The Companions of Tartiël

by Jeff Wilcox

  “True, true.” He paused and looked around the room, sensing that we had all put the argument behind us. “Shall we get back to the game now?”

  “Is your mother a whore?” Matt said in the same accent he had used to deliver Wild’s taunt earlier. Xavier and I nodded.

  “Well, Kaiyr, you’re up,” said the DM.

  I put my hand on the pewter figurine I was using to represent my character on the battle grid. “Well, after seeing Caineye stumble back, I’m going to turn on a bit of my Combat Expertise and…”

  *

  Kaiyr struck a heavy blow against Sayel’s armor, denting one pauldron and forcing the winged creature to give ground as he pressed the attack. “Master Caineye?” he asked as Vinto, angered at the injury to his master, jumped back into the fray. Wild, too, danced nimbly into the combat, taking up a position on the opposite side of their foe as the blademaster and wolf.

  “I’m fine, for now,” the druid coughed before calling upon another healing spell. The flow of blood from his chest slowed to a crawl as his magic sealed the wound, repairing the worst of the damage to his flesh and his heart. Blood trickled from his chin, and he wiped it off. “Good one, bitch,” he growled at Sayel, who suddenly found herself hard-pressed to keep the combination of blademaster, halfling, and wolf from striking her dead.

  The battle raged as Sayel found herself pressed up against the Flaring Nebula’s mainmast. She dealt some more superficial wounds to all three of them, but none of them was wearing down as fast as she was. Kaiyr’s soulblade had left its mark on her armor, which barely clung to her form, and a gash on her forehead, again from the blademaster’s spiritual weapon, threatened to blind her. The halfling rogue behind Sayel had kept her on her toes and had sunk his daggers repeatedly into vital areas; she knew her kidneys would fail without extensive magical healing, and her legs threatened to give way under the loss of blood. Then there was the wolf, single-mindedly avenging her grievous wound to his master, foiling her attacks and ruining her bracers before his teeth began to tear at the muscles and tendons in her arms.

  Kaiyr knew the group’s victory was nigh when Sayel, the green light of power gone from her eyes, glanced over at the retreating lifeboat the Lillik brothers had stolen, then back at Kaiyr. When her eyes met his, she could read that her judgment had already been passed; she would find no mercy here.

  With a panicked shout, she shook Vinto from her forearm and jumped into the air, beating her gray-feathered wings. The sudden retreat cost her the defensive posture she had taken, and in unison, Kaiyr, Vinto, and Wild each launched a final strike at the retreating Sayel. Wild leaped up and severed her lower spine with a dagger. Then Vinto grabbed a hold of her boot, dragging her back down to the deck. Finally, Kaiyr’s soulblade found its way through her rent armor and into her heart. Her last thought, as blood bubbled from her lips and she sagged to the ground, was that she wished his weapon did not slide back out, because the hole it left was so very, very cold.

  Kaiyr flicked the blood from his soulblade and turned to regard the shrinking dot on the horizon that was the Lillik brothers’ boat. He registered that chase in his mind as futile and mentally released his soulblade. It disappeared as though it had never been there as he turned to face his comrades—and Astra.

  He would later regret that he did not pay any attention to Caineye as he knelt on all fours on the ground, too weakened by Sayel’s initial attack against him to even stand. The druid had one hand on Vinto, who was licking his master’s face in the hopes that his human friend would be all right. Wild leaned over Sayel’s form, divesting her body of anything and everything of value.

  The elf, however, only had eyes for the blackened and twisted form still held cruelly to the wooden cross by scorched iron spikes. The cross had somehow been affixed to the deck of the ship, almost as though it had been driven right into the ship itself.

  As his companions caught their breaths and collected trinkets behind him, Kaiyr strode angrily to the cross. There, in two swift motions, he manifested his soulblade, slashed at the cross’s base and severed it completely, and then gently caught the rest of it as it toppled to the ground.

  Caineye found the strength to rise upon seeing the elf laying Astra and the cross on the ground, and he came over as Kaiyr began prying the nails from her burned flesh. The body was barely recognizable as having once belonged to the beautiful Astra. The Lillik brother’s fireball had incinerated her hair and melted away her features in the blast. But the one thing that seemed to remain, despite the grotesque manner of her death, was a serene smile on her charred lips. The companions could not know what had given her cause to smile so—perhaps because she knew she would be avenged, or perhaps because she died saving the companions who had aided her so often in the past.

  In silence, as storm clouds began to gather around the uncontrolled airship, Caineye and Wild helped Kaiyr carry Astra’s body back to the cabin where she had slept for the past week. There, the three of them wrapped her in makeshift funeral wrappings made of bedsheets. Sensing that Kaiyr, who had had a somewhat closer bond with and better understanding of Astra, would want some time alone with her remains, Caineye and Wild departed to their own rooms to recuperate, not even having the energy to search the ship and gather survivors.

  When the two of them left, Kaiyr dropped onto his rump in a manner he knew, but did not care, would have earned him a sharp reprimand from his father and master, Sorosomir. He buried his face in his robes but could not find the strength to shed tears at his second failing as a blademaster in so short a time.

  “Gods damn it all,” he sobbed into his sleeve, his voice cracking. “Why can I not even protect those people I have sworn to watch over? First, those children in Andorra, and now this? What is it this world wants me to experience, if I must endure these tragedies and carry them on my shoulders?” He threw back his head, finally feeling the release of tears as he shouted to the ceiling and the heavens beyond, “What is it you expect of me?”

  The world deigned to respond only with a resounding clash of thunder. Kaiyr stared at the ceiling for several long minutes before his head slowly dropped to look at the white sheets hiding Astra’s destroyed body.

  A patter of frantic feet gave him only a few moments’ warning before his door burst open, and the anguished blademaster turned slowly to see who dared disturb him. What he saw, for some reason, did not surprise him. “Lady Luna,” he said gloomily.

  The Nemesis grasped the door frame for support, gasping for breath. “Kaiyr! You… you have to help me! My body, it just… suddenly started falling apart! What’s happening to me? I’m scared!”

  Not caring how she had found him, Kaiyr noted quietly that Luna’s body was indeed rapidly degenerating. Her skin peeled off in flakes and fell into the air, where it disappeared into nothingness. Some of her veins had already been breached, and red blood slowly trickled from her arms, also floating in the air until it vanished a foot from where it exited.

  Kaiyr merely turned back to stare at the enshrouded form on his bed. “Why should I deign to aid you, Lady Luna? You have proven only that you are as cunning, wicked, and treacherous as we once thought you innocent.”

  Luna floundered, desperate to reverse whatever process had her body in its grasp. “I… I know I’ve not been fair to you. But… please, I beg of you. Find some way to help me!” Then she noticed the form lying on his bed. “What is that?”

  “It is Lady Astra,” Kaiyr replied, monotone.

  “What?”

  His patience already having worn through, Kaiyr rose and pulled back part of the sheet so Luna could see what had become of her original. “I said,” he shouted, “it is Lady Astra! Lady Astra is dead! Now leave me in peace, demon! I care nothing for your plight!” He moved to stand before her defiantly, as though to push her from his room. But the pained look on Luna’s face stopped him.

  “Astra’s… dead? Can’t you find some way to… bring her back? Bring her back! Yes, that might restore my body. It w
ould save me, Kaiyr!” Her silver eyes besought him, but her pleas met only an icy wall.

  “Hm,” he grunted, whirling from her to pace the room. “And what would you do, were I to raise the funds to return the Lady Astra to life?”

  Luna gave him a puzzled look. “I’d would kill her, of course. It’s what I have to do.”

  The blademaster just shook his head slightly in exasperation. “If that is the case, then you have my blessing to perish with her. And may you never be seen again,” he uttered quietly, but Luna was no longer listening. She had entered the room and now stood over Astra’s charred remains. Tenderly, the winged Nemesis reached out and touched what had once been Astra’s lovely, tan cheek.

  “I’m almost sorry I—aah!” her gentle murmur turned into a shriek of pain as the hand touching Astra suddenly crumbled into dust, the particles swirling in the air and whipping up a windstorm in the room that tossed Kaiyr’s hair and robes about violently.

  “What have you done?” he demanded, barely managing to rise against the gale, shielding his face with both sleeves as he strained to reach his bed. He could not get there in time, he knew, as Luna’s body suddenly underwent a rapid decay, her arm quickly eaten away by whatever force had caused her hand to be subsumed into Astra’s corpse.

  “No,” Luna said, “I—” but then her chin and face cracked and dispersed into particles that joined the growing vortex as it swirled around the point where Luna had touched Astra.

  Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Kaiyr lowered his arms from his face to find the room utterly devoid of any sign that Luna had even been there, except for where objects caught in the tornado had been tossed around.

  “What’s going on?” Caineye asked, appearing in the doorway behind the blademaster.

  But Kaiyr could not respond, for at that moment, the woman on the bed stirred, her eyes fluttering open. Where there had once been scorched flesh, there was pale, smooth skin. A slender hand trailed a lump up the sheets until it appeared at the top, where she pushed down the cover as if rising from a gentle slumber.

  Tentatively taking one step forward, and then another, Kaiyr moved to stand over her. “Lady Astra?” he asked, then shook himself, a smile growing on his features. “Lady Astra!” he laughed.

  The woman frowned. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know anyone named Astra. I think you have me mistaken for someone else; I’m Solaria.”

  *

  Matt, Xavier, and I stared agape at Dingo at the twist he had just thrown into the game’s plot. “It is then that you notice she is indeed not Astra,” he went on, ignoring our shock. “Instead of black hair like Astra, or even gray like Luna, Solaria has long, straight hair of a pale blue sheen. Her eyes are violet, like Astra’s, and she is otherwise the spitting image of the other nymph, though Solaria’s skin is much paler than Astra’s sun-bronzed tone.”

  I shook my head, eyebrows raised. “I completely despair and run from the room,” I said with a helpless gesture. “It’s all I can do.”

  Dingo nodded. “All right. That, however, is where we are going to end tonight,” he said to a small chorus of boos. “Yeah, yeah. Shut up, it’s already three, and I have some work to do before I hit the sack. I want all of you to level up, so I guess that makes you level six. That was an amazing job you all did on Sayel back there. I haven’t seen that much teamwork in many other groups.”

  Matt replied, “Well, it was sort of natural. I needed to get into a flanking position, and what better way to do it than to go opposite Kaiyr and Vinto?”

  I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, things fit naturally, and Vinto and I made a great wall to keep Sayel away from Caineye while he was busy stuffing his lungs back into his chest.” I turned to Xavier, knocking on his TV between us with my knuckles. “How’s that Con damage treating you, ol’ buddy?”

  “Ouch,” was all he said in reply.

  I just shrugged. “Well, it’ll either heal in four days, or we’ll get you patched up once we reach Is’thiel.”

  The three of us rolled our hit points where Dingo could watch. Kaiyr ended up just shy of 60 hit points, which, for having only a +1-per-level bonus from his so-so Constitution score, was pretty phenomenal. Then again, since Dingo had adopted my non-standard method of rolling for hit points, we tended to have better than average health, anyway.

  A short while later, Matt and our DM packed up and rolled out, heading back to their respective rooms amid much banter containing many renditions of, “Why is your mother a whore?” and “No dice!” among other (in)famous phrases we had coined.

  Xavier and I went to bed abuzz with chatter about the game. It was fortunate that neither of us had classes until the afternoon, because we didn’t close our eyes until it the sun was already brightening the light filtering in through the blinds.

  XXVII.

  Due to the rude interruption of spring break after that last session, in which we had met someone who would become an integral part of the campaign and who would further rend Kaiyr’s already conflicted and torn heart, Solaria, we would not meet again for about two weeks. Far be it from me to imagine anyone else more disappointed by a respite from the five-page critical analyses of books never actually read—paraphrased in online notes at best.

  I say spring break interrupted our playing, but I still blame Dingo for the timing of such a recess from our all-important storytelling and rolling of dice and insulting of each others’ mothers (we love you, really). Even though I know it to be untrue, I am and forever will be convinced that he planned that last encounter just before a two-week vacation so that I would agonize over how my character should respond to the revelation that the awoken Astra was not, in fact, Astra.

  Who was this Solaria? Was she benevolent, or was she to be another malicious force like Luna had been? What was the connection between the obviously-themed group of Astra, Luna, and Solaria? Was Galaxia next?

  It became clear to me that by the way Kaiyr was handling his emotions, he clearly felt a great debt to Astra, who had now made the ultimate sacrifice for the good of our party. Was Kaiyr falling in love with Astra? I decided that he probably was, due to his increased respect at her uncharacteristic but recurring selflessness that contrasted so beautifully with the secretive and egocentric façade she showed everyone else.

  But then, what to do with this new character? If she turned out to be kind, would Kaiyr place her on Astra’s pedestal? Or, since resurrection from death in Dungeons & Dragons is usually just a function of how much gold the party has, would I be able to bring Astra back? Perhaps Caineye could begin to forge a relationship with Solaria, in that case. After all, especially with the massive haul we had just taken off of Sayel’s body before burning it and tossing the ashes overboard, affording such a ceremony wasn’t really a question. But my over-imaginative mind (which I’ve learned to trust) kept telling me that even though I could easily afford raise dead, which costs 5,000 gp but requires the body of the deceased to be present, the fact that Solaria now inhabited what might have once been Astra’s mortal vessel would cause the spell to fail. Small deal, since I could also afford the 10,000 gp necessary for resurrection, which requires only a small portion of the original body (Dingo assured me that the excess parts of Astra’s incinerated corpse that came off before Solaria’s birth would count for this). Even if that hadn’t worked, I almost had the 25,000 gold for true resurrection, which needs only a name and a number to bring back the desired soul into a reconstructed body.

  These things and more I pondered during spring break in the moments I did not spend viciously fighting for victory in Nintendo GameCube’s Super Smash Bros. Melee against Xavier and some other friends back at my parents’ house. I assure you, I did not spend every waking moment with my mind wrapped around the game. Just every other moment. Except when I went to visit the young lady I was seeing at the time, who could hear when I was thinking about the game too loudly. …Probably because then I started talking about it.

  We picked everything
up at just about the moment we left off. Solaria, we would soon discover, had a secret ambition: to be a streaker. It took Caineye (Kaiyr was too distraught to interact with anyone for quite some time) a long while to convince the “newborn” nymph that running around naked in public was more than the shell-shocked survivors of Sayel’s mayhem could take.

  Our group, during a moment when Kaiyr felt the need to get up and move around, discovered Thelia unconscious in a room. Her entourage had all been killed by the big-mawed creatures’ surprise attacks, and somewhere along the way, the deposed elven princess had lost an arm. Also, it would soon become clear at least to me, she had lost her sense of logic.

  “The book says here that whoever wears the captain’s ring is the captain of the ship!” she informed the group impetuously after hijacking the airship and turning it in a different direction.

  “Dingo,” I growled in exasperation, “this is such a Calvin and Hobbes moment. Seriously, ‘I have the captain’s hat, so I get to be the captain?’ What kind of bullshit is this?”

  “She probably forged that rule into the book, anyhow,” Matt agreed just before I told Dingo that having had quite enough, Kaiyr grabbed the book from her hands and threw it overboard before returning the ship to its original course. After all, the passengers would probably be very confused and afraid if they suddenly arrived at a port other than their destination. Thelia, as she described it, was taking them somewhere safer, though, in keeping with the frustratingly arbitrary decisions of Dingo’s female characters, she refused to tell the party where she intended to take the ship. It wasn’t until we questioned the survivors that we discovered she had told them about her plans, that we were headed toward Ik’durel, a closer floating city than Is’thiel, and that the remaining passengers had all voted and agreed to this without our knowledge.