The Daughter completely ignored Marrec, even though the cleric fairly kneeled at the creature’s feet. Furious at the fusillade of spells with which Ususi continued to burn it, the corrupted aspect charged the mage. Ususi cried out, seeing her death approach. She shot a look of apology Marrec’s way, touched the Keystone hanging at her breast, and was pulled backward, out of the Rotting Man’s court by the power of the amulet. She was gone.
The Daughter, deprived of its intended target, stumbled to a stop, its immense but dreadfully quick legs causing the ground to quake with each and every footfall. Its bulk hid from view both the Rotting Man and… Ash.
Marrec stood and began running in a single action. The creature was between him and his charge. If it killed her, then all their effort was for nothing.
Justlance was in his hand with merely a thought, but what hope did he really believe he had? The creature had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was nigh on unstoppable. What force could hope to breach its bulk and reach its heart?
What physical force… but waitthe beast was born of a gift of the Green Powers. It was a corrupted aspect, but an aspect all the same, and somehow, Lurue was tied up in all of it. Was slaying the creature the answer? Though foul, at heart it must be good. Something that seeks to do good, though it commits evil, can be redeemed, or so Marrec hoped.
The knowledge that was flushed from hiding by the Nentyarch’s elixir finally completed its work. Revelation illuminated Marrec, then, like the sun that lifts up from behind a mountain, revealing the plain that was previously dark. Marrec saw a parallel between Ash and himself, and the Daughter and his monstrous gaze. Moreover, he saw an equivalence between any creature that hopes to do good, but through inaction, inattention, poor judgment, or even self-interest, does evil. Does that action, then, condemn such a one to a life of evil thereafter? Does it mean that that one does not deserve a second chance?
Well, no, of course not.
Life is but a brief flicker, and as the saying goes, “What will it matter in one hundred years?” is all too true for most creatures. Life is a short-lived gift. If that gift is not explored in all its dimensions, it is like spurning the gift, setting it aside on a knickknack shelf where other things of little interest accumulate. How else can life be experienced but through decisions? How else can good be judged from evil, if mistakes are not made? That was the secret that revealed itself to Marrec: To err is to live, and to live is to err, but one can only pick oneself up after each mistake, wiser for the experience, and go on. What else is there?
One had to forgive oneself.
The Daughter’s horn nearly removed his head from his torso as he skirted its bulk, bringing him more fully to the present. Taking the knife-sharp blow along the haft of his spear, Marrec ran on, rounding the flank of the Daughter. There was the Rotting Man, still sitting upon his throne, concentrating upon the corrupted aspect, possibly controlling its actions, or at least preventing it from lapsing into unrestrained destruction.
There was Ash, defenseless and alone in the Court, looking up into the blank expanse of the Daughter’s flesh, as if searching for something. Despite having no eyes or any other organs for sensing its environment, the corrupted aspect paused, seeming to study the slip of a girl on the ground before it.
The Rotting Man commanded, “Take what is yours, Cystborn. Take the capstone of your power and your sentience. Become what you should have been these last six years. My scourge, Talona’s Step-Daughter.”
The Daughter moved forward, as if to engulf the defenseless child, but slowly, tentatively, as if the Rotting Man wished to relish his final victory.
Marrec, his head still spinning with his own personal revelation, knew that his own revelation applied, too, to Ash.
“I forgive you, Ash,” yelled Marrec. “That’s right. We all forgive you for allowing the Rotting Man to steal away your purpose, your form, and your power, but you have to forgive yourself.”
Ash’s gaze slowly swiveled upon Marrec and focused. She was listening.
“Let yourself off the hookput your mistake behind you and learn from it. Take back what is yours. You didn’t mean for things to come to this.”
Ash’s eyes narrowed, and her tiny head began a slow nod, as if in grudging understanding.
“Enough of this. Consume her!” thundered the Rotting Man.
The Daughter fell upon Ash, absorbing her entirely into its shambling husk.
The Rotting Man laughed. The cleric despaired, crying out his frustration.
The Daughter lay splayed across the ground where it had leaped upon the child.
Then a change came over it. The Daughter’s body began to throw off mass in great rotting layers, one after another, like an onion. Every layer broadcast images into all the living minds nearbythe layers were like records of the sordid malice the Talontyr had committed against the world. The first few were only insults and aggravations. Then came violence and death, and rot followed after. It was Talona’s influence, psychically manifest as each section of the Daughter fell away. The next layers revealed the Rotting Man gathering to his side minions versed in spells and foul sorceries. Marrec saw piles of skulls left behind where the Talontyr’s forces triumphed; he saw living trees burned with torches, the tree-dryads locked within, screaming; he saw crimes without number, and creatures rotting from the inside; he saw sacrifices made to Talona in all their gruesome detail. Marrec saw the war of the Green Powers against Talona, and the secret plan the Rotting Man and his goddess drew up to subvert those plans and redirect those efforts to decay. Every layer that fell away from the Daughter revealed fragments of the past to Marrec, as if he were remembering something he’d always known.
Then the molting layers revealed more recent occurrences. Marrec saw blightlords releasing poisonous spells, rots of terrible efficacy, and magical diseases spreading across the Rawlinswood and across the forest of Lethyr. He saw the cruel new sorceries devised by the Rotting Man Seeing, the cleric understood what the Rotting Man intended should the Daughter ever achieve complete integration; he saw the massacres, the deaths, the plains strewn with slain armies left to decay and disintegrate in the noon-day sun. He saw the Rotting Man’s hope for final triumph.
Little of the Daughter was left now. The core of rot remaining scrambled like a live thing, trying to escape. Marrec stabbed it with Justlance. Screaming, the blot skittered away but Marrec stabbed it gain. It lay quivering, and Ususi, stepping out of the surrounding mist where she had hidden, burned the place where it lay with magical flame.
The layers were shed and the core was gone, but something remained behind, hiding behind the core. It was washed clean. It was whole, complete, and shining. It was a great unicorn, white and gold, with eyes too bright to look into, or maybe it was a woman, whose features reminded Marrec instantly of little Ash. It was the woman Ash would have grown up to be. Rather, it was the Aspect the Green Powers had intended to send all along. Araluen.
Araluen fixed Marrec with a look from her blazing eyes. She said, “I forgive myself for succumbing to the Rotting Man’s trap, as you have forgiven yourself for your accident of birth. Redeemed in our own eyes, we are both of us fit to serve Lurue.” The unicorn touched Marrec lightly on the forehead with its crystal horn. Knowledge was imparted to the cleric, and he smiled.
With curses so potent that minor creatures of decay were produced from each utterance, the Rotting Man stood up from his throne.
The battle between growth and decay, years delayed, was joined.
CHAPTER 31
The form of the Talontyr shuddered. His skin rippled, split, and something far larger emerged from the huska nightmare of slime and liquefying limbs, melting and reforming. At the same time, the Aspect incanted a series of divine syllables. Her body grew in stature equal to that of the Talontyr rebirthed, and a sword of celestial fire ignited in her hand. Then she was upon the Rotting Man in a fury of righteous might.
Groaning, the rotting husk gave ground, but not quickl
y enough. The celestial blade cleaved the slime-ridden form, splitting it into two heaving masses. The section farther from Araluen continued to retreat, its gesticulating arms spraying gore as they jerked through an intricate series of spellcasting motions. Meanwhile, the split-off portion of the Rotting Man heaved and pulsedeach section retained a life all its own. It threw itself at the Aspect, its side splitting to reveal a great toothed maw.
Araluen cried out as the attacking portion of the Rotting Man bit at her sword arm, its mouth crunching and slobbering. Light, not blood, spilled from the Aspect’s flesh, and it burned the beast, forcing the creature to relinquish its hold, but the monstrosity’s incanting twin finished its spell.
A ghastly greenish-black cloud blossomed above, but beneath the overhanging branches of the Close. Crashing claps of thunder boomed in its depths, the sound so loud that the Aspect winced and backed away, shaking her head as if to clear it of ringing tones.
The creature leaped again, this time taking a bite from Araluen’s side. Again, light spilled forth from the wounded avatar, and again the rotting creature’s flesh boiled in the light, and it retreated. The Aspect hacked at it with her sword for good measure, using the flat of her divinely fashioned blade. Its impact caused the creature to shudder and squeal, but it did not further subdivide.
The gesticulating portion of the Rotting Man pointed straight above at the boiling green cloud. In answer, six jagged bolts of lightning ripped from the clouds belly, each one finding its target: the Aspect. The blast was too searing for sight to survive, and the wind that followed knocked every creature flat that stood within a hundred feet. The shock wave shredded the mist that still clung around the periphery of the space, whipping it away in steaming ribbons, revealing the entire space of the Close.
Araluen crawled forth from the crater that had opened at her feet. The crystal horn on her forehead seemed somewhat dimmer than before, but the blaze of her sword was yet bright. The lesser portion of the Rotting Man was nowhere to be seen. The greater portion cursed anew as he saw the Aspect emerging from what he had hoped was her grave.
The slime hardened, stretched, and transmuted itself into yet another form, that one more heinous than the last. It was a great twining serpent with ebony scales and with eyes like dark pits of space that ate lighttwin vortexes of nothingness.
Free of the crater, Araluen again spoke forth ringing words of power and touched her blade to the buckled pavement. A white flame surged down the blade, continued across the space separating her from the Rotting Man in serpent’s shape, and flared into a nova of fire. The serpent screamed as its scales ignited and its breath burned it from within. Still shrieking it leaped forward, out of the fire, and still burning, it charged the Aspect. Its teeth were like daggers, its claws swords, and its wings a tornado.
Araluen smote at the snaking neck but missed. The Rotting Man was upon her, biting and raking with his claws. Araluen dropped her sword, and her hands found the Talontyr’s neck. The crystal horn on her forehead began to blaze with light, a light similar to that which accompanied her transformation from Daughter to Aspect. The dark wells of the Rotting Man’s eyes drank all the light, but there was yet more to give. The light flared; the darkness expanded. The ground shook.
The shining horn pierced the Rotting Man’s side, and all was tumult.
When the ground finally ceased its shuddering, the celestial lights faded, the hellish dark cleared, and the thundering detonations echoed their last, the Aspect proved the mightier that day.
Marrec had watched the entire battle, when it wasn’t obscured by releases of energy too extreme even for one accustomed to powers of divine magnitude.
With Marrec stood his friends Ususi and Gunggari.
Elowen, barely living, yet drew breath and would only grow the stronger with the cleric’s healing attention.
Of the Rotting Man, only the memory of his final words remained, as he fled the field of battle, “I yield only for this moment.”
Araluen was much diminished from her struggle. She stood apart from the others, gazing about the Close, which was visible following the dispersing mist.
The Aspect said, “The Rotting Man is gone from this place, but he is not beaten. Talona’s Chosen was chastised, but his power was not broken.”
“Ash… I mean, Araluen,” said Marrec, “I don’t understand. You defeated the Talontyr, we saw you.”
The Aspect, having taken the form of a tall, lithe woman smiled sadly. “The effort it cost me to free my greater self from the cystborn curse was not insignificant. Retrieving myself from the Rotting Man’s influence was an awful trial, though one which I could not have begun without your timely assistance, kind Marrec:”
The cleric’s face reddened.
Araluen continued, “But I succeeded, finally. What power remained to me was called immediately to the fore when I faced the Rotting Man. As you saw, he carries much of Talona’s power within him. I had to exhaust my stores just to chase him away. Had he known how much power I expended, he might have stayed to finish me, risking his own final annihilation.”
“His strength is unchanged?” Marrec glanced around, studying the edges of the Close, making sure some new incursion was not even then creeping up unobserved.
“The Rotting Man, too, used much of his personal power just to control the form in which he put me. When I burst that control, that which he expended was wasted. While his act was pure evil, this project absorbed much of his time and energy these last years that otherwise might have been put to more direct use, to the dismay of the Green Powers. Even though I was trapped and separated from myself, my entry into the world did, in truth, slow the Rotting Man and weaken him. Now all his best plans are in ruin. His most powerful minions, the blightlords, are slain; he’ll have to recruit anew. His massed forces are scattered or killed; his strength is only a tenth of what he promised his mistress Talona, and she punishes failure.”
All remained quiet for a moment to absorb the impact of the Aspect’s words, as well as wonder what form Talona’s punishment might take.
Elowen said, her voice still weak from her ordeal, “Thank you, Araluen. If the Nentyarch were here, he would thank you, but you must accept my thanks in his place.”
Araluen bowed her head graciously.
Gunggari was silent, his face betraying no reaction. Marrec knew his friend well enough to know that the Oslander showed respect through his reserve. Ususi, though also quiet, seemed strangely intimidated in the presence of Lurue’s Aspect. Funnyshe’d showed less fear when she dumped spell after spell upon the Daughter.
Araluen sighed, stretching. “It is hardly fair, is it? I am finally set free of the trap, but I lack the power to remain. I so looked forward to treading the forests of this world. I must depart whence I came.” She sighed. “All of us must soldier on, doing our part, even one such as me.”
“Lest I forget,” added the Aspect, smiling fondly again, “Please give this to Hemish. Without his strength and goodness, all would have been lost long ago. His heartache at the loss of his child may be somewhat dampened if he can talk to me now and again.”
The Aspect dropped a small object into Marrec’s waiting hand. It appeared to be a figurine carved of crystal. The figure was that of a tiny unicorn.
She smiled, and light streamed from her form, suffusing all of them The light was more than mere illumination. It was… empowering. It was the power of Lurue. Within that gleam there was hope, salvation, and an offer of protection for the needy, forlorn, and forsaken. Also there was laughter, the satisfaction of quests completed, and wonder at all things. All who stood in the light knew that each of them, no matter their strengths and weaknesses, was worthy in the eyes of Lurue. Above all else, there was joy.
The Aspect turned her face one last time upon Marrec, saying “Search for the unicorn always, Marrec, and in the pursuit, find happiness.”
The cleric nodded, his face stern but his gaze watery.
The Aspect leaped upward, as
lithe and bright as a shaft of light seeking to illuminate the heavens. It passed easily between a gap in the interwoven branches above and was gone.
Marrec brushed away a tear as he continued to gaze upward.
“Goodbye, Ash.”
IVJarrec and Ususi walked behind Elowen and Gunggari. Gunggari played upon his dizheri, Elowen laughing and sometimes clapping accompaniment. So they continued, slowly, taking the few days required, until they drew near the borders of Rawlinswood, to the south and west of where Dun-Tharos still sheltered in the heart of the forest. The journey back through the tangled forest was mostly uneventful, though they steered well clear of wells and other cavities that threatened a passage back into the Nar conjuries still below. All contemplated their touch with divinity. Indeed, all were touched. As the days of their journey toward Yeshelmaar passed, each noted slight changes in the other.
Gunggari was more talkative, as if the assurance of the Aspect’s smile had somehow given him a measure of poise, where before simple reserve had always sufficed. On the other hand, Elowen took more time for introspection before speaking her mind, though as ever, the elf was still quick to find a bit of joy and wonder in the sight of a growing thing or forest creature. Ususi also seemed somewhat kinder in her dealings with the others, as if some bitterness was finally dulled. The mage was more thoughtful, and her biting remarks had yet to reappear.
For his part, Marrec was simply happier. He was happier not only because his contact with Lurue was as strong and steady as it had ever been, but also because he felt more a whole man for the first time that he could recall. He could accept his heritage, despite its monstrous origin. All that was required was one last remuneration.
It was Thanial, of course, his old mentorThanial, who had accidentally fallen afoul of Marrec’s gaze, the kind forest ranger, whose stone-entombed body was shattered and its pieces strewn far and wide.
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