Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  The tension these two forces exerted on one another- the pull on the sphere itself, juxtaposed against the pull on the spirits of those who rode in Mar'Gul’s vessel- added to the impetus used for Flying. To do anything that would upset the balance that existed between the two forces, a balance Mar'Gul’s magic had created, would produce certain disaster. What was set into motion had to run its course since it was this very motion that kept the two forces at bay. Hesitation would allow one force to prevail over the other.

  If the vehicle was to stop in mid-flight, an all-out struggle would ensue between the warls that would end with the Flying Sphere being pulled into the Warl of the Dead where the Mountain of Song was found. The magic found in the mountain heights would tip the battle's outcome in that direction. Only continual, purposeful movement would keep this from happening.

  How the massive black ball- clinging to Mar'Gul's vessel by a tether made of black smoke- had stopped the sphere in mid-flight was a mystery. That was until the giant orb's dark exterior gave way to lighter shades that revealed the one who controlled it.

  At first, the gray smoke- swirling inside a ball whose exterior was clearer than glass and harder than stone- only allowed a shape to be seen, one that was human. As the smoke absorbed by that form, colors began to appear. Colors were soon accompanied by details. Once the details were complete, a man wearing grime-covered gold armor came into view, a man whose dingy, yellow hair looked like eagle's feathers were protruding from his head.

  Muriel sucked in air through clenched teeth before exclaiming, "Ab'Don!"

  To the Prophetess surprise, she heard the Sorcerer reply, "Muriel Oakenfel," his voice sounding like he was in the sphere with her.

  Seeing a look of consternation cross Muriel's face, Bacchanor explained: "Ab'Don is using the cord made of black smoke as a conduit to speak through. My guess is, he can hear us as cleearly as we can hear him."

  "Very perceptive." the Sorcerer's tone was patronizing to the extreme. "You're the Brown Wizard who was Mar'Gul's consort. Am I correct?"

  "I'm Bacchanor, Mar'Gul's husband."

  "Widowed husband you mean, seeing that your wife is now as dead as a slaughtered hog." After turning his gaze at Pearl with a sneer on his face, Ab'Don added, "Greetings Lady, it's good to know your time in the Warl of the Living is coming to an end. After I release my hold on you vessel, you'll be pulled into the Warl of the Dead before your ship regains enough momentum to keep this from happening."

  "You've stopped our vessels in mid-flight and kept them both from being pulled into the Warl of the Dead." Instead of taking the bait and reacting to the Sorcerer's jibe, Mar'Gul wanted to ascertain what they were up against. She had too, if she wanted to escape Ab'Don's grip. The magic needed to accomplish this was foreign to her and troubling to say the least. "How have you done that?"

  The Sorcerer's raptor-yellow eyes sparkled above a broad smile before he gave his answer. He had no desire to hide the truth about himself, since the revelation would so aptly serve his purposes that included intimidating and confusing those he spoke to. "Before I reply to your question, let me ask the Prophetess to take a closer look at me, then tell me what she sees."

  Hearing the strange request, Muriel focused her Powers of Intuition on Ab'Don. To her astonishment, she sensed two minds where there should have been only one, though one of the minds was nearly strangled into oblivion. The essence that did the smothering was different from what she felt coming from Ab'Don at the time she met him in the Temple of the Oak Tree. But it wasn't foreign to her, she had felt it before when she was...

  Looking down at the Warl of the Dead, Muriel's stomach churned at the sight of the black mountain rising above the shadows that enveloped half of the Realm of the Deceased. Then she turned her gaze back to Ab'Don and reached out more strongly with her Prophetic Gifting to touch the Sorcerer who, surprisingly, didn't resist her probing him. When she did, the smoke that Ab'Don had absorbed lifted out of his body and assumed a shape that eclipsed the Sorcerer's form. Lacking any discernable details, the shape was considerably taller, though not much thicker than Ab'Don's normal build. Its head was unnaturally large, invoking recollections of the preying mantis she had seen in the warl, and a troubling memory of the Evil One who had tortured her at the foot of the black mountain when her spirit had been forcibly taken there at the Battle of the Temple of the Oak Tree.

  "Speaking of pigs," angered over the way Ab'Don had treated her best friend, comparing her to a slaughtered hog, Bala couldn't help firing back, "you must be a messy eater with all the slop I see smeared in your hair and on your armor. It's supposed to be shiny, isn't it? Sad to say, it's not."

  The particular type of dark magic Ab'Don called upon had side effects. The most notable of these was a discharge of filth that filled the air around the Sorcerer as he cast his spells, an oily filth that clung to him and everything around him with a tenacity that resisted attempts to wash it away. Prizing the benefits of the dark magic he had become addicted to, more than abhorring its side effects that tarnished his beloved armor, Ab'Don arrived at a compromise where he considered the gold he wore to be a sign of his grandeur while the grime revealed his willingness to do whatever it took to reach his all consuming goal to achieve absolute dominance over everything and everyone.

  The One Who Was Not Ab’Don looked impassively through the Sorcerer's eyes at the diminutive cretchym who had dared to insult him. "Speaking of slop, I'd be careful if I was you: I haven't eaten my greens today." Then he turned his gaze to Muriel and added, "I'll take care of that later, after I make an offer to the Prophetess that she can't refuse."

  "Bala, hold your tongue." Muriel's voice was a whispering hiss. She could almost see a mouth moving in the head made of smoke. Hints of two large, almond-shaped eyes, tilted upward at their extremities, appeared in the dark vapor's undulating skin. "That's not Ab'Don. It's something far worse."

  "It? I'm more than an IT. But since I'm not a man as such, I'll tolerate being called IT for the time being until we get better acquainted. Once I reveal the fulness of my true identity, I'll not tolerate such disrespect."

  Including Pearl in its gaze, since she was the one who had asked the ancient entity to explain how it was able to interrupt Flying, the Sorcerer added, "For now, let me say that both my essence and the magic I wield bridge the Warl of the Living and the Warl of the Dead in a way that enables me to stop your vessel in mid-flight, while keeping it from being pulled into all that appears below us."

  "The Evil One has taken possession of Ab'Don's body," Pearl surmised, though she couldn't see the cloud of smoke that enveloped the Sorcerer.

  "The Evil One is worse than IT," the sneering Sorcerer admitted. "Who's to say I'm evil. That's not how I view myself. Is it evil to take control of the lives of people whose only goal is to sate their own myopic desires?"

  Pearl's resolve hardened when he realized she was arguing with the Nameless Evil who ruled over the darkness that covered half of the Warl of the Dead. "It's evil for one to think that their view of things is incontrovertible and that others must blindly capitulate to their whims."

  "Words coming from an infinitestably small mind," the One Who Was Not Ab'Don intoned with a nauseatingly judgemental voice. "You latch onto one loose thread sticking out of magic's elaborate weave and think your wise enough to define good and evil. Now who's the one trying to get others to capitulate to their view of things?"

  "There's no reason to argue with one devoid of humility," Bacchanor said. Then he went on to explain: "Since they believe they are far better than those they would pain themself to listen to, anything that deviates from their own way of thinking is dicarded off hand."

  "Bown Wizard," The One Who Was Not Ab'Don snorted out in disdain before continuing, "you're words have less import than the sounds a rooster makes as it struts before a hen house it thinks it owns when, in fact, the farmer who built the hen house could lope off its head and have the bird cooked up dinner if he so chose."

  "W
hat do you want?" Muriel prodded the Sorcerer to get to the point for confronting them in the dramatic way he had. "You say that you have an offer... what would that be?"

  Certain that her son Kaylan would be included in any proposition the Sorcerer would extend to her, Muriel's breath nearly caught in her throat as she spoke. At the same time, her stomach siezed up as she concluded that the offer would be one she couldn't agree to, thus dooming Kaylan to a horrible fate she wouldn't dare speculate about; unless… she could outmaneuver the Sorcerer who had gone to such lengths to arrange the meeting. She obviously had something he wanted and couldn't just take from her, at least, not here and not now; and that something gave her leverage in the bartering that was about to ensue.

  "As you've probably already guessed," the One Who Was Not Ab'Don replied, "I have no intention of making peace with Nyeg Warl because of its recent inroads into the Ar. It should be clear to all of you that I sacrificed Suskynd to draw the Nyeg into my bosom, so that I could wrap my arms around the kings that foolishly think they have a chance to defeat me and crush them all with a single embrace.

  "Also, I knew you wouldn't come to Ar Warl unless you were accompanied by such a vast throng of warriors. Not that I think you aren't brave. To the contrary, I think the courage you possess is so great it compels you to come and defend your friends in their misguided venture. At least that's my belief and the basis for the offer I am extending to you. But this time, it isn't a friend who needs your help."

  "You're talking about Kaylan." Muriel stared into the face that most would consider to be handsome if not for the odd and avaricious look filling the raptor-yellow eyes it held: odd because of how the Sorcerer's unsavory appetites manifested themselves in his gaze; avaricious because those appetites were both boundless and compulsive to the extreme.

  Tall, with an athletic build that tended to the lean side, Ab'Don was a good looking man if one gave him a cursory examination. On closer inspection, the lack of symmetry that dominated the Sorcerer's features could be detected: the subtle sideways bend to his aquiline nose would appear; the placement of his eyes, where one was slightly higher than the other, would be discovered; the fact that his high cheek bones were askew to one another would be noted; and the way his pouting lips were slightly off kilter to both his nose and chin would be seen.

  "A Prophetess indeed," the One Who Was Not Ab'Don said with more than a touch of sarcasm in his voice. "Though I think your maternal instincts drew you to this conclusion more than the Gift of Sight. You’re correct to think I'm refering to your son, for Kaylan sits at the core of my offer. Or should I say... hangs?"

  A picture of a fiery tree with a body draped on it appeared on the surface of the Sorcerer's sphere.

  "Kaylan," Muriel cried out in pain as she looked at her son, pain at the suffering she knew he was experiencing, suffering she had endured when Ab'Don had rammed the same thin, iron branch through her own heart when first they met at the Temple of the Oak Tree back in Otrodor.

  With his head hanging down as it was, Muriel couldn’t see his precious face. But she could see Crooked Finger sticking out his chest. The unremitting stream of blood that trickled over his shirt, down his pant leg, and off the toe of one boot told Muriel he was still alive. But she had no explanation for why the fiery branches that held heim aloft didn't burn her son. This wouldn't be possible if the tree were made with Hag fire.

  "Poor pathetic Kaylan," the Sorcerer replied with mock sincerity. "But he doesn't have to remain so, not if his mother doesn't want him to."

  Unable to fight back the tears welling up in her eyes, Muriel asked, "What can I do to help my son?"

  "Good. Good." The smokey haze that surrounded Ab'Don in the Evil One's shape sank back into the Sorcerer's body as the bargaining began. "Dear Lady, it's quite simple: If you're willing to come to the Hall of Voyd and take his place, I'll guarantee that Kaylan- and those now with you- will be free to leave my fortress unscathed.

  "NO!" Grour Blood growled out the word that erupted from deep within his chest. "Don't listen to him. No good can come from this."

  "You're wrong griffin." The One Who Was Not Ab'Don hastily replied. "The Prophetess can save her son."

  "But at what price?" Bacchanor added his own thoughts to the foul conversation. "You'll have Muriel killed."

  "Never," the Sorcerer replied with as much sincerity as he could muster. "Her life is too valuable to have it wasted in such a way."

  "Valuable how?" the Brown Wizard asked.

  "She is the key to unlocking the door that stands between the Warl of the Living and the Dead, a door I want opened so I can join the two realms I rule over together. And once the door is open, I want it to stay open open. That's why I'll not kill the Prophetess as you suppose. Fate has made her the conduit that my consolidated power can flow through. Didn't you see how her presence at the Well of Souls gave the spirits I rule over in the Warl of the Dead access to the Warl of the Living?"

  "Surely you possess magic that can accomplish this without Muriel's help? Doesn't stopping us in mid-flight prove that?" Bacchanor, who was surprised by the Sorcerer's willingness to talk so openly about his plans, took advantage of the opportunity to discover as much as he could about the Evil One who had taken possession of Ab'Don's body.

  "Indeed, my power is great," more surprisingly, the One Who Was Not Ab'Don was about to admit a limitation, "but I can't tear down the barrier that separates the Warl of the Living from the Warl of the Dead, the place we have broken into," the Sorcerer indicated the space they were traveling through, "like a thief breaks into a home they want to rob. And whether you like it or not, Flying is theft of the highest order. It is a violation of Mountain of Song's Magic that created the barrier in the first place. Since I don't respect that magic, I’ve dedicated myself to find ways to circumvent its influence. Mar'Gul, what's your excuse? …Please don't use ignorance as your defense.”

  Satisfied it had made its point about Mar’Gul’s duplicity, the One Who Was Not Ab’Don turned back to Bacchanor and explained: "Since my essence can only inhabit one warl at a time, my magic is largely confined to realm that I'm presently occupying. On the other hand, the Prophetess' essence reached out to the Warl of the Dead while it was still anchored to the Warl of the Living. This was accomplished as Ab'Don drove Crooked Finger into her heart when he used the talisman to secure her body to the iron tree he created in the Temple of the Oak Tree. Inexplicably, this act transformed her into a being who belongs to both warls at the same time.

  "My guess as to how how she became such a being is this: With Ab'Don using his magic to control her body in the Warl of the Living, while I, at the same time, used my powers to inflict her spirit with the torments I heaped upon her in the Warl of the Dead, somehow the mystical influence we concurrently sent coursing into her changed the Prophetess in profound ways that turned her into a key who can open the door I want opened.

  "This was proven by the host of Catchers that found they could pass through the barrier that formerly prevented them from entering the Warl of the Living and gain ingress into the Temple of the Oak Tree where Crooked Finger's magic did the work of keeping the Prophetess pinned to the iron tree I just mention.

  "The Catcher's that flooded into the Well of Souls, as you all witnessed, is further proof to my assertion. So you see, that's why I need her."

  "But, I must confess, other powers came into play that made the Prophetess' transformation possible, those that are peculiar to her and the life she has lived, powers I don't have access to, otherwise, Ab'Don and I would have used the same process to create another gatekeeper that could be used to do my bidding.

  “What powers you may ask: the Hammer of Power's magic that courses through her veins, or the blessing the griffin gave her when she came to live on their island. Who knows? It could be the combination of all these things, or it could simply be something she was born with that led her to become the Prophetess.”

  "Why are you telling us all of this?" Bacchanor shoo
k his head to make sense of the Sorcerer's candor. "Surely must know, after hearing what you've said, Muriel won't accept your offer."

  "Won't she?" The One Who Was Not Ab'Don nodded at the Prophetess as he spoke. "Ask her if that's so. I wager that you'll get an unexpected answer. You see, I know more about Muriel than you do, and my take on the things we are both privy to concerning the Prophetess is different than yours.

  "Why? Because the knowledge I've garnered about her comes from a predator's perspective. And I assure you, predators are gifted at finding their prey's weaknesses, or else we would perish if our hunting is for naught.

  "You see, I took all of Schmar's memories as my own before I destroyed him, memories of Muriel's days of imprisonment in the Cave of Forgetfulness and of the abuse she endured seen through the eyes of the one who abused her. I know the texture of her skin, the smell of fear as it rises from her body when it’s forced to do wonderfully deplorable things, the look in her eyes once the abuse is over and she is sent away to await the next time Schmar would use her for his plaything.

  "But Schmar gave me more than this: He gave me the fruit his Powers of intuition gathered when he used it to disrobe her mind and force himself upon her by feeding on the sense of abandonment she felt when the riverchildren took her captive.

  "Mommy, Daddy, where are you?” A child’s voice was heard. The Sorcerer looked at Muriel with eyes that drank in the anguish the memory he replayed gave rise to. Then the first of many screams burst out of her tiny throat as one of the rivershildren rose out of the water Muriel was standing next to and grabbed her by the hand. This was the first of what could have been thousands of screams if not for the fact that the child learned that things went easier for her if she kept quiet in the Cave of Forgetfulness. The beatings were fewer when she suffered the autrocities that came as regular as the insipid meals she was fed in silence."