“Urgh. Still too strong!” Malek gasped, then chuckled even as she put him down. “'Ware your strength, shieldsister. Were it anyone save me, you would have broken their ribs. And you most definitely need a shower, for all that your hair does smell of peppermint and thyme.”
“You're no fresh spring rose either, brother!” Jess teased even as she was swept into the weeping arms of her mother and sister.
Karine smiled, gazing at Jess and her family. “I am more grateful than words can say, dear Malek, to you and your shieldsister both. And as for being a black sheep, rest assured, no gossip anyone could bring to my ears would detract in the least from the fact that of your own free will, you helped to save my sister’s life and soul.”
She gently grasped Malek's hand, gazing into his eyes with solemn gratitude. “you will always be welcome here, on my lands, in my home.”
Malek bowed, strangely humbled. “Thank you, Lady Karine. I am most grateful to you.”
She grinned. “Though I would love to hear how you ended up with nothing but night pants and a rather large sword strapped to your back.”
Malek chuckled sheepishly. “Would you believe Jess pulled me through, into her dream?”
Karine blinked. “Such a thing is possible?”
“For Jess, of course!” Malek grinned. “She didn’t force me, I just looked at my curiously flickering mirror after laying down with my lover, and I saw Jess in a land of shattered rock and ill green skies pulsating like a terrible wound. I could tell she needed my help, so I grabbed my blade and she pulled me through. To be honest, I halfway thought I was dreaming, so it's not like I thought to stop and puzzle all the ramifications of my rashness. Still, I’m glad I decided to dive right in, so to speak.”
Karine nodded in warm approval. “The heart of a hero transcends the careful reasoning of a coward. You chose well, young knight.”
Malek could feel his face grow warm. “Thank you, Lady Karine.”
Karine's gaze was suddenly so focused Malek actually had to fight the urge to step back and bow before her, such was the sudden force of her regal aura. Like of a queen of old, he thought with a sudden chill. Much to his surprise, it was she who bowed low before him with deepest formality. “Dear Malek de Sousel, noble Delver who came to our family's aid in our hour of greatest need, it is I who thank you. May you always feel welcome within my Domain, so long as your heart is worthy of the man I now see before me.”
17
“By the gods, Jess. Don’t you do that to me again, ever!” Lady Agda de Calenbry cried, gazing at her daughter with big tearful eyes and a tender smile before holding her daughter to her fiercely. “Oh, my Jess. My poor little Jess.”
“She’s hardly little, mom,” Apple teased, getting a hug in herself. “But we were worried, Jess. Mother hardly slept for the last three days!”
“Neither did you, my youngest,” Agda declared with a smile, as the three held each other close.
“That’s okay, Mother. I needed the card practice, and you needed company.”
“I’m sorry I worried you both,” Jess said softly, holding back tears as she smiled and held her mother and sister close, feeling a fierce and tender familial love burn away some of the gleeful darkness she had embraced since the horrors she had experienced in the terrible tower. “It was a great adventure! But, hmm… I’m not sure if you want to hear it when I tell it to the bards.”
“Nonsense!” Agda declared. “I was there by your father’s side, holding him close when he recounted the horrors he had faced in the northern skirmishes. Please don’t fear for my tender heart, my beloved daughter. That you’re here, safe and whole, is all I need to assure me.”
Apple nodded. “There is no way I’m not hearing the details firsthand. Marza is not trumping me with more stupid tales about her brother!”
Jess gently kissed her sister's forehead even as she caught Karine's eye, the young queen regally flowing towards them, a dazed Onnika by her side, Malek tagging along almost like a puppy, gazing at Karine with odd reverence.
“I see you have made a strong impression on my shieldbrother,” Jess teased.
Karine laughed gently, even as she held her yawning sister close. “And a wonderful impression he has made on me, strong and true, and he has my deepest gratitude for battles fought on my family's behalf, as do you. But I have kept you both long enough. Come, my brave adventurers who have rescued my sister and helped save these lands from falling into Shadow, a feast in your honor awaits!”
Jess grinned. "It's almost like you knew we were coming." She winked and Karine laughed.
“Why the wink?” Malek asked.
“Because she did. Know we were coming. Since she’s connected with the land. I was making a joke.”
Malek smiled. “So I gathered.”
Apple rolled her eyes, gently dragging her sister to a great table overladen with roast pork, leg of lamb, meat pies, and fruit tarts among many other treats, a delicious feast of mouthwatering fare.
Twilight purred as he leaped into his mistress’s lap, butting her hands insistently. Jess chuckled indulgently. “Oh go on then, beloved one. Help yourself.”
Her familiar grinned, gracefully leaping onto the table. “Ooh. Fishies!” he declared happily as he spotted his objective, dipping first his head, then his whole body into a tureen full of delicately poached and perfectly seasoned whitefish.
Sudden gasps emanated from the aristocratic crowd who had been discretely waiting for the lady of the house and her champions to seat themselves before joining in the repast, when they caught sight of the oddly shaking fish tureen.
“Um… Jess? Is that what I think it is?” Apple whispered almost shyly.
Jess grinned at her sister. “If by that you are asking if my invisible cat dove headfirst into the tureen full of perfectly prepared fish and is feasting to his heart's content, then the answer is yes!”
Apple grinned even as their mother shook her head and sighed.
“But, Lady Jess!” protested a high-strung voice. “I saw no cat enter this room, let alone have the audacity to plunge headfirst into our repast!”
Jess glanced at the affronted lord, for some reason paling and stumbling back under her gaze, before turning back to her hostess. “You do get some slow ones wherever you go, I suppose.”
Karine hid her smile. “I suppose such could be true, Lady Jess.”
Apple glared at the flustered lord with scathing contempt. “Of course you don’t see him! what part of invisible don’t you understand?”
Malek chuckled warmly at this, exchanging a smile with his shieldsister even as he tore into a perfectly baked meat pie, sighing with happiness as the warm sweet juices flowed down his chin, barely noticing the seneschal who with exquisite expertise managed to dress him in a fine cotton shirt with minimally embroidered cuffs complimented by a rich burgundy vest, one arm at a time, even getting it around his massive scabbard. It was a feat that was as close to magic as any, all without slowing down the rate at which his charge devoured the food before him.
“When Malek decides he's going to eat, he doesn't let anything get in his way.” Apple almost sounded impressed, and Jess found herself grinning with pride for her hungry Malek, devouring his repast with a wolf's appetite. An analogy she thought strangely fitting, for all that she did her best to avoid meeting her own mother's gaze, afraid of what clues Agda, perceptive as she was, would no doubt infer of her own wayward daughter's rather dark transformations. Fangs. Her mother definitely didn't need to know about the fangs.
“Delicious! Absolutely delicious!” Declared a now fully dressed Malek, looking rather stylish in his elegantly cut attire, Jess thought, and Jess didn’t even want to think about how the poor seneschal had successfully gotten Malek’s fresh trousers on, seated and feasting he had been the whole time.
Jess turned to Karine. “Your steward would be worth a lot in the right hall.”
Karine turned to Jess. “You’re right. And I’m keeping him.” She w
inked and they both laughed.
It was then they turned to the sudden sounds of instruments, a sprightly tune being played, and Jess’s eye was caught by a man dressed in silken finery bowing low before her.
"Sir Evonlin, master bard at your service, Lady Jessica de Calenbry. May I say what a delight, a true delight it has been to read the tales of your exploits up to this point, and I would count it an honor, a singular honor, if you were to favor us tonight, regale us, if you will, with your wonderful adventure. To enrapture us with your tale of all the daring exploits that led to, by all accounts, not only the saving of this fair damsel, this precious icon of beauty before us, but indeed, the Turnsby Estates entire. All owing their blessed continuity to your noble heart, and sure resolve." His eyes twinkled a merry blue, well-muscled body filling out his finery perfectly. Jess could tell the man was both jesting with his flowery words, and yet utterly serious as well.
Jess found herself grinning happily. Her mother had said more than once that her sense of modesty was on par with her sense of pitch. It was a jest she had never quite understood, for all that Apple would burst into gentle laughter. For some reason it popped into her mind at that very moment. Perhaps because the musicians were playing their instruments with such dedication, for all that she was at a loss to make sense of the noise, with no drum beat to follow. Yet everyone looked to be in wonderful cheer, swaying their heads happily to the sounds, and Jess was all too happy to regale her rapt looking audience with the terrible and wondrous adventure she and Malek had just survived.
"Amazing! Absolutely phenomenal!" an aquiline-featured scribe whispered reverentially as he was busily transcribing Jess and Malek's alternating account of their heroic battle, and the final duel Jess had engaged in. "How many of those fell beasts did you say you had vanquished in those vast dark halls?"
Jess and Malek exchanged a look and then shrugged. "To be honest, it all sort of blended together after a while… it was, I don't know, at least a hundred, wouldn't you say, Malek?"
He nodded solemnly. "At least. Scores and scores of them. And it was a valiant battle! They were everywhere, but they couldn't get past our guard! Jess and I, we fought, not just as shieldbrothers, but as one. We each knew where the other was, and we always knew when our foe was even the slightest bit off-balance, or someone was attempting to sneak up on us. And every time their guard would go down, bam! We'd send another head rolling back to the Hells which spawned them!"
Malek cracked his fist upon the stout oaken table for emphasis and the nobles around them jumped. His bemused grin became apologetic as the great table cracked with the force of his blow. “Um, sorry about that, Lady Karine.”
“Think nothing of it, dear Malek,” She assured.
Jess nodded at Malek’s description even as she gently willed the table back to resiliency, eliciting not a few gasps and cries of wonder as the massive crack in the center of the table appeared to knit itself and disappear before their very eyes, Sir Evonlin alone fixing Jess with his intent gaze even as she silently apologized for her overenthusiastic companion. “We were fighting as one,” Jess solemnly concurred. “That was, until one of those mantis-like creatures stabbed Malek with a Spear of Sorrow. A dark artifact indeed.”
Malek shuddered. Jess sensed his remembered sickness and pain. “It was bad,” Malek concurred. “An ugly weapon, trying to grind its way into my heart. Fortunately, our foe’s ranks had been thinned enough that Jess and Twilight were able to finish them off without me, as I focused on survival.”
Jess nodded. “And with your mastery of the Red Arts, you were able to recover from what would otherwise have been a fatal blow!”
One of the scribes quirked his eyebrow. “Red Arts?”
“Blood magic.” Malek sighed. “All that blood, all that power from a hundred fallen foes, and me being slowly poisoned by a foul artifact of darkness. Fortunate I was that so many of our enemy's pawns had moved against us as one. All those fallen corpses, ripe with potency, gave me the power I needed to neutralize the death curse, and heal the wound.” He chuckled shakily. “Not something I want to repeat, though.”
“Dear gods, boy, what kind of fool were you? Going off to fight beasts of Hell near naked? No wonder you were wounded!” Came the voice of one half drunk noble, and Malek sighed even as others curtly told the unruly gentleman to kindly shut up.
“I wasn’t naked at the time, good sir. I was sheathed in mystic armor of a crimson nature that protected me from all blows, save that cursed artifact.”
“Ah,” nodded the master bard Evonlin. “And this too was due to your Red Arts, as you put it?”
Malek nodded. “Not here, though. Such a potent magic works best in realms of Shadow and death, for we certainly did not stride within the Dreamrealms that gentler tales speak of. Here it would tire a mage out very quickly, and I’m guessing I’m already stronger than most.” He chuckled wryly.
The master bard nodded at this, giving Malek an encouraging smile as the scribes wrote furiously and the pair continued to tell their tale.
“So, you traveled within realms closer to nightmare than gentlest dream, and after surviving your enemies' onslaught, you ascended to the top of the vile tower and threw the Spear of Sorrows at the portal protecting the diabolist and his infernal accomplices, and it somehow slew the door, and all its enchantments at once?” Evonlin asked sometime later, gaze raptly locked upon Jess’s animated features as she nodded.
"Absolutely! The way I see it, that complex a construct was as close to a simulacrum as makes no difference. And simulacra, as anyone who has ever fought a golem would know, can be killed. So, to my mind, it stood to reason that the door should be as killable as any other creature, mundane or enchanted, with the Spear of Sorrow. And wouldn’t you know, it worked? Of course, we also unleashed a hell of a lot of magic, and Malek and I were thrown crashing into the far wall. What a dent we made in it!” She laughed.
Evonlin shook his head in wonder. “Amazing! What happened next, Lady Jess?”
Jess gave Onnika a surreptitious glance. She was all but nodding asleep, under the careful gaze of her sister, slowly eating soup, giving Jess a weak smile before yawning.
"We found Onnika… captured. Restrained to a crystal slab by a… a very bad diabolist in counsel with Fallen lords of Hell, who wanted to use Onnika in a desperate bid for immortality, somehow consuming the youth of the innocent. The diabolist screamed at the demons to strike me down, but they thought it would be more amusing if one of their number faced one of ours in single combat, winner take the prize, the surviving losers leaving in peace. So, they chose their champion, I chose me, and together we wove our dance of death."
Her grin turned evil. “Guess who won?”
"By the gods! This chit claims to have dueled a lord of Hell? Blasphemy! Outrageous!" Came the hot whisper from down the great table.
The master bard stood up tall, expression transforming from gently attentive to utterly incensed, glaring down the great feasting table. “Who here dares to make his accusation public? Who would presume falsehood in something as sacred as the gift of a True Story? Told to a master bard, no less? Do you truly think me so inexperienced as to be unable to read a lie when uttered? Come now, cur. Show yourself, so that I may gaze into your eyes and see what truths you would dare to have me reveal!”
And the aristocratic crowd was suddenly quiet, the gentle bard, elegant and handsome, showing a fierceness to his nature altogether unexpected.
Malek shared a dark grin with Lady Agda, Jess saw. “And they finally wake up to just who they are talking to.”
Jess's mother gave a wry nod of her head, speaking in soft tones that did not carry. “You are a worthy shieldbrother, Malek. May you continue to guide my daughter through stormy waters she may not herself see so clearly.”
Jess blinked at her mother and shieldbrother in puzzlement, before it dawned on her exactly what Malek was getting at. Then it instantly made sense. Master Bard Evonlin came as a representative of
the Adventurer's Guild, one of the unspoken powers that influenced this, and many other lands, behind the scenes. This knowledge was rarely spoken of aloud, but everyone somehow knew that being on the wrong side of the Guild was to be avoided at all costs. For whatever reason, none chose to meet the eyes of the bard, focusing mostly on their food, or gazing intently at Jess, politely pretending they hadn't just been castigated by one who was technically of far lower rank than they.
It was then that a now rather distressed Onnika came to Jess’s defense. “I saw this happen! Are you going to call me a liar? When my tormentor gloated at what he’d do to me! Gloated at the agony he would cause me. And he did! He hurt me in ways that would make you cry for your daughter’s innocence. That would make you puke in sickness and sorrow. Wounds healed only be the grace of the woman before you, this paladin who swore to my sister to bring me back alive! For I heard the blasted skies of that twisted realm of nightmare rumble and crash with the promise of her words. I saw for the first time fear in the eyes of hideous beings straight from the deepest, blackest pits of Hell that would make you shriek just to gaze upon!”
A trembling Onnika stared down any lord who dared to meet her gaze. None did, for long. "I saw them! A dozen of those monstrosities! I saw them as they feasted upon the screaming souls of the poor families of servants we thought had left for better pastures, only to find them there, being devoured and tormented by creatures from Hell! Did any of you come for me when that…that monster laughed and taunted how he would rape me endlessly before sucking my life dry as my soul was torn free to be tormented by the monsters he served? No! Did any of you fight past a hundred hellish guardians to come to my salvation? No! So how dare you demean or belittle my paladin! How dare you slight the dangers she faced, the deeds of valor she performed that you couldn't even fathom! Fighting monsters that would send you shrieking to your graves!"
Heaving, the young woman thrust her finger outward, pointing at the pale-faced lord who had, in fact, been the cynical doubter in the bunch. "I saw the blow, Lord Killior! I saw Jessica de Calenbry's mithril blade plunge through that Fallen angel's chest, piercing his very heart! I heard it shriek and plead even as it withered to a shriveled husk before fading at last to dust and ash! I saw that monster with the face of an angel and the soul of the lowest demon in Hell fall to my heroes’ blade, and I will not hear you say a single word against her!”
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