Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  Lamarik's incredulity came from a profound sense of disappointment that gained purchase in her soul over the numerous winters she had spent in the Lorn Fast Swamp futiley looking for her father and sister's spirits. Knowing the spirits of those who died in the swamp couldn’t escape the hold it had on them and complete their journey to the Warl of the Dead, Lamarik had consigned herself to a life of lonliness when she vowed to find her loved ones and free their spirits from the dark magic that had turned the swamp into a trap.

  Lamarik's father, Kotalik, had been swallowed by a giant slograp when he and his brother, Kolosha, accompanied the Hammer Bearer as he risked the dangers of the Lorn Fast Swamp. This happened when Jeaf Oakenfel tried to reach the haunted city of Cara Lorn where Alynd, the Elf-Man, said the Tear's of Andara could be found. Encouraged by prophecies that said the magical tears could heal his wife, Jeaf undertook the quest to find a cure for Muriel's depression, a debilitating condition that rose out of the unfounded fear she felt for her unborn child's well-being. Lamarik’s sister, Janalik, had drowned in quicksand while she was teaming up with her sister to find their father's spirit.

  Spending so much time in a place where dark sorcery had leached into the swamp’s mud and filled its dank air had changed Lamarik. Physically, the ambient magic changed her into a creature that was comfortable living in the shadows and gloom that were as ubiquitous as the mists filtering through the swamp's strange environs: her eyes were larger than a typical Neflin; her ears were longer; and her skin took on a darker hue.

  Amid Lamarik's ongoing and frustrating failure to locate her loved ones' spirits, an unexpected boon had come her way when Travyn Oakenfel entered the swamp. In time, the boon evolved into an agreement that Travyn and Lamarik consummated in each others' eager embrace, an agreement made between equals with complimenting feral aspects that made the arrangement as binding emotionally as it was physically, an agreement to help each other find their fathers.

  And now Lamarik's father was standing right in front of her.

  As Travyn stepped back, the two wraiths Lamarik kept staring at with her large, almond-shaped eyes, came over and wrapped their vaporous arms about her. It was clear the three were related, though Lamarik’s ears were longer and her eyes larger.

  "Da?" Lamarik's voice was uncharacteristically child-like.

  "Little Frog Sticker." Kotalik used a name he had given his daughter after the time she killed a frog with a sharpened stick she was carrying when he took her into the fringes of the Lorn Fast Swamp to look for spices the Neflin used to cook with. "It's me."

  "Janalik?"

  "It's me too?" Janalik laughed over the irony of the situation. "I found Da. I just wish I didn't have to die to do it."

  Lamarik's laughter was as dry as her sister's. "I'm sorry I made you come into the swamp to help me look for Da."

  "That's always been your problem- taking either too much credit or too much blame for things. I'm a Neflin too. I wanted to help. You didn't bend me to your will, you high-minded oaf. If you had been the one to die, would you accept my apology for letting it happen?"

  "Of course not. I accept the consequences of my decisions."

  "Like a good Neflin," Janalik added with a wry smile.

  Lamarik displayed her own wry smile over the logic her sister was using to heal the wound her death had inflicted on her. "Like a good Neflin." She repeated the words their Da used to encourage the two when the winds of misfortune blew against them, a wind the Neflin were all too familiar with.

  "Like a good Neflin," Kotalik put the capstone on this part of their conversation.

  Shaking her head in acknowledgement, not only of this truth, but of all of the instruction her father had given her and Janalik as he raised them, Lamarik calmed her beating heart and asked, "How have you escaped the Lorn Fast Swamp? And why haven't you left for the Warl of the Dead?"

  "Let me explain." Pearl interrupted the family reunion. "This is something that all need to hear. But before I begin, we should invite the Broyn'Dar to our meeting."

  ****

  Having been Mar'Gul when she was alive, Pearl was the most qualified one present to talk about the things she was going to address. Her unique relationship to Cara Lorn, the place where the wizard Andara had recruited her to take on the inimitable role of representing his magic in Ar Warl, added weight to her words.

  "First," Pearl looked to Poroth as she spoke, "let me apologize to the Fane J'Shrym for the darkness you have to deal with during the meeting. Since the rest of us our not subject to human limitations in that regard, choosing to forego a fire is hardly a hardship."

  The battle with the cretchym, who tried to abduct Bala, made the darkness a preferable option to exposing themselves to other winged-demons who might be patrolling the night sky.

  "Our eyes have adjusted well enough to the darkness to dispel any thought that we’re hearing voices in our heads." Poroth responded with a touch of humor.

  "Well enough," Pearl replied before she got to the meat of the matter.

  Bacchanor's laughter stopped her. At first, it was more of a chuckle that grew louder by the moment. Later, it was a full-bodied sound that was in keeping with the wizard's robust nature.

  Smiling at her husband’s overtly jocular response to Poroth’s humor, Pearl took time to enjoy the sounds of merriment that were such an integral part of Bacchanor’s personality and played such a key role in his ability to master the art of Healing Magic.

  Struggling for breath, Bacchanor pointed at Poroth and blurted out, “I can see your head tilting like a dog as you listen to a conversation you think is only inside your head. That’s funny.”

  Elbowing her husband to get his attention, just like she had done a thousand times before when she was alive, Pearl's own gentle laughter was added to the moment. Bacchanor had almost made her forget that she was no longer clothed in the flesh and blood.

  Bacchanor grunted as he felt the point of his wife's elbow. Normally a spirit's touch had less force than a gentle breeze, unless it was strengthened by an outside power. That's how the Lorn Fast Wraiths could consume flesh they rent with the claws and fangs that were given to them when the Sorcerer baptized them in dark magic.

  Since another Mar'Gul hadn't been chosen to take her place, Pearl still had access to much of the magic that came with the calling that kept her connected to the warl she once lived in. This was how she was able to hit her husband so hard.

  When Bacchanor couldn't totally escape his fit of laughter that continued in poorly-stifled outbursts, Pearl said something about finding a stick to hit him with.

  Growing weary of the Brown Wizards' inability to retrain himself, Travyn decided to help his aunt get a handle on things. "You don't need a stick. Just give me the word and I'll slap your husband up side his head."

  Noticing the amber rings of light shining in Travyn's eyes were growing in intensity, the shape-shifting wizard was tempted to let the oddity refuel the comic scene he was playing out in his mind; that was until Travyn shifted his weight like he was getting ready to stand up. Not putting it past the young man to do what he had threatened, Bacchanor swallowed his laughter, though it took a moment or two for the sparkle in his eyes to dim, a thing his wife's opening words helped along.

  "The rules that govern magic in Ar Warl have changed, and the Nyeg Warlers better realize this before it is too late. The supernatural fabric that surrounds the Warl of the Living has been rent, allowing the Warl of the Dead's influence to seep into the Ar. Hearing the Lorn Fast Wraiths talking to one another during my brief stay in Cara Lorn, I've determined that a new player has entered the game, someone who has become Ab’Don’s ally. Moreover, that’s what Andara told me.”

  Dog, having arrived before the meeting began, snorted before his canine features began dissolving and his gray coloring darkened. After a few moments, a human form emerged from the chaos inherent to shape-shifting.

  Wearing armor blacker than the grotto's farthest reaches, Rybara's fair-complec
ted face looked like the moon sent one of its children to meet with those who watched the fascinating transformation. His pale blue eyes shone with the magic he used to become a man again.

  "Did you see my father when you were in Cara Lorn?" Rybara was refering to Andara, the wizard Ab'Don imprisoned in the haunted city during the early days of his conquest. “How is that since he’s made the journey to the Warl of the Dead?”

  Since Andara was one of the most powerful wizards of his time, the Sorcerer decided he posed a threat to his ambitious plans. As a result, Ab’Don tricked the wizard, whose specialty was Healing Magic, into meeting him in Cara Lorn under the pretense that he would listen to the wizard's argument encouraging the young sorcerer to curtail his kingdom's violent expansion.

  Warned that he was heading into a trap, Andara felt the chance of ending the suffering justified the risk he was taking. Unfortunately, the Healing Wizard learned that Ab'Don didn't have the slightest desire to stop inflicting pain on others, pain that the Black Magic he was delving into required for it to work.

  In the end, the haunted city became Andara's prison, and the Lorn Fast Wraiths the guards who were tasked with making sure he never escaped. Worse than that, as part of the curse the Sorcerer placed on him, Andara was forced to see every autrocity Ab'Don's followers perpetrated against their victims in a string of unending scenes that played out before his mind's eye. Unable to help those suffering so, Andara's torment drove him into such despair that life drained out of his body. But before he died, the Healing Wizard divested himself of the powerful magic he possessed by letting it pass into the stream of tears that fell down his face and into the dirt covering Cara Lorn's decaying streets.

  As time past, the tears turned into golden spheres filled with supernatural might, tears Alynd the Elf-Man and Jeaf Oakenfel had found during the times they braved the Lorn Fast Swamp's deadly environs. These were the very same spheres the Oakenfel brothers used to make their swords on top of Vlad'War's Anvil.

  Muriel considered Rybara for a time before answering his question. As Dog, he had served as her guardian after she accepted the mantle of Mar'Gul that Andara offered her. In time, he had become one of her closest friends.

  "Convinced my journey to the place all deceased are destined to go would take me to Dragon’s Tooth passageway, risking being imprisoned in Cara Lorn once again, Andara left the Warl of the Dead to meet with me. At that meeting he told me that I couldn’t leave the Warl of the Living until a new Mar’Gul is chosen. Imprisoned in Cara Lorn the way your father was has given him a relationship with that place that he can use to re-enter the Warl of the Living." Pearl was glad she had something substantial to tell Rybara. "Much that I'm going to tell you comes from him."

  "Is he coming here?"

  "Not yet. Not while a sufficient number of Lorn Fast Wraiths have devoted their strength to see that he doesn't escape from Cara Lorn. What's troubling is that the number of wraiths needed is far fewer than you would think. But this isn’t because your father's power has waned. Rather, his guards have grown stronger. The magic helping them do their job has somehow become greater… and different. This is one of the reasons for the rumors about a new player joining the game.

  "If the wraiths keeping Andara from getting past Cara Lorn hadn’t been so single-minded in their focus, Kotalik, Janalik, and I might still be entangled in your father's predicament. As it was, Andara whipped up a trick that sent half of his captors racing off to Dragon's Tooth thinking he was trying to return to the Warl of the Dead. After losing him once, they weren’t about to lose him again.

  "Feigning a fit of madness, he kept the rest of his guards distracted with his antics while I led the spirits of all those trapped in the swamp, who had escaped being forced into the Lorn Fast Wraiths’ ranks, out into a warl they once lived in. Kotalik and Janalik helped make the exodus a success.

  “Aware of Lamarik's quest to find her father and sister’s spirits and aware of her realtionship to my brother's son- Travyn, I thought I'd bring them along with me to find Bacchanor and the rest of my family and friends. And as I expected, Lamarik is with them."

  Having lost a grandmother who went into the swamp to pick the herbs the forest folk loved, Onorok asked a question the other Neflin wanted an answer to. "Where are the others?"

  "Most have returned to the Neflin villages they came from. After hearing about the Hammer Bearer, the human spirits among them set off to find their families and then Jeaf afterwards."

  "Why haven't the spirits moved on to the Warl of the Dead? Dragon's Tooth isn't the only doorway you could use to complete your journey." Having gotten over Poroth's humor, Bacchanor was now as sober as the rest. Able to transition between being light-hearted and serious as well as he could, the wizard possessed an ability few had.

  While able to fully savor the joy found in life, Bacchanor was fundamentally a serious person at heart who devoted his considerable intellect to unraveling the mysteries humans were confronted with. A scholar of repute and a worker of magic, Bacchanor was considered one of the great minds of his time and an accomplished wizard whose insights were welcomed by Nyeg Warl’s leaders. The Ar Warl villages he and Mar'Gul frequented were now included with those who appreciated his talents.

  "The spell cast over Cara Lorn and the Lorn Fast Swamp, that imprisons the spirits of those who have the misfortune of dying there, has been altered, not broken. In truth, Andara is the only one who has been able to circumvent the spell to reach the Warl of the Dead. Now that he’s here once more, he might not be able to do so again, nor could he do so if he escaped the haunted city. The same is true for the others. The new manifestation of power Ab'Don has laid claim to is responsible for this alteration. It has allowed the Lorn Fast Wraiths to move out of the swamp, while maintaining the foul place’s grip on the spirits of all who have died there by forcing them to stay in the Warl of the Living.

  "Mark my words- the Lorn fast Wraiths are a formidable foe. They are the sharp edge of a blade that has yet to cut into Nyeg Warl's flesh. But the wraiths are not the only things coming out of the Lorn Fast Swamp. Andara says he has seen black things oozing out of Dragon Tooth's holes. Man-shaped in a weird elongated way, they have the feel of the dead about them as they pass him on their way to do who knows what.

  "As I've said, the rules governing Ar Warl's magic are changing. Andara worries that the power initiating this change is greater than any mortal could handle. This makes him think more took place in Chylgroyd's Keep than the things done to the Hammer Bearer. He wonders if something has been loosed into Ar Warl that was not here before my brother's imprisonment, something previously restrained from entering the Realm of Man."

  Bacchanor frowned as he sucked air through his teeth. "There are monsters that the Singer keeps bound in darkness that I dread to think about. One of the fiends rules over the shadows covering half of the Warl of the Dead. I have seen this entity myself as I stood on the grassy plain sweeping out from the base of the Mountain of Song."

  The Brown Wizard paused and looked at Travyn before he added, "You were there too, inside your mother’s womb, when the evil thing tried to corrupt her soul along with yours and Kaylan's."

  The rings of amber light that sat in Travyn's eyes flashed so bright the Fane J'Shrym could make out details on the grotto's walls. And in the moment the flash of light erupted- Pearl, Kotalik, and Janalik took on the substantial appearance of the living: flesh-toned hues washed across their skin; the hair on their heads took on the color it had when each was alive; the irises of Pearl's eyes turned green; the Neflins' eyes took on a dark facet. All who witnessed the transformation gasped. Then the moment was over, though Travyn's anger remained.

  "The Evil One is here in the Ar." Travyn's declaration was followed by a snarl so hunchman-like that the Broyn'Dar and Bro'Noon couldn't resist emulating it. “I felt it the day Ab'Don took Kaylan captive.”

  Looking confused by his own proclamation, Travyn questioned himself, “Did it travel with the fraethym? W
as it in the flames that swirled about my brother's body?”

  "That’s what Andara fears." Pearl's voice maintained it’s far away aspect as she spoke, though those present wondered if it would have sounded different if she had spoken the moment the light in Travyn's eyes erupted. "Travyn, the way Ar Warl's magic has changed affirms your feelings. The Evil One's influence is surely here, so much so, one can’t help but wonder if the foul entity has entered the Warl of the Living itself. Whether ancient entity was in the flames you saw in the Hall of Voyd or hides in Chylgroyd's Keep, I can’t say, but I can tell you the things Andara shared with me.

  "Hearing about the swords you and your brothers made on top of Vlad'War's Anvil, using his tears to do so, astounded Andara. With him and Vlad'War being as different from each other as they are- one a Healer, the other a Warrior- Andara has had a hard time fathoming how their magic could be melded together in the way they were.

  "Don't missunderstand me- Vlad'War and Andara were friends and contemporaries who respected each other. But one lived by the maxim Do No Harm, while the other was a fighter who used his magic to stop those who were knowingly harming others. Two sides to the same coin, some might say, rather than being irreconcilable opposites.

  "When I suggested this to your father," Pearl made certain Rybara was paying attention, "the notion that he and Vlad'War were different sides of the same coin was not lost on him. He seemed to be relieved that time had proven him wrong to have judged you so harshly for wanting to fight Ab'Don the way you did. Your father asked me to tell you this. And when next you meet, he plans to ask for your forgiveness."

  Rybara replied, "If you see him before I do, tell my father all has been forgiven long ago. The irony in all of this is that when my father made Dog, he forged a sword not unlike those Travyn and his brothers made by intertwining the magic of the Healer and the Warrior together.

  "If my father had understood this mystery when he was younger, he wouldn’t have been surprised his son turned out to be the man I was."