by Joe Jackson
The injuries, however, were simply the result of an accident. What intrigued Kari and held her attention was her inability to explain the language she’d spoken, or why she had such a connection to the griffon. Though the words she’d spoken were not czarikk, she couldn’t help but suspect that it had come from the memories Sakkrass had imprinted upon her when he taught her the language and history of his peoples. She thought perhaps it was the dialect of another race the czarikk had dealings with – possibly even syrinthian – and Kari closed her eyes and prayed quietly to her adoptive father for some clarity while she rested. With the lucid dreams she had, she expected Sakkrass might give her some revelation within them.
She lay down on her good shoulder and closed her eyes, and she tried to explore the memories of her time among the czarikk and her fateful meeting with their deity’s avatar. Kari typically had little luck trying to read her own mind like a book, even though she knew Sakkrass had imprinted much of his peoples’ histories in her memories. They remained just out of her conscious reach, so she relaxed, trying to find the calm inner peace that would bring her to the realm of dreams more quickly.
Recalling her mental exercise with Triela on the Isle of Kirelia, Kari concentrated on her emotions. The thought of Sakkrass and the love she could feel in the simplest of his touches brought a lightness to her heart and a warmth to her blood. Her concentration was broken only slightly when sharp pains shot through her chest, and she settled into a more comfortable position to accommodate her cracked ribs and bruised shoulder. She settled down and her heart returned to its quiet, steady pulse, and she could practically feel the warm jungle night air play across her skin as she remembered the intimate dance she’d shared with the czarikk deity. The words of the czarikk flowed easily from her lips, their sibilant accent echoing in her ears as she mouthed Up from the roots we are Sakkrass’ seed; His love and blessing are all we need; We dance for him by stars and fire; To be his children to what we aspire.
Kari often wondered whether she imagined dancing with Sakkrass, or if he had appeared during her dance with his people and joined her in the ceremony. She remembered well the feel and smell of his scaly flesh as he held her tight to him in the midst of their dance, and she recalled everything he had said to her during that encounter. She substituted the words of his tongue in place of her own, for though he’d wielded some enchantment that let all in the area hear his words in their own native language, Kari wanted to confirm that she had not heard the words she’d spoken to Muireann before. She started to doze off while she performed the mental exercise, but she was positive that the words she’d spoken were not czarikk.
Her dreams were jumbled at first, but as she drifted softly into a deeper sleep, she once again began to see memories from the past. The first to come to her were more recent memories: she saw herself comforting Serenjols while Damansha lay wounded in the temple of Tigron; watched herself and Lord Allerius deliver the dog tags of a slain comrade to his widow; and then she remembered giving her pouch of coins to the widow in Barcon before she’d set out for Tsalbrin. Of particular interest was the memory of her sharing a rare beer and a warm blanket with Kris Jir’tana as they sat perched on a rocky cliff face, overlooking the coastal plains and the distant city of Sarchelete in the last days of the Apocalypse. They were pleasant memories, but in time they passed, and her unconscious mind delved deeper.
Memories of her previous life opened up to her, and Kari felt the strong grip of a warrior on her upper arm as she was dragged along one of the busier roads in the city of Solaris. She remembered this incident quite distinctly: she was fifteen years old and she’d just snatched a couple of apples from the cart of a fruit vendor. A human demonhunter named Mick Jacobs had chased her through what seemed like half the city before capturing her, and Kari had been as surprised that he’d been able to catch her as scared for having been captured. Virtually naked and ragged, Kari was dragged by the arm through the city and back toward the vendor’s cart as though by an angry parent instead of a law enforcement agent. It was the most embarrassing of Kari’s memories, and she wondered why Sakkrass seemed so interested in it, forcing her unconscious mind to relive it.
“Why do you keep stealing from this man’s cart?” Jacobs asked her evenly.
“Because I’m hungry!” she yelled back, defiant.
“This man sells fruit to support his family so they don’t go cold or hungry,” the demonhunter said, strangely calm and with no hint of anger or irritation in his expression. “Every time you steal from him, you’re hurting his family – do you think that’s all right just because you’re hungry? Do you think you’re more important than his family?”
“I take what I need so I don’t go cold or hungry,” Kari protested, trying to wrench her arm free. It was no use: Jacobs had the grip of a warrior and had her by the arm in the perfect place.
“So you think people should be able to just take whatever they want from each other, then? Do you want people taking things from you?” he asked evenly, and Kari froze up in terror. “Where’s your family at, girl?”
Kari didn’t respond immediately, still paralyzed by the fear that he might make good on his promise and take the only thing he could from her. Soon they reached the vendor’s cart, and though Kari was fixed with dozens of stares, Mick Jacobs’ was actually the softest of all of them, though still stern. “I don’t have a family,” she said meekly. “Please, it’s just a couple of pieces of fruit. Let me go, and I won’t bother Mr. Collins again.”
Jacobs removed his hand from her but kept her rooted to her spot with the strength of his gaze. “If everyone takes ‘just a couple of pieces of fruit,’ what’s going to be left for this man to sell?” he asked, his voice still calm and even, his expression stern but barely judgmental. Even the merchant seemed surprised by the demonhunter’s demeanor, but he kept his mouth closed and let the officer handle the situation. “I don’t know why you ran away from home, girl, but you can’t go around hurting other people to survive. That’s what thieves and animals do, and thieves end up missing hands or dangling from the end of a noose. Is that the end you want to meet? Hanged at your age over just a couple of pieces of fruit?”
Kari sniffled as her eyes watered. “I…no,” she said. “No, sir. But, I…I just…”
The demonhunter drew a platinum piece from his coin purse and placed it on Mr. Collins’ cart, which clearly surprised the merchant, but Jacobs kept his attention focused on the ragged young woman before him. “I’m going to clear your debt to this man, girl, but you’d better clean up your life and make some use of yourself. My job is to protect our people from demons, not from each other. Maybe the next time you think about stealing from someone, you should ask yourself if you want to be like the demons,” he said, and then he turned to the merchant. “This coin will cover whatever she’s stolen from you in the past?”
“Yes, officer; thank you,” the merchant answered gratefully.
“So, what’ll it be, girl?” Jacobs asked as he turned back to Kari. “Do you want to be like the demons, or would you rather be like the people who fight them?”
She remembered well staring at the dirt street, filled with shame by the example the demonhunter made of her in public. “The people who fight them, sir,” she said meekly.
Jacobs’ expression changed to a lopsided smile, as might befit a father whose child has just done something stupid, but that they learned a lesson from. “Come along, then; let’s get you a bath and some better clothes, and maybe you’ll be fit to find some honest work,” he said. He took her arm much more gently than he had the first time and led her toward a nearby inn.
It was both a pleasant and painful memory, but as Kari continued through it, she heard the words ‘the people who fight them’ echo in her mind. She saw the calligraphy of the czarikk spell out those very words in her mind’s eye, and Kari’s subconscious realized that Sakkrass was trying to tell her something. At first she wasn’t sure what she was seeing or what to make of it, bu
t then her encounter with Sakkrass replayed through her mind again, and she remembered the scars he bore even as a deity. The words ‘the people who fight them’ echoed one more time in both her tongue and the czarikk language, and then Kari watched Sakkrass walk naked through the village of his people on Tsalbrin.
Sakkrass stepped out of the village and into the jungle, but the brush and the thick trees of the deep woods soon gave way to arid, grassy plains. Sakkrass was no longer naked: he was wrapped in an exquisite white and gold skirt with a golden metal and leather harness wrapped about his chest. His scales had changed color as well, from the deep forest green Kari had seen upon his avatar to a patterned gold, bronze, and black, like a desert reptile. In one hand he gripped a jeweled golden scepter, and in the other a war spear. Kari watched him walk amongst similarly-colored czarikk battling all too familiar enemies: mallasti, elestram, and erestram soldiers. Blood oozed forth from the places where Sakkrass bore scars, but he never slowed his walk; he let forth battle cries that his czarikk people repeated, but he moved on.
The arid grasses soon gave way to desert sands, and he passed among more of the desert-colored czarikk fighting the minions of the underworld. Again he let forth battle cries to spur them on, and blood continued to drip from his scars, sullying his garments. A pyramid rose from the sands, and Sakkrass walked up its intricately-cut staircase until he reached the pinnacle. Kari beheld the god of the czarikk standing upon what she assumed was a throne of sorts to him, and he raised his arms so that the sun appeared to sit within his outstretched hands. The mallasti, elestram, and erestram burned away, but more took their places, and the horizon fell to darkness in all directions.
Sakkrass walked off the top of the pyramid but he did not fall. He stepped into the heavens and walked among the stars, passing through the empty places between worlds that Kari had only dreamed of when she heard stories. In the heavens there was a great shining star, and Sakkrass stretched forth his hand to take hold of it. Once he touched it, there were whispers in the deep nether regions of space, each a distinct voice in its own language. He listened to them for a time, but did not speak in return. One in particular repeated its whisper over and over, and Sakkrass finally answered it in kind; it was the language Kari had spoken to Muireann without understanding or recognizing.
From the void, Sakkrass stepped into the light of a sun, and then he stood within the white marbled halls of a pristine mountain temple. Before him stood a bird-man with beautiful plumage that was mostly black and brown, but had blue and tan bands like certain types of hawk. His eyes were black but surrounded by a thick ring of blue, and they were full of respect and wisdom as he stood before Sakkrass. The bird-man was humanoid but had a set of wings as well, and his bent legs ended in wide, powerful talons. He wore metallic armor, an efficient set designed to protect his vitals while still allowing him to fly, and he leaned on an intricately-runed golden spear not all that different from Sakkrass’ own.
Sakkrass spoke with the bird-man, though Kari couldn’t understand anything that was said between them until she heard the words, “wetayu, teylu migash naraat” and the two clasped each other’s forearms. She understood then that Sakkrass was greeting the bird-man as a brother in whatever language the avian creature spoke. It was strange that she was able to remember those words when she greeted the griffon, but that she couldn’t recall the memories themselves at the time. It was even stranger that she could speak a language she didn’t know or understand. She smiled in her dream at the memory, but Kari woke up suddenly when Sakkrass turned to her and his face shifted into that of a hooded king cobra.
Kari sat upright even before she was conscious of doing so, and she grabbed the hilts of her swords. She expected to find the succubus standing in her room once again. Based on the dream, she was sure that the succubus was trying to manipulate her thoughts and make Sakkrass out to be Sekassus, or to suggest that the two were somehow one and the same creature. Her breathing and heartbeat slowed when she saw there was no one in the room, and the symbol of Zalkar was not glowing. A light knock on the door drew her attention.
“Kari, are you awake?” Sherman asked from the hallway.
Kari took a few moments to compose herself before she invited him in, and the young human stepped inside with another human in tow. The other was a middle-aged man with short hair and pale eyes, and he came in and introduced himself as the Earl’s personal physician. Sherman left the room to give Kari her privacy while the physician inspected her. Kari sat up fully and was surprised to find that the wounds already hurt a great deal less than they had before she’d taken a nap. She was able to get to a sitting position with little trouble, and her breathing was easier. She was still naked when she sat up, but she kept the blankets over her lower body while the physician inspected her injuries.
He felt her ribs with his fingertips first, and then poked and prodded them when he received no hissing protests of pain. “I was led to believe these injuries were far worse,” he offered quietly, touching the tender flesh of Kari’s shoulder. He gripped it tightly and a bit uncomfortably, trying to gauge whether it was sitting properly in the socket.
“They would’ve been, if I didn’t have wings and hadn’t slowed my fall a bit,” Kari returned.
The physician continued to inspect her. He asked her to take several deep breaths and report if she felt any pain or tasted any blood on her breath, but Kari experienced neither. Her ribs already felt fine, and when she looked at her shoulder, she could see that the bruise looked much older than it was, as though it was already well on the mend. She looked to the human for an explanation, but he seemed to be waiting for her to give him one instead, to which she could only shrug. Kari was just as puzzled as the doctor; her healing magic was fairly weak, mostly used to stanch bleeds or help start the knitting of broken bones. For her magic to have healed her so thoroughly was definitely odd, since the damage was of a type that even the paladins’ training would have been little use in healing.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had some guardian demon blood in you,” the physician concluded. “They’re the only kind of people I’ve ever met that heal this fast. You’re certain these injuries were from this morning?”
“Assuming I haven’t been asleep for a few days, yes,” she answered.
“Fascinating. Well, I wish you good health, and do be more careful,” the human said. “I suspect these wounds will be but a memory in a couple days’ time. Just be sure to get plenty of rest, and...try not to fall off any more griffons.”
Kari chuckled and bid the doctor farewell. Once the physician left, Kari got dressed and walked to the inner paddock with Sherman. He was just as surprised by how quickly her injuries were healing, and he was glad to hear that their plans would not be delayed because of the accident. When they reached the inner paddock, Charles was riding one of the other griffons around, calling out instructions, and pointing out some of the things he was doing for Eli’s benefit. The half-corlyps watched the elder human ride the griffon, and Eli nodded every so often as Charles continued to give him instructions. Eli looked a bit bored, but his expression changed considerably when Kari and Sherman approached. He came over to meet them.
“Feeling better? That was a hell of a tumble you took off of that thing,” Eli said.
“They’re not things!” Charles called irritably, approaching on griffon-back.
“Someone must be looking out for me. I’m healing really fast, from what the physician said,” Kari answered, and she rolled her shoulder and stretched her left side to demonstrate, hardly feeling any pain at all. “Ready to get back on Muireann and take some actual lessons so I can stay in the saddle next time.”
Charles chuckled. “Ye’ve got spirit, ma’am, there’s no denying that,” he said. “Unless Master Sherman has any objections, we’ll get ye back in the saddle right away.”
“I’ve no objections,” Sherman said. “Not that I think it would matter if I did.”
Kari chuckled again
and beheld Eli’s curious stare. He was clearly wondering about her, and she figured if he asked her about what she assumed he was thinking, she wouldn’t have any real answers for him anyway. It was possible that Sakkrass had somehow healed her through her dreams, but even if that was the case, she didn’t know how to explain that to her friends. Her relationship with Sakkrass was something she was still exploring and defining, and there was a certain part of her that wanted to keep it to herself. In the end, it didn’t matter: both Sherman and Eli turned out to be too polite to press her on the issue. Instead, she followed Charles as he dismounted to lead her back to Muireann’s stall.
Chapter IX – Mandar-Czar
It took only a couple of days to get Eli proficient enough to fly to Barcon. His mount, Dougal, was very well-trained and needed little direction from a rider to get them to their destination. With Muireann flying with him, it took that much more responsibility from Eli’s shoulders. During those two days, Kari bonded even more with Muireann, and she continued to astound Charles with her proficiency. Fortunately there were no more mishaps, and even in those short two days, her injuries healed completely. Eli still didn’t press her on it, satisfied that she was well and that her mission would continue as planned. Kari received no more clarity from Sakkrass whether it had indeed been him who healed her, and the lucid dreams did not return during those days.
Markus flew ahead with Sherman and Katarina, taking a few days’ head start so they would already be in Barcon and enacting Kari’s plan when she and Eli arrived. The Earl assured Kari that arriving in Barcon on griffons wouldn’t be at all unusual for them, and that Earl Southwick likely wouldn’t make any dangerous connection between Markus’ arrival and Kari’s own, even if they both arrived on griffons. Markus’ family was well-known for lending the wings of their magnificent mounts to needy parties, and he assured Kari that a demonhunter asking for a griffon to get her speedily to those in need would arouse little, if any, suspicion.
