still a day out of Lut Gholein. Only that was on a boat, with sails. Right now we’re on a giant ice cube with no food, no water, and a jinx. My money says some giant kraken or something eats us before noon. OogaBooga, what do you think?”

“OogaBooga like kraken. Kraken good with cracker.” The barbarian laughed and rolled on the ice at his joke.

“OogaBooga? That’s not your real name. It can’t be. What is it really?”

“Me OogaBooga.” The barbarian said thumping his chest. “You?”

“Me… ahm… I’m Rueh, and I refuse to call you OogaBooga. I think I’ll just call you OB. You’re not really that stupid are you?”

Drognan looked over at OogaBooga and waved at the girl tiredly, “Might as well tell her. I suspect we’ll be here a while and I can’t stand it when you talk like that.”

OB grinned “No, I’m really not that stupid. I, for example, knew it was a bad idea to kill the Albatross.”

Rueh shivered and rolled over onto her back. The ice had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now she wasn’t so sure. One side of her baked from the sun while the other side of her froze, sometimes to the ice. Her stomach growled and she hoped no one heard it as she lay there staring up into the sky.

Drognan sat on his robe, his shoulders and back starting to show sunburn already. He had taken off his robe only an hour ago and folded it until it was as thick as he could get it while still using it for something to sit on. When Rueh’s stomach growled his eyes glanced over in her direction but he didn’t say anything. He had made up his mind not to talk to either of them shortly after OogaBooga had spread his furs out and gone to sleep on top of them. His dark brown skin couldn’t burn any darker than it already was.

OogaBooga lay on the furs and listened to the sound of the ocean around him and to Rueh and Drognan breathing. He was in trouble. The reason barbarians had a reputation for being big and stupid was that once they left their homeland they were. There was a flower, a bromeliad that grew high in the branches of the Starleaf tree. When the flower was dried and crushed into a powder it allowed their brains to work like every one else’s. If the powder came in contact with salt, though, it lost any beneficial properties it may have and turned into bright red bitter dust. The pouch on his belt, a year’s worth of goo at present, was what occupied OogaBooga’s thoughts.

Parents told their children tales of people not eating the bitter spice and getting too stupid to remember to breath. Stories of people who hadn’t eaten were almost certainly exaggerated to frighten the children. But he was sure that his reasoning abilities would fade to almost nothing. It was the price they paid for their lightning fast reflexes, physical strength and stamina. The brain could only do so much and much of its ability was aimed at providing the barbarians with their physical prowess. Any one could lift something twice their weight. It took a great deal of physical intelligence to do so without hurting ones self, even more to move it around or wield it for long periods of time. Time when bending the back too much, or carrying through too far could strain muscles, pull ligaments or even break bones. If they took too large a stride while running they would tire too soon. The barbarian’s brain was designed for handling all of the thousands of details involved in these feats from birth. They could do without thinking about it, things that people train for years to do just to be mediocre. The cost was that without this powder they were unable to reason beyond the next meal.

Within two days his higher reasoning ability would begin to suffer. Within a couple weeks on the outside he wouldn’t even remember that he had ever cared about losing his intelligence.

Rueh’s stomach growled and brought OogaBooga out of his reverie and to the present problem. If they didn’t get to some dry land soon then none of this would matter. He tried to remember the map he had seen last summer. It had given his father by the amazons, brilliant sailors, in exchange for permission to harvest wood used to make the lightning arrows the amazons sometimes used in battle. He believed they would, in time, come within sight of the Amazon’s island. He wasn’t sure though how long it would take though. One day, maybe two. What would they do for food until then?

OogaBooga sat up and looked at Rueh, watching her hair move in the still air. “Can you use lightning magic?”

Rueh started, she hadn’t heard him sit up, “Of course. I was chosen because of my mastery of all three true branches of magic.”

“Well, if you could send a small charge of lightning into the water perhaps the fish would be stunned and float to the surface. We have seen the Amazons do this when hunting with their lightning arrows.”

“Ok, sure, so. You want lightning to hit the water and the fish will come to the top? Are you sure? That doesn’t make much sense. You would think it would happen all the time during storms.”

“Maybe it does. How many storms have you been in the middle of while out in the middle of the ocean?”

“Hmm… good point. OK, you ready?”

“Do we need to do anything?”

“Duck.” Drognan muttered from his seat on the ice.

“Nope, I’ll be fine. One tasty cooked fish meal coming right up!” So saying she thrust her hands into the air; muttered something quietly; then brought her hands straight down and slapped her thighs. Thunder cracked across the water, nearly knocking them from their feet as lightning rained like hail around them. OogaBooga threw himself down on his stomach and reached an arm out to grab the girl’s ankle and pull her down too as she stared wild eyed at the light show around them. The lightning seemed to be missing them so far, but it stretched out for as far as they could see in and direction.

“Not cooked, just stunned.” OogaBooga said as it finally stopped. The air around them stank of ozone. In the distance, there was a plume of smoke, OogaBooga thought it was the direction Meshif’s ship had gone but didn’t say anything. Everyone noticed it, but none of them said anything. The water surrounding the ice was thick with fish. It was silver with bodies, some smoking.

“Oh my. I think, maybe I over did it?”

“Drognan! Are you alright?!” Rueh ran over to the man, still sitting where he had been sitting, only the ice had melted and he had sunk almost 2 feet into it. It looked like he was sitting in a hole. His eyebrows were ash and the little hair he had left was also ash, falling onto his shoulders. His entire body looked sun-burned, and his eyes were milky white.

“I… I… I… I can’t see.”

OogaBooga pulled some of the more cooked fish on to the ice with them. That will clear up in a couple of days. My uncle Aaaarrgh has been hit by lightning 17 times and he goes blind every time but it always clears up. It was during one of those times that he was blind that he accidentally married the wrong woman.”

“OogaBooga, I don’t think I want to hear that particular story right now. I think I want to not talk to either of you, ever again. When we get back to land I would rather not see either of you ever again… considering what our lady friend here has done, that shouldn’t be much of a problem!” Drognan realized he wasn’t really blind, his vision was already beginning to return. He could see light and shadows.

“What’s that?” Rueh pointed in the direction the smoke had been coming from.

“I DO hope you’re not talking to me.”

“Well, I wasn’t, and I thought you weren’t talking to us either.”

OogaBooga strained his eyes, leaning forward and holding a fish in each hand. Rueh giggled a bit at the sight but he ignored her. “I think it’s Meshif’s ship. It appears the main sail has burned off.”

“Why do you think he’s coming back?”

“Probably to kill us.” Drognan muttered.

“My guess is he took this as an omen and is returning to save us. I could be wrong of course, but if he asks about the lightning LIE. We didn’t do it. We don’t know anything about it. It just miraculously missed us. Got it?”

Rueh nodded “Like I want him thinking I set his boat on fire? I don’t think so.”

“What’s to stop me from telling him you did it when we get back?”

OogaBooga’s voice lowered “Me.”

Drognan nodded slowly. “Alright then. I didn’t see a thing.”

The next day when the ship pulled into port the three of them were ushered off the boat and a priest was called to exorcise it and the crew. Drognan was able to, with the aid of his staff, find his way back to his home without their aid. OogaBooga suspected he didn’t want them to know where he lived.

“Hello, I am Deckard Cain.” An old man approached them, but it was not the old man who had been on the island and introduced himself as Cain when OogaBooga was a child. His mind was still good enough to remember that man, and it wasn’t this one.

“You aren’t Cain. I met Cain and you not him. You are Horadrim, but not Cain. What is real name?”

The old man looked at OogaBooga. “We are all Cain.”

Cain turned and walked away, leading them to an inn where they were to stay until Cain called them for the next leg of their journey. There was something familiar about what Cain had said, but OogaBooga couldn’t put his finger on what it was. The effects of the herb were wearing off already.

Part V:Aimee finds a ring

The slight pressure on her shoulders of the baby boy was pulling on Aimee. She couldn’t hit her stride, couldn’t become one with the earth around her. She had to stop and rest for the night. The baby would be hungry soon. She could probably hear him crying if she paid attention, but while an amazon was running they didn’t notice much else. There are stories of amazons running for days with an arrow in them. Anyone who had ever tried to stop an amazon would believe the stories.

A fog had rolled off the river while she ran. She hadn’t been aware of it. Now that she stopped and leaned against the stone she felt the chill in the fog. It would be a long night. She left the baby, Kethryes, she reminded herself, beside the rock and went to gather wood for a fire to break the chill. While she gathered up what brush she could find under the bushes and was lucky enough to find some sugar-berries. Hopefully if she mashed them Kethryes would be able to eat them. She had nothing for a baby to eat. She wasn’t even sure it could eat yet. Hopefully he wasn’t still on milk. Aimee shuddered. There were herbs she could take, and she could probably find some but she wasn’t going to do that unless she had to.

A rabbit spooked and dashed from behind a bush. Aimee dropped the brush and hurled the spear straight through it, pinning it to the ground. Sugar-berries were good for the baby, but a rabbit would be much more to her liking for dinner. Smiling she returned to her camp and made a fire, ignoring the cries coming from Kethryes’ direction. He’d be fine once he got some food in him. The rabbit hung over the fire on a stick with one end buried in the dirt as she turned her attention to Kethryes. He still had the rattle tightly gripped in his hand, and his face was almost purple from crying. She took the sling off him and was assailed with a smell coming from a makeshift diaper. Cautiously she took the diaper off and the smell got worse. She gasped. It was everywhere! How had it spread out so much? She carried Kethryes towards the river, holding him as far from herself as she could. She knelt at the grassy bank and dipped him in the water, hoping it would just wash off, but it looked like it was going to require some scrubbing with grass. Pulling some sweetgrass she tried to clean up the dirty baby without getting any of it on her. Finally he was clean and she had him lying beside the fire while she went back to the river to clean the diaper.

When she returned to the fire, wet diaper in hand, Kethryes was eating the berries that she had left there. His mouth was bright red from the juice. Inwardly she sighed in relief. That was one problem she was glad had solved itself.

For the first time she looked at the boy she had named Kethryes after her father. He was small, so very small. She found it hard to believe she had ever been so small. He had a small red birth-mark over his heart in the shape of a strawberry. The rattle was the strangest thing of all. What she took for a child’s rattle was a crude rattle at best, and not at all appropriate for an amazon child to play with, male or female. It was the skull of some small animal, a squirrel she believed, mounted on a length of blackened wood. Some loose teeth trapped in the head caused the rattle. There were feathers tied to the thing at the base. Kethryes seemed to take great pleasure from playing with it, and it kept him occupied so she let him keep it thinking that as soon as she got to the port she would get him one that wasn’t so morbid.

When she was finished looking at the boy she was able to sit down and eat the rabbit. It was burned in spots, but on the whole it was as good as any she had on hunting trips with the women of her clan. She piled the bones near the fire to bury the next morning and lay down to go to sleep. She slept poorly, dreaming of an old man, a wizard by the looks of his clothes, chasing her with some creature to help him. She couldn’t see the creature because it seemed to always stay just on the edge of her vision, and when she would stop to look the old wizard would get too close.

Aimee woke to the sound of a baby crying. For a moment, confused, she was angry at the father for not seeing to the child’s needs. Then she remembered she was to father the baby. It was she who was lax in her duty to the child’s mother. She sat up, blinking in the pre-dawn gray. A few birds sang in the direction of the river. Beside Kethryes a shadow moved. As her eyes focused, slow still from sleep, she saw the charred bones of last nights rabbit standing over the boy, the meat that remained clinging to the bones was turning to ash and falling off as she watched. Kethryes had one of the rabbit’s feet clutched tight in his hand.

Aimee yelled and swung her spear at the rabbit, low, just clearing Kethryes, and smashing the skeleton to pieces. Kethryes stopped crying as soon as the rabbit’s bones scattered into the dew covered grass and his head turned towards Aimee who sat wide eyed with fear looking down at the baby. Kethryes’ eyes glowed green in the gray half-light, and his forehead was wrinkled with what looked like anger as he stared at her. Aimee blinked and the green glow was gone and it was just Kethryes. The same Kethryes she had pulled from the well, only he looked, as she looked closer, bigger than he had been the night before. The diaper, which had seemed too big for him last night now, seemed almost too small. His hands were certainly bigger. She had been staring at them as she fell asleep. Amazed that anything so small would grow up to be as big and strong as her father had been.

She leaned forward cautiously and saw the strawberry shaped birth-mark over the boys heart and knew it to be the same baby, only he had grown, a lot in one night. That couldn’t be normal. But still, it was just a baby, and she had to honor his mother’s dying wish to take care of him.

Aimee looked in the diaper and decided it needed another changing before she started running again. As soon as first light came she would clean the diaper and maybe make him a new one from the sling she had used to tie him to her back. As soon as the sun came up she would get busy with that and get moving to make up lost time. She had a description of the man she was supposed to meet at the port. Her mother had assured her he would not leave until she arrived as Aimee was to be his only passenger for the trip to the mainland and then up the river to Travincal to meet with Deckard Cain who would take her to the Pandemonium Fortress.

As if on cue the suns first rays lanced out across the plain and seemed to strike the stone she had camped near. It almost rang with the impact and glowed from inside a pale blue. The ringing got louder and Aimee looked and saw that several stones surrounded her in a ring, most obscured by brush, none higher than her waist. They all glowed blue and resonated like a chime struck once with a hammer. Kethryes laughed and waved his arms in the air and his rattle struck the side of the nearest stone and sparks arced from the stone to him and seemed to dance in a blue aura over his body before settling into the ground.

Aimee reached down to grab him but was thrown back as a roaring in her ears and a rush of air came from directly over the boy. She sprawled on her back, outside the ring and saw a Horadrim portal form directly where the boy lay, instead of being blue like the only other two she had ever seen, this one was green. The same color his eyes had appeared this morning after the rabbit had been destroyed.

Aimee pushed herself into a crouch and launched herself at the boy to pull him away from the portal and smashed head-first into a wall of force surrounding the boy, marked by the stone ring. She watched stunned as the baby rolled over and pushed itself onto all fours and reached out and closed it’s tiny fist around the haft of Aimee’s spear. Aimee cried out to Kethryes to stop but he crawled forward, dragging the spear and the rattle into the green portal. With a whoosh it closed behind him and the spear and the baby were gone. The wall of force collapsed and Aimee, who had been pounding on it and screaming, fell forward and pitched face first, into the grass where Kethryes had been. A voice echoed in the space enclosed by the stones, “Thank-you for bringing my son to a place where I could reclaim him. Your service will not be forgotten. He will now learn the skills that are his destiny. Know, amazon, that this day you have served Diablo well and he always repays those he owes.”

Part VI: Christoph goes to church

“Brother Reggio, I’m concerned about Christoph.”

“Are his studies slipping?”

“No, they are, as always, perfect. It’s just that… Did you know he is using a scourge?”

“Well, yes. He’s been doing that for several months now. He read about its use by the Hand of Zakarum during the Inquisition. As long as he uses it only on himself I don’t see a problem.”

“You knew?”

“Where do you think he got the scourge?”

“But why?”

“What was the scourge used for during the Inquisition?”

“To drive out impure thoughts and to purge evil.”

“Would you say Christoph is prone to impure thoughts, or that he is evil?”

“No! He’s the most devout student I’ve ever had! There are times his faith shames me to strive harder at my devotions.”

“Then I would say that the scourge is doing its job. Wouldn’t you?”

“You can’t believe that. That’s horrible! Faith is about love and service; not about pain. He could hurt himself!”

“No he can’t. Have you ever watched him when he’s using it? I mean really laying into himself with it?”

“No. I would have stopped him. A fellow student told me about it.”

Brother Reggio laughed and pushed himself back from his desk. “You would try to stop him you mean to say. He can’t hurt himself. He leaves welts as big around as my finger. He tries to break the skin, but the harder he beats himself the more fervent his prayers, the faster he heals. I believe he’s quite frustrated when he is done. His faith is a powerful thing and protects him, even from himself. We could all learn from his example.”

“But why does he do it?” The younger priest leaned forward. The whole subject had him quite agitated. What agitated him even more was Brother Reggio’s apparent acceptance, even encouragement of the barbaric practice.

“He believes he killed his weapons master and Deckard Cain. That was before you arrived, but surely you have heard the stories.”

“So his faith is born of guilt? And you encourage this?”

“If a bird dropping that falls on your sand garden contains a seed and from the seed blooms a beautiful flower is the flower any less beautiful because of how it got there?”

“But that was three years ago. It’s not normal for a child to hold onto something that long.”

“Christoph is not a normal child. He never has been. He has had the makings of a paladin since birth. He has always been an excellent student. If he has to use the scourge as a way to deal with the guilt, and it keeps him whole, then who are we to stop him? Would he be happier without it? I don’t think so. Not that anyone would describe one as serious as Christoph is as happy. I should think you would be more concerned with his attitudes towards girls.”

“What attitude? He pays them no mind at all.”

“That’s right. He doesn’t and he should at least be noticing them by now. I should imagine half the floggings he gives himself should be because of the impure thoughts that girls and women are causing him to have. To my knowledge they aren’t. Find out why not.”

Brother Laytner stood and left Brother Reggio to his paperwork. Walking down the torch-lit hall towards the abbey he heard footsteps behind him. From the sound of the limp he guessed it was Deckard Cain. Brother Laytner didn’t trust Cain, any of them.

“I can tell you how he feels about women and why.” Cain said to Brother Laytner’s back.
Brother Laytner stopped and turned. “You were listening!?”

Deckard Cain mimicked Brother Laytner’s slightly nasal voice “You were talking!” Good. We’ve established that you understand how communication works. Shall we get to the exchange of information now? That is the purpose of communication is it not?”

Brother Laytner sighed and closed his eyes in a silent prayer for patience. Conversations with Cain always went like this for him. “Please.”

“When his weapons master was killed he wanted to go after him and the other.” No Cain had ever said the name of his predecessor. They always referred to the others, when they referred to them at all, as “the other.” He continued, “He wanted to try and save his friends. Any boy in his place would have wanted to do the same things - as foolhardy as it may have been. His mother stopped him. She held him, crying, and wouldn’t let him go. He doesn’t accept that it was her love for him that made her stop him. He believes it was her lack of faith in him, and her fear of loss. Both are despicable traits in a paladin. He looks for these traits in all women now. If he doesn’t find them right away, he looks harder. Eventually he will always find one or the other and then he feels nothing for them again, nothing except contempt. For which he feels terribly guilty I am sure.”

“How do you know this?”

“I watch. I listen. I notice things. I know you joined the church out of indecision. You didn’t know what else to do and you knew you would eat if you were here. You don’t know the words to the song “Greeting the Dawn” but you’ve sung it every morning you’ve been here. You don’t know the words because you keep thinking something will come along and you will make up your mind about a trade.” Deckard Cain watched Brother Laytner’s eyes grow wide, “You needn’t worry. No one else knows this. No one else knows how to see when they look at, or hear when their ears tell them, not like I do.”

Brother Laytner turned on his heel and walked almost ran, away from the old wizard.

Christoph read again the passage he had just read. The Visions of Akarat were the Order of Light’s most holy writing. “While evil attempts to serve its own end it can serve the end of Light as well. Good too can be used to commit evil. Watch for the one and guard against the other.” Christoph stood and paced in the library. The other students hardly noticed him. He did this when he was thinking. They had gotten used to it long ago. Christoph’s black hair fell into his eyes and he pushed it back with the back of his hand as he walked up and down the rows of books whispering to himself, “Evil serving good, makes sense. Good is ever vigilant and will always win if the faithful are strong enough to carry it to victory. But how could good serve evil? If I am doing good I’m doing good, not evil. The two can’t be the same. But the Visions of Holy Akarat can’t be wrong. I must be missing something. I do good but do evil? That can’t be. I can do good but not both. When evil is done it can SERVE good but it isn’t good. Why would doing good be evil.”

A hand clapped him on the shoulder and he turned to see his father, Halbu, smiling down at him. “You think too much. Come, it is time for you to practice making my shield into kindling again. Perhaps when you clear your brain with some honest exercise you will be able to come in here and fill it with some more of this dust. You spend too much time with the books and things become complicated. There is nothing complicated when you are in battle. It is you and the bad guy. Only one of you is to be standing when the last sword is sheathed. It is in the church’s best interest that it be you. Come, let us try and protect their investment.”

Christoph smiled at his father. The man pretended to not like the books and studies, but Christoph and he had sparred as much with words as they did with swords over interpretations of some passages in the Visions of Akarat. Some exercising would do him good. It always did help clear his mind. As they walked down the hall towards the Abbey they saw Brother Laytner, white and thin-lipped, round the corner and almost slam his door shut as he entered his chambers.

Following a bit behind Brother Laytner was the wizard Deckard Cain. Halbu winced inwardly. Cain had a way of setting his son’s teeth on edge. Christoph refused to refer to him as anything other than wizard. He never called Deckard Cain by name or made eye contact with him. Halbu would have bet his house that if asked Christoph couldn’t have picked Cain’s face out of a crowd of three if the others were infants.

Part VII Lut Gholein to Travincal, The Fast Way

Deckard Cain pulled the weeds that had grown up around the stones that defined the waypoint. They weren’t being kept up as they had been before, when the Protectors of the Word and a pair of powerful eastern wizards had established the waypoints.

The blue flames that indicated the waypoint was active flickered to life. Deckard Cain grunted and pushed himself to his feet, backing up slowly. He had been expecting these two for most of a week.

Rueh sat on the bed and looked over at OB. He had bathed and combed his brown hair and was much better looking than she had first guessed. His age though, was still a mystery.

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen, almost fifteen. You?”

“I’m fifteen. What’s wrong? You seem preoccupied. You have been since Meshif dumped us into the ocean. They came back and we got here OK. Why worry?”

“I can’t tell you, but could you do me a favor? Soon I am going to start forgetting things. Could you call me Ward and make me remember that is my name?”

“Ward? Why not OB? I like that. Or OogaBooga your real name?”

“I want a normal name - a name like a real person. I just don’t want to be OogaBooga for the rest of my life. Please.”

The sight of the Barbarian, three times her weight at least, pleading with her made Rueh uncomfortable. He was supposed to be a strong, take-charge, person; not this big guy laying on a bed, head turned to face her, with a desperate pleading look on his face. “OK, on one condition.”

Ward, nee OB said slowly, “OK, what.”

“Scratch my back. I can’t reach.” She flipped lightly around so her back was to the young man.

Ward reached out and touched her back. She was so small, so slight. Her hair parted itself and moved over her shoulders to drape down her front as she leaned her head forward and sighed.

Ward scratched her back slowly, starting at the top, between the shoulder blades, and moving down. As his hand got lower it seemed to get warmer in the room. His face was especially hot, and his hand seemed to burn and tingle at the same time. But it wasn’t unpleasant at all.
“Is that…” Ward coughed. He seemed to have something caught in his throat, making it difficult to talk, “Is that good?”

“Mm Hmm… almost… a little harder. Here, let me get this out of your way. Promise not to look.” Rueh’s fingers shook slightly as she undid the buttons on her dress and pulled it down so that his hand was against the bare flesh of her back. “There.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

The young man’s hand hovered over Rueh’s back before he touched her skin. She jumped slightly, gasping when they touched skin to skin. He wasn’t breathing at all. He wasn’t sure if he could. Slowly he began to move his hand up and down her spine. His palm and fingers remembering every sensation, every rib, every vertebrae. Rueh leaned forward slightly. “My turn. I should scratch your back now. To be fair you know. Roll over and face the wall.” Her voice was throaty, somewhat deeper than usual.

Ward rolled from his side to his stomach, glad he got all the way on his belly before she turned around and sat on his butt, astride him like a horse. Her fingers started at his shoulders and moved down to his waist on the outside and back up along his spine. After a minute of this Rueh heard Ward growling. She leaned forward slowly, letting her hair fall onto his shoulders. “Do you like it?” she whispered into his ear. She noticed then that he wasn’t growling, but was snoring! She was laying across him practically naked and he had gone to sleep! She jumped up from the bed, closed her dress and stomped out of the room without saying a word. She slammed the door so she knew he would wake up and realize just what he had missed out on.

As the door swung shut Ward opened one eye and watched the reflection of the girl in the mirror before the door slammed all the way. Ward sat up in bed and went over to the water pitcher and splashed some on his face. His heart was still beating too fast but he could feel things returning to normal. Had she not left when she did he wasn’t sure how much longer he could have resisted the things his body was telling him to do. He knew that they weren’t to be doing that now without first being married. They weren’t children to be playing such games. Neither of them was ready to have a child, and many times a girl her age would die in childbirth. He didn’t want that either. He wanted to get to know her, and her dying while delivering his son wasn’t something that he wanted. He splashed more water on his face and kept repeating to himself that it really was something he didn’t want. After a bit, still unconvinced, but able to lie back down, he really did get to sleep until Deckard Cain knocked on his door to come down to eat before they took the waypoint to Travincal. From there they would meet up with an amazon whose name Ward couldn’t remember, and then, finally, to Pandemonium Fortress for their training.

Part VIII Rueh: Where are you?

As Rueh stomped down the hall and stairs she tried to figure out if she were angrier with Ward or herself. She had thrown herself at him and he had gone to sleep! She was practically naked, on top of him, and he had taken a nap! The air around the young woman crackled with electricity. Patrons in the bar on the lower level moved out of her way as they felt the tingling grow stronger as she got closer to them and headed out the door into the street.

She saw Deckard Cain talking to Fara, it sounded like they were discussing Atma or some such. She didn’t feel like talking to him and turned up the street and rounded a corner to put a wall between them. She ducked down a small alley between two buildings.

At the end of the alley the air sparked blue-white as the charge around her touched the space there. Rueh slowed her pace and walked towards it, the blue white light in the air got brighter. Her eyes scanned the ground to find the source. This sort of thing was something she expected in areas of strong magic, but this was an alley, with nothing of any apparent value in it. Finally she noticed a section of the paving stones that her eyes seemed to slide over without seeing them. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled forward, tracing the cracks between the stones with her finger. “Make me not see you now.” she muttered to the stone under her hands. Ward was forgotten as she tried to solve the puzzle before her.

Rueh looked up just in time to stop herself from bumping in to the building back in the alley. Somehow she had ended up heading away from the patch of stones she was investigating. “Fine!” She said, standing up, brushing the dirt off her knees, “You didn’t show yourself to me for nothing. I WILL find out your secret!”

She closed her eyes and concentrated on pulling in the magic from around her, filling herself with it, filling the air around her with it. She opened her eyes and the blue-white light was brighter with the higher concentration of magic. Slowly, holding her breath in concentration she stepped forward, towards the light.

As she drew nearer and the concentration of magic over the stones made the light brighter the air began to push back against her, slowing her. When she was a yard from the pattern two bursts of light flamed out of the ground at two of the pattern’s corners and stayed there, burning in blue white magic fire. The pressure was like a wind now, and she leaned forward almost parallel with the ground. Beads of sweat ran down her face and fell, never hitting the ground, vanishing in the magic surrounding her and the patch of road.

Rueh paused, a foot away from the pattern, and closed her eyes again as she pulled the last of the magic from herself and the area around her. She aimed it right at the center of the pattern, lightning blasted from her fingers as she let loose the last of her mana into the heart of the resistance, trying to break through.

Without warning the resistance was gone and she was falling forward, instinctively she pulled her arms up to protect her face as she fell forward to the stone, and fell… and fell… and fell…

When Rueh awoke she was laying on what felt like mud, but it didn’t stick to her. It was as yielding as mud though, soft, and liquid. All around her was dark except for a spot of light off to her right. There seemed to be a whistling noise coming from there as well. A figure slumped in a rocking chair, slowly rocking back and forth, a green and red plaid blanket covered their legs.

“Hello?” Rueh stood slowly, looking around into the darkness, walking slowly towards the person in the rocker. “Hello?”

The figure continued to rock, as Rueh got closer she saw that it was an old man, wrinkled hands brown with age lay folded on the plaid blanket. They twitched occasionally; the whistling seemed to be coming from the man’s nose. “Pardon me, sir.” Rueh said, somewhat louder than before, trying to wake the old man. He rocked slowly, the whistling continued unchanged. “HEY!” Rueh yelled, the darkness swallowed up her voice, but it was enough to cause the rocking to stop, and the old man’s eyes to open. They were gray, rheumy eyes, the whites were yellowed like stained ivory.

“I heard you the first time.” The man said, snorting to clear the whistle in his nose. “I was trying to finish a dream I was having before you woke me with your landing. What are you doing hen?”

“Hen?”

“Here would indicate a where. Hen indicates a when. You’re not out of place girl. You’re out of time. So, what are you doing hen? ”

“Ah, I didn’t know I was hen. I was back in Lut Gholein, I found a patch of rocks and when I fell on them I ended up here… hen. Excuse me, but how can I be out of time?”

“So predictable. That is always the second question. I hope your next isn’t how to leave, that is usually the third. In any event, what time is it when the last grain of sand has fallen from the top of an hourglass but hasn’t yet hit the bottom? What time is it in that moment immediately after the sun is at high noon, but before it is in afternoon? What time is it when you step through a Horadrim portal… the time between stepping in and stepping out… That time is where you are now. All those lost moments that aren’t used. They have to go somewhere, and they go hen. I am the keeper of hen. I keep people out, or, in some cases, I keep people in. You, I haven’t decided about yet.”

“What do you mean you haven’t decided yet? It’s not for you to decide! I have things to do somewhen else! How do I… ? She stopped herself as she watched the old man smile a toothless smile at her question.

“Love, it IS for me to decide. People who come hen do so for a reason. Whether they know the reason or not does not matter. Together we will discover the reason you are hen, and THEN I will decide what is to be done with you. Remember the Zakarum Inquisition of the Paladins of Zakarum? I stopped it, hen. All it took was a few Portals that took longer than they should have by a few years. Do you remember the boy Paladin? Who thought Deckard Cain was dead at his hand? That was me. I kept Deckard Cain hen for long enough to move the boy in the right direction… I can see by your expression you don’t know what I’m talking about. You will. Most of necromancy is my fault too. I told the first necromancer about hen and the lost time. He managed to trick me. When he returned to his small Cult of Rathma he was much more powerful. Have you ever seen a young necromancer? No, of course not. Their magics age them, quickly. They’re my fault… my fault… ” The old man’s voice faded as his eyes focused in the distance. He no longer saw Rueh, his lips formed the words ‘my fault’ over and over.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad. The cult already existed. We studied it in magic theory. There was a sudden leap forward in their advancement, that was probably because of you, but they were on the road already. They would have found it sooner or later.”

“Possibly, possibly… In any event… I’ve decided I don’t need you hen. I’ll be sending you back to your time. Over there, in the direction you came from you’ll see a cat. His name is Boojum, named after a friend of mine you wouldn’t care to meet, follow him to the portal that will take you when you need to go. I’ve got one bit of advice for you Rueh. Don’t underestimate the paladin I spoke of earlier. He is more important in what is to come than you will believe when you meet him. We’ll meet one more time, but you won’t recognize me. Now go, Boojum is getting hungry and will want feeding before he takes you to your portal.”

Rueh walked into the darkness and soon found a large cat cleaning himself and seemingly waiting for her. She followed the cat into the darkness until the old man was a dot of light in the distance. A portal opened in front of her, Boojum looked at Rueh, then the portal, and back to Rueh. He yawned and padded off towards the dot of light, leaving Rueh to step through the portal.

Part IX: Aimee catches a ride

Aimee had been running for most of the day, but her body was moving on its own, her mind was numb from the previous day’s events. She had lost her spear, one of the Prime Evils, had kidnapped the baby she had given her word to protect. If the boy were indeed the son of Diablo then that village back there had not been one of the nomadic tribes that lived on the plains near her house, but Rathman refugees. The refugees from the Cult of Rathma believed that a union with the Prime Evils was preferable to destroying them or banishing them… they believed the Prime Evils were unstoppable, and as such must be appeased, rather than opposed. They were the most powerful of the cult of the dead, or necromancers, as they preferred to be called. And she had saved one of them, given her word to protect him to his dying mother. She was unable to warn her own mother and sister amazons because she was unable to return to them until she had completed her training with Deckard Cain and the others her mother had mentioned. It was all too much for her, and she didn’t see any way out of the situation she was in. So she ran, as only an amazon can run, through the days and nights between her and the start of her training at the seaport Davidov.

The dawn of the last day of her running found her cresting a slight hill with a salt smell in the air. Below her was the city, and she could see one of the Amazonian ships in port. It had two triangular sails and the bow and stern swept up out of the water in graceful curves of reeds bound together by leather strips. Those leather strips had probably been soaked in the fat of the animals from a hunt much like the one she had been on to prevent the water from ruining them. She stopped and looked down at the city. People could be seen in the city square at a market. For a moment Aimee forgot her troubles as her mind soaked up the image of those below her. From her position here up high it must be like the gods see her. They scurried along with their little troubles and problems, and she stood up here, looking down, untouched by them. Somewhere down there their lives went on with no knowledge or concern for her or her problems, as she was up here, untouched by them or theirs.

With a resolute shrug Aimee walked down to the town. Now that she had arrived, the shame of entering the port city without a spear was foremost in her mind. She had neither her bow nor her spear. Both were symbolic of something very important to amazons. The bow represented the directed will of an amazon. The amazon, like an arrow, once unleashed towards their goal flew unceasingly towards their destination without regard for distractions or interruptions. It was this belief, this strength of character that had allowed Aimee to carry the baby as far as she had, and given her the strength to carry on after losing the baby and the spear. The spear was a symbol of directed strength; not the brute strength of the barbarian, but the pointed strength of the point of the spear. The point on the spear could pierce armor that a war-club could only dent.

Aimee’s mother had kept her bow when she game Aimee her spear at the woman-making ceremony. Her mother had chosen Aimee’s direction for her. Once Aimee completed her training she could return to reclaim her bow; reclaim the control of her life and direct her own will. But now she was moving towards the target, and the target was the school at Pandemonium Fortress.

Without noticing it, these thoughts had hardened her resolve for the task ahead, and when she entered the gates it was with her head high and her shoulders back. The pace she set said that she was on the way some where and stopping her would be a bad idea. The set of her jaw suggested that getting out of her way would be preferable to finding out what would happen if you didn’t. Contrasted with the casual pace of the others she passed she appeared to be running. The towns people were used to this look and pace from amazons and scarcely noticed.

One man noticed though. He could be seen frantically trying to catch her. Occasionally his turban could be seen bouncing up over the heads of the crowd that seemed to part to allow Aimee to pass unobstructed, but then closed behind her. Caught in her wake it was evident to all but him that he would not soon catch her.

Aimee strode through the market, her path arrow straight for the docks. She was aware, peripherally, of the man who followed her but she was not willing to wait for him. If it were important the gods would lend his feet speed and apart the crowd for him as they did for her. From the corner of her eye, as she passed a stall selling shells painted and decorated with glass, she saw a man with a soft, round face and hands so pudgy his fingers looked like over-stuffed sausages pushing an old, steel-gray haired woman away from his stand “Ye’ve got no money and I’ll not have ye driving off the payin’ customers with yer stink!” The wrinkled woman, skin the color of saddle leather fell to the ground and her head made a loud noise bouncing off the hard packed ground. Strapped to her back was an ancient bow, set with three rubies that glinted in the early afternoon sun.

Rage flashed through Aimee and before the old woman had opened her mouth to moan, the young amazon had dodged through the crowd, pulled her belt knife, and grabbed a handful of the merchant’s shirt. “You will NEVER touch an amazon in that way again! Put your hand on the table or I separate your second chin from your third!”

The man looked at her, his eyes wide with fear. The cold edge of the sharpened steel pressed into this throat. Slowly, shaking, he slid his hand onto the table beside a conch painted with a beach scene. Aimee’s voice rang out loud over the hush that had fallen over the crowd as the passer-by stopped and watched, stunned. “By the authority granted me as first daughter of Kethryes and Athulua I will exact justice against this outlander who has raised his hand against an amazon! ” When she finished she brought the knife down in an arc that ended in a crimson gout of blood as the merchant’s hand fell to the ground.

Aimee knelt, sheathing her knife and ignoring the screams of the shell salesman and the whispers of the crowd, “Old mother. I need one of your arrows that I might save this cretin so he can tell others the punishment due those that would raise their hand against an amazon. May I?”

Slowly the woman pulled an arrow from her thigh quiver and handed it to Aimee, her ice blue eyes were sharp as the searched Aimee’s face. “Hurry daughter. He mustn’t die. You must let him live!”

Aimee stood and held the arrow in her right hand. With her left she pulled the bleeding arm away from where the merchant was clutching it howling. The end of the arrow burst into flames that did not consume the arrow but did sear the wound and stop the bleeding. The merchant screamed once before passing out from the pain. He fell sideways onto his table of shells, toppling it onto the ground. No one made a move to help him.

Aimee left him there and turned to help the old woman up. A brown, wrinkled hand waved the young amazon away. “Take my bow from my back and quiver from my thigh. It is my time. I can see the Valkyries here to take me. You must let the man live daughter. Swear it!”

Aimee looked up to see the shimmering forms of the two Valkyries that guide the dead to the afterlife. “I swear. ” She said looking back down to see the old amazon was gone, leaving only her bow and quiver as evidence that she had ever been there. Aimee stood, throwing the bow over her shoulder and tying the quiver on.

“You.” She pointed at the merchant in the stall next to the shell merchant’s, “You will see to it this trash lives. Although he killed an amazon and SHOULD die, it was her wish that he live. She is more forgiving than I am.” Her voice rose as she addressed the entire crowd “Let it be known that anyone who buys from this man,” she pointed at the one-handed merchant’s unconscious body, “will be known as an enemy of the amazons!”

Aimee turned to face the man wearing the turban at the edge of the crowd. “You have followed me from the gate. If you would talk to me you may do so on the way to my ship.” So saying she started walking in the direction of the dock. The crowd again parted for her but this time it did not close behind her after she passed. They watched as she rounded a corner heading for the ship Maiden’s Voyage that waited for her in the harbor.

The last thing they heard from the man that she had told to follow was “My name is Drognan, I was sent… ” then he rounded the corner and the rest was lost to them.

Part X: Travincal

Deckard Cain wiped his hands on his robe. It looked to Ward like he had been digging in the dirt before the rain started, “Come, let’s get out of the rain. The councilors will want to meet you after they are finished with their meeting.”

Ward followed this Cain into a house and stood by the fire, drying himself while the Horadrim wizard busied himself gathering papers, quills, and ink pots from the table. “You’re late. You were supposed to be here days ago. This was only intended as a courtesy visit for some pompous politicians. I assume the sorceress, Rueh, I believe her name was, will be here soon? It was my understanding she left before you. I didn’t see her. I wonder if perhaps she went somewhere else? I shall have to check I suppose. Are you hungry? You don’t look hungry, but then barbarians hardly ever do, do they? Do you suppose it is because there isn’t much you won’t eat or because people simply try and keep people of your size and obvious strength in a good mood and full as much as possible? A bit of both I would imagine. Easier on the furniture if you’re not smashing the place up looking for a crust of bread or some-such.”

Ward held up his hand in front of the babbling Deckard Cain’s face, prompting the wizard to pause in his chatter. “You talk too fast.” He managed to squeeze in before Deckard Cain began again. This time the wizard’s ramblings faded off as he disappeared into the kitchen. Ward sighed in the silence and sagged into the over stuffed leather chair in front of the fire.

A knock at the door startled Ward out of his half doze. The stream of talk coming from the kitchen was interrupted with a loud “Come in!”

The door opened and Ward stood to see two men in black robes and thin silver circlets step in out of the rain. They both carried what appeared to be ceremonial staves. The two men glanced in Ward’s direction but neither spoke to him or acknowledged him with more than a bored glance.

“Ah Councilman Toorc and Geleb. Welcome to my home.” Deckard Cain came from the kitchen wiping his flour-covered hands on a bright yellow apron with a large floral print. “This is Ward, the barbarian I told you about. It seems his sorceress friend, Rueh, was detained and will be a bit late getting here. Could I interest either of you in a cup of tea? I have just put some on. It is the good tea I managed to finagle out of the Hierophants over at the temple. I convinced them that it would be insulting to serve any but the best to our guests from abroad. I had hoped you would be coming to visit when word got around that Ward here had arrived. I was of course going to bring him to you once he had eaten. I heard you were in a meeting so I thought I should have time to nip in and have a bite to…” The whistle from the teapot distracted Deckard Cain and he vanished into the kitchen with a yelp, “My biscuits are burning!”

The three of them stood alone in the room, the crackle of the fire the only sound except the whisper of the rain on the roof. Ward caught a hint of a smell he remembered from home. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the two councilors. He couldn’t remember what it was yet, the smell had been too faint; too buried under the perfume they wore and the smells from the kitchen.

Councilor Toorc ran the fingers of his right hand down his thin black mustache “Ward is it? Why do they call your homeland in island? I have seen maps and it plainly is not.”

Ward looked around, hoping Deckard Cain would answer. The man showed no signs of returning in time, the muttering in the kitchen continued unabated but seemed to be getting no closer. “The forest too dangerous. Only way in is up mile-wide river to big lake. The banks of river are home to fetish tribes. Even that not very safe. Not island in water like amazons but island of safety in sea of danger. The boats dock in lake, last safe place for outsiders.”

“My map showed no lake, only a river.”

“Your map wrong. Is inland freshwater sea. Very big. Very deep.”

Deckard Cain returned then carrying a tray set with a silver tea set. “Ah, have you been to see the traveling bestiary yet? I hear they even have quite a few cages of animals from the Darkwood that surrounds your homeland Ward. Some sort of ape or another. The name escapes me at the moment. Large, black things, tremendously powerful I’m told.”

Ward looked at the councilors, “Doom apes?” He recognized the scent he had caught a hint of earlier.

“Yes! That’s it. Quite an impressive name I should say. Please, councilors sit. Have tea with us.”

The taller of the two councilors, Toorc, shook his head quickly, “We have pressing business elsewhere. We merely came to speak with you briefly. We will do so later. Travincal is entering a brave new age. The agreements we make over the next week will change our city forever and make it safe for generations to come. We will apprise you of them some other time.”

“Of course, If you but send a messenger I will come, anxious to hear what you have to say. I am at your disposal of course.”

Ward heard councilor Geleb before the door closed behind them, “Yes, you are.” It was unlikely the loquacious Deckard Cain had heard it though. Ward looked at the cup of bitter tea and then at Deckard Cain, quiet for the first time since Ward arrived.

“Yes, it’s in there. Don’t ask how I knew or where I got it. Just drink it and listen. The Horadrim Staff has been stolen in Lut Gholein. The way point magic will not work until it is again in the possession of a Horadrim Wizard. I believe the timing of this coincides with the councilor’s meetings for a reason. They are planning something with their guest. I have not been able to pierce his magical shielding but I believe he arrived with the traveling bestiary.”

Ward nodded his agreement and drank more of the tea. He could feel the bitter red herb in the tea working already.

“It would be best if you waited at the Kurast docks. I will draw you a map that will get you there. The trip will be dangerous, but I believe I have some things that will help you arrive safely. Tonight before the moon rises you should be on your way. I have a sachet of the tea you can take with you. I wouldn’t have more than one cup a day if I were you.” The Horadrim Wizard pulled a scroll from a shelf. His motions were smooth and efficient. Gone was the bumbling chatterer of earlier. Ward wondered for whose benefit the act had been but soon focussed on the map and listening to the man’s warnings about the councilors agents the zakarumites and zealots.

The two of them hunched over the map for almost an hour munching on biscuits and discussing which route would be safest.

Part XI Rogues Rogues everywhere!

Rueh stepped out of the Horadrim Portal and just missed crushing a chicken under foot. The bird squawked its indignation as it flapped off in the direction of a largish leather tent. Confuse, Rueh looked around trying to reconcile this tent camp with her mental image of what Travincal would look like.

The sound of a hammer on at a forge pulled her towards another tent in the opposite direction the angry chicken went. Rueh followed the sound and wondered if she hadn’t stepped through to one of the amazon isles. Surely that was the only place one would find a woman as the blacksmith! “Hail Lady Smith! Have I arrived in Skovos perhaps?”

“Lady Smith?” The red head laughed and wiped her brow with the back of one hand. “The name’s Charsi, and unless they’ve changed the rules a bit on what I can and can’t do I’m no Lady!” Charsi laughed again, smiling at Rueh. “You’ve found an encampment of the Sisters of the Sightless Eye. From the look of you though, I think maybe you had better go talk with Akara, our spiritual leader during these dark times.”

“I am glad you said ’spiritual’ leader Charsi. The old woman couldn’t string a bow, much less pull one back. I’m the War Leader of the Sisters, and unlike Bloodraven won’t be turned by Andariel’s sweet words or tainted gold.” Rueh turned to look at the woman who was speaking. She was easily six feet tall and as muscular as any man Rueh had ever met. The war leader’s brown eyes glared at Rueh out from under thick brown eyebrows. “None of the Sisters have fallen since I took command of our band. From looking at you though,” The brown eyes scanned the slip of a girl in front of her, clad in a small green slip of a dress, “I’ll have no use for a mere girl. Mayhap Akara can let you stir soup until you’ve grown up.”

Rueh’s hair stirred angrily in the magic wind that surrounded her. As Rueh inhaled to defend herself the words of her teachers came to mind, “… those who have real power almost never throw it about or brag about it. The dangerous people, who brag about what power they have are the insecure ones, the ones that remind everyone around them of what power they have, real or imagined, those people are easy to anger and have something to prove. Deal with this person only as long as necessary to find out who holds the true power. They will be the quiet one in the background, the person the others look to for guidance. That is the person you should deal with, anyone else is a waste of your time. “Rueh exhaled slowly and focused on the bushy eyebrows. “Thank you. I will go and see. I am sure one as strong as yourself would have no use for a mere sorceress.”

Charsi’s eyes went wide. “Stay here with Kashya for a moment. I have a staff one of our Sisters found on a goat man. Akara said it was for a sorceress and here you are. It must be meant for you. ” Charsi vanished into her tent and returned with what looked like a mahogany staff, etched in runes and capped top and bottom with bronze. “I repaired it as best I could. I don’t usually work with wood but I believe it is intact.”

Rueh held the staff at arm’s length admiring the work. She could feel the power of the runes tingling in her arms, causing the light hair to stand on end. “It’s beautiful. ” She almost whispered.

Kashya’s hand closed on the top of the staff. “That will cost you. It is our property since we recovered it and we aren’t a charity organization. We are the Sisters of the Sightless Eye. Few have confused us with a charity organization for long.”

Rueh whirled to face the self-proclaimed leader of the Sisters. Her hair stood straight back behind her as if she were facing into a gale. Electricity crackled along the length of the staff and up Kashya’s arm. The tall woman jerked her hand back with a quick oath. “If you can take it from me then it truly is yours. This is a Sorceress’ war staff and it belonged to one of MY fallen sisters. On my life you will not sell back to me what is already ours!” The electricity continued to dance along the staff, crackling and snapping loudly as the two stood facing each other.

Kashya finally broke the silence. “Very well, we’ve no use for the stick anyway. Perhaps Akara will let you use it to stir our laundry while you try and earn your keep cleaning up for us.”

“Perhaps I should go and ask.” Rueh countered and turned her back to Kashya. She bowed to Charsi, “Thank-you. YOUR honor speaks well of the Sisters of the Sightless Eye.” Before either of them could reply Rueh left, trying not to look like she was fleeing in the direction of Akara.

Rueh’s heart was racing and her whole body tingled with the mana she had gathered around her for the confrontation with Kashya. Rueh knew she had a temper, but she had been trying to keep it reined in. As she had grown older her power has also grown, as evidenced by the lightning storm she had called down only 2 days before.

Akara was standing outside her tent staring up at the empty sky. Rueh was startled to see how dirty the woman was. Her hair hung in limp oily snarls, and as Rueh drew nearer she smelled a strong body odor that indicated this woman’s unwashed state was not a new development. Rueh coughed, trying to clear her lungs of the stench of the stale sweat. She moved as upwind as was possible in the light breeze that blew through the camp. “Good afternoon. Are you feeling well?” Rueh assumed some sort of sickness prevented the woman from washing, what other reason could there be? Underneath the dirt smears was what appeared to be an attractive, but not beautiful face.

Akara looked at Rueh with sharp coal black eyes. The brown smudges on her cheeks were ground in and probably wouldn’t come off with anything as simple as soap an