Warden's Path

by Heath Pfaff

  After nearly two hours we were finished, and she was patched up well, and no longer bleeding at all. I’d had to shave off patches of her fur, and for some reason seeing the skin beneath acted as a keen reminder that though she was different in body, Dreea was very much a real, living woman with feelings, thoughts, and the ability to care and hurt. I leaned in and softly stroked her face. She’d saved my life, even though she’d probably known she would be badly hurt or killed. I took off my cloak and covered her. She could redress when she was awake again, but it felt wrong to leave her naked now, though that had been how we’d first encountered her and the other willifen. It was probably more comfortable for her than the clothing she wore. It still felt wrong.

  “Compassion is a weakness.” Arthos’ voice broke through my focus. “It’ll get you killed at some point, maybe all of us.”

  “I understand that, Arthos.” I replied calmly, dispassionately, despite the anger in me at those words. “I went through the training, and they beat that message into us constantly. Only your Will matters, and the adherence to the Iron Law. Nothing beyond that has meaning. I know the words, and I know what is expected of me, but I don’t believe it all. What point is there in having power if you aren’t willing to use it to protect those that matter to you? What point is there in being a weapon for someone who makes decisions at whim that hurt people instead of helping them? How can my Will be absolute, if it must bend to another’s?”

  Arthos frowned. “Will must be absolute for it to function, but it also functions as a service to the Iron Law. This is the purpose of the Wardens. We serve our King, and that serves the people. You’re getting too focused on the smaller picture, and you’re not seeing that there is a greater purpose to all of this.”

  “What greater purpose is there to this, Arthos?” My voice snapped a bit, as I gestured at the room around us, but more generally at the place we’d found ourselves and a the whole of what we stood for. “Do we trudge through this horror infested place to achieve some glory for the King? Does this help us fight the Way, is that really our greater purpose? I’ve never even seen them. All I have are stories, and what is the point in fighting them if their only purpose is to fight us back? What sort of purpose is served by two forces only existing to push back against one another? That is stupid. It doesn’t make any sense. We could be helping people, but instead we’ve become a machine that does nothing but fight another machine that has no purpose other than to fight us back.”

  Arthos opened his mouth like he was going to retort, but then he closed it again. He was quiet for a time. “We have to fight back, Lillin. The Way would destroy us all. They would rob us of our way of living.”

  I gestured at one of the shuttered windows. “And while we grind ourselves away against them, this darkness is clawing its way through the land. No one even cares. The Wardens know it exists, and they do nothing about it.” I snapped my mouth closed, realizing I’d said more than I’d meant to.

  “The Wardens only know what we’ve told them.” He said, but I could hear a question in his voice. “The black fluid has never really been a problem, certainly nothing like what we’ve experienced.”

  I shrugged, but refused to say anything else. He probably didn’t know about the golems the way I did, or knew and didn’t care. I wasn’t supposed to know, and I certainly wasn’t supposed to know everything Ghoul had told me.

  “Lillin, what aren’t you telling me?” He asked, and I felt his Will probe out at me. He was considering forcing me to talk.

  “Don’t you dare push your Will at me, Arthos. I respect you, but I will not share information with you if you try to take it from me.” My voice had taken on a dangerous edge that surprised me a little.

  Arthos’ brow furrowed a bit more, but his Will fell away. “You know something. How?”

  His suspicions were a problem. They put us at odds, and we didn’t need that right now. A disagreement was one thing, but building suspicion between us would lead to distrust. I considered what to tell him carefully. I wasn’t going to tell him everything. “The black liquid, there is a lake of it beneath the school. I think that might even be where it first came from.” I wanted to add “in our world” to that statement, but I left it for the moment. “It is at the core of some of our tricks. The Golems are built from it. The Warden’s have known of it for a long time, and I suspect that they understand, at least to some small degree, that it is very dangerous.”

  Arthos shook his head. “Impossible. I’d know if such things were true. Yes, the Golems are frightening, and the magic used to make them is dark, but I won’t believe that the Warden’s would intentionally make use of magic that they didn’t fully understand. How would you find out such things anyway?” His lack of faith in me was distressing. I hadn’t expected him to completely ignore what I had to say.

  “Do I seem like someone who makes up stories?” I asked Arthos plainly. “Have I ever been less than truthful with you? I’m not willing to talk about how I know these things, but believe me, they are true. The Wardens keep secrets, apparently from even their high ranking members, and they make use of magic they don’t fully understand all the time. The doors. You said it yourself. Will can’t interact with them, but they were not made with Will.”

  For a time Arthos didn’t reply. He seemed deep in thought. “I will take this up with them when we get back. I won’t mention where I got my information, but I will ask questions.” He said finally, nodding his head a bit as though he were confirming it for himself as well.

  “That’s good, assuming we can get back.” I noted, a certain bleakness to my reply. At the moment it wasn’t clear that would happen. We were in a bad situation and there was no apparent way out of it. We could only keep walking towards the door and hope it was actually there when we arrived. Nothing about this place made sense.

  We lapsed into silence then, the room still but for the fire crackling in the hearth. Arthos added some more wood to the fire, and then we settled in. “We need to move again after we rest. We can’t stay here. We don't know what is happening beyond that door while we lay here.”

  “I’m not leaving without Dreea.” I said firmly.

  “Willifen heal quickly. She won’t be perfect tomorrow, but she’ll be far enough along that we can go slowly. She’ll need a big meal in the morning, and we’ll give her that, but we have to go. This whole place is out to have at us. I’m not even sure it’s safe to make camp here.” He looked and sounded troubled.

  “Agreed. If Dreea can move tomorrow, we’ll go. If she can’t move tomorrow, well, we’ll find some way to move her, or you can go on your own.” I said, deciding I’d stay with her here if I had to. She’d risked her life for mine, and I wasn’t going to abandon her.

  Arthos sighed. “Alright. Rest for now. I’ll keep the first watch. I’ll wake you later for a shift.” He told me.

  I answered by laying down on the floor next to Dreea. I scooted close to her, feeling cold despite the warmth of the room. As I tucked myself beneath the cloak against her body, I was fleetingly reminded of laying in bed next to Zarkov while we were in training. It had take a long time for that to become a normal thing, and then it had always been just a little uncomfortable, but also somewhat comforting. Eventually there had also been sexual tension, but always a sense of security as well.

  I was exhausted. My body, my Will, was working to fix the hole in my leg, and it was taking a toll. It wasn’t long before sleep found me and I drifted off into a deep, dreamless void.

  12.2

  The sound of metal against metal woke me. I came awake quickly and leapt to my feet, my thigh aching with the motion as I drew my weapon and tried to get my bearings in the room. It was dark. It was completely black in the room. The fire had gone out and there was nothing at all to see. I couldn’t believe Arthos would allow it to burn out.

  “Arthos??” I snapped in a whisper, voice angry.

  There was no reply. Had he fallen asleep? “Arthos?” I said more loudly, bu
t again there was no reply.

  “Lillin.” A voice spoke my name and I froze in place, a terrible chill passing down my spine as my hand tightened around half of my weapon. I knew that voice but I hadn’t heard it in a long time. I must have imagined it. I was completely still.

  I heard the shifting of metal rubbing against metal again and I swung about. Behind me the shutter had been removed from one of the windows. It was open, dull light from outside coming in, but something huge was blocking it, the hulking form darkening the entire room. I couldn’t make it out, but it had a familiar shape to it. I shook my head in denial.

  “No.” I said, weapons out in front of me.

  “Lillin.” The voice said again, and this time I couldn’t deny it. I had heard it. It was real, as real as this shape before me was.

  “Ori.” I said, and I heard the sound of metal grating as the massive golem nodded it’s head. “Yes.” It replied.

  “You can’t be here.” My voice was hushed, and I could hear the fear in it. Golems still inspired fear in me, and this one did particularly. This wasn’t possible. Or was it? Were we trapped in the space of one of the doors and had the school sent someone in after us? Something.

  “I am here.” Ori spoke again. “I’ll always be here. This is my place now. No matter what may come, I belong to this.”

  The words sent a chill up my spine. “I don’t understand.”

  “This is where it takes you once it gets its hooks beneath your skin, Lillin. “ Ori stepped forward and I could see more of her shape, the shape of the golem. It lifted a hand and closed it into a fist. “It was lost in the stars, and then it fell into the sea, and crept into this city, and now it haunts this place forever, spreading from here like a disease that eats away at existence, twisting and breaking everything it encounters.”

  “What is it?” I asked, my voice a harsh whisper in the dark.

  “It is madness given form. It doesn’t think the way you understand thought. It doesn’t have feelings or reasoning. It’s chaos, Lillin, and it just wants to spread and consume everything. It bleeds from one existence to another, and it is impossible to stop. Once it has you . . . suffering. Endless suffering.” Ori’s voice was becoming more metallic as she spoke, the rasp of one of the golems taking more and more of her normal tones away.

  “Ori, I’m . . . I’m sorry. I wanted to end it for you. I tried. I didn’t want to see you suffer like this.” I wanted to reach out to her, but fear kept me in check.

  “I don’t blame you.” Her voice was becoming less and less human, and her form lurched forward again. “I just need you to . . . Lillin . . . need . . . “

  “Ori?” I took a step forward, my heart hammering in my chest.

  Ori suddenly reached up to her visor and pushed it open. Beneath it was all the horror I remembered, the black hooks ripping into her raw nerves and the terrible eyes bulging from skeletal sockets on a face that had no flesh left on it.

  I screamed and tumbled backwards as the Golem lurched forward.

  “Move!” It rasped at me, like they always had on the course back in the school. “Move!”

  “Lillin!” My face stung and I shook my head, blinking, trying to make sense of what my eyes were now seeing.

  Arthos was standing in front of me, his body between mine and a roaring fire. “Lillin?” He said my name again, his strangely pale eyes holding some concern.

  “What? Where did Ori go?” I asked, as confused as I’d ever been. It had been real. It had felt real. I’d felt pain, the ache of my thigh. It couldn’t have been a dream.

  “Who is Ori?” Arthos asked. “You said the name while you were sleepwalking.”

  “Sleepwalking?” I was still bewildered. I’d never had issues with sleepwalking before. “No, Arthos, she was here. She . . . “ I couldn’t tell him about Ori. I couldn’t talk about her just then. “She fell during training.”

  Arthos reached out and rubbed my shoulder. “It’s alright, Lillin. Sometimes we remember the fallen, sometimes they come back as nightmares. You’re alright now. It was a stressful day. Your memories are just acting up. Even I still have those kinds of dreams at times.”

  “I could feel the pain of my leg in my . . . dream.” I used his word, though I wasn’t confused.

  “The pain in your leg was real enough. You were just noticing it while you dreamed. It’s alright. Relax. You’re alright now. Whatever you saw can’t hurt you.” Arthos was speaking calmly, as if to a small child, his voice reassuring.

  I couldn’t help but shake my head, rejecting his words. “It seemed real. The things she said, they . . . it made sense.”

  “Did you want to talk about it? I heard your half of the conversation.” Arthos sat back down by the fire. He looked tired, worn thin from all we’d been through, and he hadn’t rested yet.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but then closed it again. What could I say? “She said it’s spreading, and we know it is. We’ve seen the pools of black spreading in our world. I think that’s a part of this. She said that it isn’t rational, that it’s chaos, and it just wants to spread. We can’t reason with it.”

  Arthos didn’t look convinced. “There is a reason for everything, Lillin, even if it’s difficult to see. I don’t know what the black pools are doing, where they come from, or why they seem to be spreading, but I’m sure there is some purpose. If it’s tied to this place, then maybe it’s a good thing we’ve come here. We have a chance to discover what’s happening , but you have to understand that your dream is just a confirmation of the conspiracies you’re already seeing.”

  I wanted to respond in anger, to lash out and tell him that he was wrong, but I was tired and uncertain. I let out a sigh and shrugged. “Perhaps, but I believe that this problem is much worse than we’re letting ourselves see. If we can find our way back, then we need to make sure this is addressed. You have to take this to the King.”

  “Let us try and deal with one problem at a time, Lillin. We have to find our way back first.” He refused to say he would help with this cause, and I was reminded that Arthos wasn’t really on my side in this. He might change his mind in the future, but for now Arthos was the King’s man.

  I sat up and leaned against the wall I was near. “You should get some sleep now. I’ll keep watch until morning.” I didn’t add that I wasn’t sure this place would have a morning. It looked just as dark outside as it had when I’d first gone to sleep. I wasn’t going to check, but I thought the sky would probably look exactly as it had then. Time wasn’t moving here. Nothing normal moved within the city of Prosper. It was a hive of nightmares.

  Arthos hesitated for a moment, but I just shook my head. “Sleep, it’s fine. I wouldn't be able to get anymore rest as I am now anyway.” The nightmares had shaken me. Ori was still haunting me, and it felt like I might turn my head and catch her in the shadows at any moment. For some reason, in this place, that didn’t seem completely impossible.

  Arthos gave in and laid down. I stood up and quietly walked the room as he drifted off to sleep. The windows were boarded, the doors locked, so there was nothing to see really, at least not beyond where we’d tucked away. There was a great deal to look at inside the room. The small space held the memory of a different life, one to which we only existed as intruders. I discovered a portrait in one of the rooms, a picture of a family, two parents and a baby. It wasn’t that large, or that well done, but it was hung proudly in a well traveled location. The people in the portrait were not exactly human like Arthos and I, but different than the man we’d met in the farm house beyond the mansion. They had long and pointed ears with features less angular than our kind. That made me think that this world had many different types of people. I’d never met anyone who wasn’t human back home. Well, Dreea was an exception to that, but I hadn’t even been aware that her people were people at all. We’d considered them animals, and not even necessarily real animals. They’d been legends to me until not long ago.

  For some reason looking at the portr
ait gave me a sense of normality and made me feel like things weren’t actually as far out of control as they seemed to be. The people looked happy, and it was clear this had been a prized possession for them, something they cherished as a family. I wondered how old it was, if all of the people in the picture were, or would have been, still alive had this tragedy not befallen them. It was hard to believe anyone was alive in this place now. It felt empty, devoid of life. We had seen lights upon approach, but now that we were here everything seemed dark and ominous.

  A dull red glow caught the corner of my line of sight and I swung my head around to face it. It was coming in under the shutters on the far side of the house. I moved slowly that way, creeping cautiously along the floor so as not to make a sound. The light shifted, moving to one side, and then off to the other, the strange shadows cast by the movement creeping across the room at the same pace the light traveled. The shadows shifted again, and then the light left the room. I remained tense, holding perfectly still, half of my weapon in one hand. I was standing next to Dreea so I leaned down closer to her.