Please respect other members. Please do not post links or information about hacking/warez/cheats.
Read the rules of these forums as we rarely warn before banning. Lost or need RSS check the forum map.
Right, here is the first chapter that isn't in TDL. It begins one of the more improbable crossovers ever.
Chapter 20
When the Viz-jaq'tar were assembled from the shattered remnant of the Vizerji mage clans, they took the whole of the mage's knowledge, of magic, of alchemy, of history, of prophecy. When the greatest of those clans' leaders journeyed to Tristram, with the Rogues, with the nameless warriors and quiet monks, the assassins followed a shadow's breath behind, waiting to slay any who were too weak to resist Diablo's corruption. During the time of peace before this new, dark disaster, we roamed Sanctuary, assuring that no magician thought himself above the laws of man. With our duties, we brought legend, myth, confusion, contradiction, all as effective as refracting armor for cloaking ourselves in secrecy. We learned, we absorbed, we calculated and prepared. There was no secret library, no sanctum sanctorum, no family crypt that one of us had not entered, searched, recorded, and abandoned to its dusty sleep.
These hundreds of years of training and wisdom, had been filtered, refined, purified, and then forced, beaten, and pushed into our heads. But in all my time as an Assassin, in the decades I had spent in their service, I had not once heard of the mythos Akara conveyed to me. Perhaps it was that the wandering Rogues that the Vizerji of old encountered lacked the more formal and ritual education of their monastery-clinging Sisters. I ventured that the story Akara told me had been told to her but once by the Sister who pressed her into service and that I was the first outsider to hear its reiteration. A dubious honor.
I racked my brain as I sat, wrapped in the motley of the Priestess' linens, and attempted to process the story further. The tale of the Rogues was a simple one until now. A group of women warriors came together, found religion, and built a large pile of rocks to prove that they were as ridiculous, single-minded, and powerful as any other group of warriors. That their pile of rocks sat on top of the homes of a few thousand people wasn't their problem; the Eye guided them here, the Eye can't be wrong. It was a pattern we'd seen many times, with the Zan Easu, with the Zakarum, even with the Vizerji; influential people would band together and, in the name of righteousness, do something. The Rogues just happened to be some of the earliest to succumb to this particular brand of self-importance. In their literature, though, as in the stories and fractured campfire musings of a few other tribes, there was mention of the other races. Of peoples tall, fair, and unending, like the Master of Shadows, of animals that walked as humans, as the Cat peoples of the desert do now. What happened to these people is unknown; we lack even the shards of a skeleton. But as any good assassin knows, even the cleanest execution leaves some trace...
Paige entered with an apologetic grin, bearing a small bowl of soup. My arms and wrists, punctured and brutalized both from the warring and from the subsequent treatment, were still of little use and would remain so for a few more hours. I flipped a flaccid limb at her, "I seem to be as a nervous husband on his nuptial bed." She snickered and knelt down next to me, bringing the thin liquid to my lips. I greedily sucked it down, dispelling the aching thirst that comes after a bleed. She took it away for a moment, allowing me to catch my breath, and then allowed me to finish the food. "Thank you," I said, using my shoulder to wipe off my face. She plopped down cross-legged and stared at me.
"I don't know what to make of you, Assassin. One moment, you are cool and professional, the next jovial and relaxed, the next irrational and deadly. Is this normal?"
I sighed and idly tried to flex my right hand. "No, it isn't." My fingers wouldn't bend more than a few degrees. "Paige, while we were out there yesterday, I saw something. A vision. Its elements I have seen now two other times." I scanned my palm for scar tissue and found none. "Not even Kashya knows that I've been...seeing things." I tried clenching a fist.
"The sphere..." she volunteered. I dropped my hand and looked at her in wonder.
"You..."
"Oh, yes, in the fog. I could have sworn I saw a little black ball, like a rotted egg, rolling around at my toes. But I called on the great Eye to see the truth and it vanished." She inflected her head a little and then, embarrassed, stared at the floor. She was shy about her religion and I could see, now, that the roots of the Sisterhood ran thick and strong into her heart. A small flash of worry touched my mind as she looked away. "I know it must sound..."
I cut her off. "It sounds correct. I too saw the sphere, but was led astray. When it had brought me far enough, it turned into a horrific vision, the Monastery, oozing with corruption, having taken hold of you as well."
She kept her eyes on the ground and fidgeted slightly. "I believe there is great danger for you there, my young companion, and I wonder of the wisdom of keeping you with me."
She almost fell into my lap, petrified, pleading "Please, don't leave me behind. If I stay here, they'll make me go out on patrol, and no one comes back from those. At least with you," she stammered for a moment, "At least...I have a chance."
"And you say this," I asked softly, "though you have seen me fail many times, though you have incurred serious wounds at my side, though you have touched the world beyond because of my carelessness."
"I am not afraid," she cried and then rocked back, crying. "I'm not..." Then, she ran out of the tent
I sighed and nearly fell back again. Sitting was rapidly becoming a burden without some sort of support. Paige's outburst, like a hurricane during a midsummer swim, was troubling. I opened my mind and searched the encampment. She was sitting with a small group, being comforted; they would probably do a better job of that than I would. Instead, I called Kashya to me. <Kashya, a word with you> I felt her leave the side of Akara and a massive...blue force. That must be the barbarian. I didn't have time to probe him further as Kashya entered the tent.
"You. Sit." I ordered. She looked down on me with a strange look, one of confusion, defiance, amusement, all in a single raised eyebrow. I sighed again. I gathered as much command and venom as I could in a practically helpless, unarmored and unweaponed state. "I said SIT." She complied, in spite of herself. Learning the word of command from our Mistress of Traps was a great help in these situations.
"Blood Raven," I said to her, and she almost got up and left. I forced up a small mental barrier around her. <I know you can walk through this, ignore me, ignore my questions, but do you really want that?> She reseated herself and I finally lay back, exhausted from that effort. "She was your beloved, correct? Why didn't you tell me this?" To my surprise, she stretched out next to me, so she could stare at me, through me. She took my hand and clenched it in a crushing grip.
"The woman I loved," she hissed, "died long before you came to this encampment. What you did was a formality." Her eyes were cold and dry, her voice filled with a loathing only love could accomplish. She kissed me hard, biting down on my lip enough to draw sudden blood. I let out a muffled yelp and tried to draw back, but her hand held me fast. She finally pulled away and unfurled to standing, wiping my blood from her mouth. "Never mention that name in my presence again. This is the last we speak of it." She glanced down at my tousled form. "Prepare yourself, little Assassin. The barbarian wishes to speak to you."
She flipped open the tent and stormed out, leaving me there to wonder what in the name of the dragon was going on. Crying assistants, vicious commanders, strange and distant priestesses. It seemed I couldn't do anything right today.
I lamely tried to roll myself into the blankets, to no avail. Either I would meet my new ally in a state of partial undress, or I would need some help. <Paige> I sent. <I need your assistance.> I felt a surge of defiance, but then a wave of complacency as she came to me.
"Yes?" she asked, glancing outside to her friends, still shaken by...whatever it was that was eating at her.
"Can you, well," She went wide-eyed when she realized I wasn't clothed and blushed, turning away again. "Come on, Paige, stop with this strange modesty. I'm sure you've seen plenty of women naked." I watched as the tips of her ears turned even redder. She knelt, still not meeting my gaze, and worked one arm under my back, easing me to sitting. She took one of the blankets and wrapped it around me, making sure that the folds draped to cover most of my skin. Confident that the garment wouldn't fall off, she sat back on her heels, preparing to leave. "No, wait, stay." I said. "As my assistant, you need to hear whatever he and I discuss and," I smiled slightly, "I have no way of knowing whether I can stay upright or not. I don't fall flat on my back for every stranger I meet." She snickered and relaxed considerably.
A massive shadow darkened the tent as Paige positioned herself next to me, supporting my back with her shoulder. The tent flaps opened and a huge braid, followed by a tree-trunk body, bent itself into the tiny tent. The Barbarian's thick and mighty form all but filled the little space in the tent and he knelt in order to avoid upsetting the whole setup with his head. His skin glowed with outdoor hardiness coupled with the Highlander's cultivated resistances, an impressive sight even when he was at rest. He kept his head down, the warrior-lock glimmering down his back with silver flecks and faint ebony sheen, winding its way past literally thousands of scars and markings. Out of armor, I could see the intricate woven-work of his tribal dress, and tried to reference the pattern back to the many noble families of the North, attempting to remember whether that thin blue band indicated a mother who died at birth or a brother lost in battle. This was no mere recruit that the children of Bul Kathos had sent to the Rogues. This was a veteran.
"Lady," he said from his crouch, in what I guessed was the softest voice he could create. It still felt like thunder rolling across an empty plain, shaking the trees with invisible force, and I found myself shivering slightly. The address was a formal one, a term not used towards me in many years. I puzzled for a moment, trying to determine which ceremony he was invoking, or whether it was used in deference to my clan, and lightly skimmed his mind with the faintest glimmer of search. He perhaps took my silence as a dismissal, for he nodded grimly and went to back out of the tent. I finally figured out what I was doing and what he expected. I gingerly extended an arm.
"Old Man, wait." He stopped and looked up at the honorific. (Warrior races are not known for their longevity, as constant battle requires constant blood. An old man with many battle scars shows a fierce and skilled warrior, able to withstand many fights without being foolish enough to get himself killed. Hence, Old Man.) The appellation Lady...is a story for another time. I gazed into the tanned, lined face, dark brown eyes likely as keen as those of the rogue who supported my weight, and watched the slight trace of apprehension slip away. He reached out a shield-sized hand and took my own. I expected to have the bones of my fingers shattered in his grip, but he controlled his strength with practiced ease.
"Look," was all he said, giving me leave to probe his mind and body if I so chose. A smart man indeed, to know that I might have searched his soul even if he refused.
"Unnecessary." I responded, though I did drop a slight layer of mental protection to look at him. As I guessed, a higher born warrior, well trained, but...something was off, was wrong. There was a taint to the aura that I couldn't place well in my exhausted state.
He smiled, a mouth of shattered and half-broken teeth filed to points . "We leave tomorrow." He dropped my hand and gingerly crept out of the tent in an unusually graceful movement for a body that large.
"All right, Paige. That's enough." She looked at me oddly.
"That's it? You don't trust anyone in the camp, and you've been here over two weeks, but an eight word conversation and he's our ally. Did I miss something?" I had her ease me back to a supine position before answering.
"How many Amazons have you met?"
"What does that-."
"Answer me." She rolled her eyes and wiggled her fingers as she thought.
"Well, there was that small army that came through about..." she shrugged, "six months ago, maybe?"
"Mmhmm. How about necromancers...do you know what those are?"
She made a face like a child seeing a squished bug and I nearly laughed aloud, "Necromancers are those guys that take dead people and-"
I cut her off, preferring not to hear the local tales of Rathma's preference for rot-moist corpses over the warm flesh of potential consorts.
She pursed her lips and glared expectantly at me. "Okay, Paige, how many Assassins have you met in your little, sheltered life?" I teased her.
She ducked her head away and said, "You're the only one."
"And what did you know about the Viz-jaq'taar before I showed up here." She mumbled something that sounded like shadows and killers. "Yep, that's what I thought. Now, the Barbarians are even more isolated than the Rogues. Whatever information gets to their snow-covered hovel has been filtered through so many unlearned and superstitious tongues that the average Assassin is probably somewhere on the level of a myth or a brutal demigod. I'm surprised that he agreed to meet with me at all." I let my words sink in, but when understanding failed to come to Paige's eyes, I spoke to her again. "He's terrified of me. He'll fight alongside us because he's less afraid of the demons out there than he is of my rank."
Paige wrinkled her forehead in disbelief. "You're not that scary."
I smiled at her, "You'd be surprised. Now, I can't sleep in here. I need to get outside to one of the tents. Can you help me up?" Taking my jumble of blankets with her, we slowly began to ease me out of the tent opening into the night air.
After about three steps, the vertigo was too much. I felt like I was gazing through a tiny arrow-slit at the world, like my ears had been stuffed with wool. I thought I heard someone call my name, but a cacophony of buzzing and bell ringing overwhelmed all other sounds. I felt like I was tumbling end over end in a dark place, my sense of self...
I was slapped back to reality with a burst of foul smelling herbs. I lay in the middle of the camp, Paige on one side of me, Akara on the other, holding a vial. I groaned and nearly vomited from the stench. "Once more," the crone whispered and waved the liquid under my face. My alertness returned, though not my strength.
"I need sleep, now, if I want to be on my feet again tomorrow." The women nodded and went to call one of the larger Sisters to my side. Instead, the Barbarian came from his position at the campfire and indicated that he would move me to a sleeping place. I was lifted like unknotted twine and swept gently into Kashya's tent, much to both of our surprises. He seemed clearly pleased with himself; after all, he'd just seen a demon-goddess faint like a breeding sow villager in front of him. Well, so much for the plan of fear as motivation. "Good night, old man," I told him, bidding him leave me to sleep.
"Good night, young Lady," he said, with an air both grave and teasing. I gave him a look that otherwise would have carried a full mental blast, but that only poked him in the forehead. He let out a burst of laughter and went outside. I looked at Kashya, who rolled her eyes in annoyance and set about making herself a bed on the floor so that I could use the flimsy cot as a resting place for the night. Her grumbling and unconcealed hostility were the last things I remembered before I passed out.
Location: In your mirror! Go ahead, take a look, twin!
Posts: 57
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anyee
Right, here is the first chapter that isn't in TDL. It begins one of the more improbable crossovers ever.
No, that would be a crossover between Diablo II and The Flintstones. No, wait, Simpsons would be better; I can just picture An'yee going "I'll have a cow if I bloody well want to!"
By the way, these are just a formality. Coming soon...the first new chapters of fulcrum in a very long time.
Chapter 21
Kashya's sigh of exhaustion as she shifted on the floor awoke me from the flimsy sleep I'd gathered over the past hours. My injuries pulsed and burned uncomfortably, forcing me to change position every few moments. That, plus the nagging worries about my own mental state and its effects on my performance, made the gift of slumber in short supply. I rolled over slightly to gaze down at her, wondering how long she'd lain in the dark with us.
<What,> she asked me, sending the words into my brain so as not to wake Paige. <Long watch,> I queried.
<Yes, but a quiet one,> she responded.
<That's good, then.>
<No, it's not. Gira's not returned.>
<Gira's the one who disappeared after the attack?> I'd not known her name until this point. Gira, last of her kind, last of the veteran warriors...save Kashya.
<Correct. At first we figured her grief had driven her to avenge her partner, but she should have returned by now. Or we should have found her body. But we have found only death.> I remembered what Paige told me, of the search parties lost in the pursuit of their comrade. "I'm sorry," I whispered, the slight noise causing Paige to stir in a restless haze.
Kashya looked up at me with empty eyes and motioned that we should leave the tent. She helped me ease off the cot and wrapped me in one of her blankets. She guided me out into the flickering torchlight of the camp. The barbarian's strange form blocked the firelight as he heaved each breath like the moving of a mountain. We moved by him, to the banks of the river, to what had become my favorite place of mediation. She brought me slowly to sitting and we both gazed tiredly at the constant rush of water. "I cannot close my eyes but see Gira's face as she walked away from the body of Elyhaim. It was Ravenna's face. It was my face. I envy these girls who call themselves soldiers; they know not love enough to lose it." She exhaled slowly. "Ravenna, the creature you knew as Blood Raven." I froze for a moment and she touched my hand. "No, it's okay; you deserve to know this. I was too conscious of old ghosts before, but I've had some time to think. Six hours alone on a barricade has many calming effects" I nodded, but she lapsed into silence, musing. She started several times, but halted herself. Finally, in the most gentle tone I'd ever heard from the captain, she began.
"Ravenna was...everything I had. We were bound, as tightly as our hearts would allow. But there is no place for such things when you live as a nomad. I came back from a two years journey to find she had taken another, Maia, in my absence. In her defense, Ravenna had believed me killed, and I, for my part, was closer to dead than living when I returned. Her coupled happiness was too much for me to bear; I volunteered to accompany a Vizjerei emissary back to his homeland, to conference with his kin about the strange sickness that had overtaken Khanduras."
I stopped her story. "A Rogue and a mage? Why such a strange pairing?" As if by way of an answer, she raised her hands over her head and muttered words I knew very well, though the tongue now pronouncing them was far from practiced. A ball of flame shot from her palms and lit the grass on the far bank before sputtering out into the muck. Anger and surprise leapt into my chest. "If I had my claws, Kashya, you would be a blade's edge from death. You are not to practice such magics as those. Paige herself said that the Rogues are forbidden to use elemental forces because of the corruption they can spread. Tristram..."
"...Tristram was a lesson written the blood of my Sisters. Wounds do not become infected when they are kept clean; it is only the filth of combat that brings the putrefaction of the flesh. So too, our magics were no danger to us when the land was inviolate. We knew something was changing, but to what extent we could not grasp. All the mage clans knew as well, but only the Vizjerei were willing to seek out the source of the corruption. They came to us, before the fall of Leoric and his brethren, for aid in discovering the cause of the almost negligible taint. We assented and an alliance was made. I trained while I was with the mages, well enough to know the perils of magic; I apologize for its casual use. Do you still wish to kill me?"
I shook my head, slowly. "My own clan comes from the line of Horazon and Bartuc. I have no right to judge the past, only the present."
She stood up as if to leave, but instead stretched herself up to full height before sitting back down. Her tone hardened, "We had only studied for a few months when I received word from my homeland. My Sisters had been attacked by the Riders of Arazon, that the Monastery's walls had held but that our casualties were many and our force dwindling. I rode from the land of the mages to a blackened ruin. I thought I came to battle our enemies, but instead I came to bury our dead. For the fight had ended a few days before I arrived, a victory for the Rogues that came at an overwhelming cost of life. Never had I seen such destruction..."
"I know the Riders well," I murmured, "They are merciless and give no quarter to even innocents where the taint of magic is concerned. They kill the body to cleanse the sickness."
Kashya's seemed not to hear, lost in the story she told. "We were decimated, though almost every Rogue wanderer had come to defend our homeland. My lateness made no difference, for as much as I wished to believe otherwise, I most likely would have ended up a corpse for my Sisters to bury. All but four of the women I had trained with were killed, and this out of a legion of two hundred Sisters. I found Ravenna grieving over the body of Maia, any anger she might have had over my cowardice washed away by her joy at seeing me alive. What choice did I have? I helped her entomb her lover in the graveyard beyond the moor and I found myself at Ravenna's side once again. It was the least I could do."
I watched her troubled face scan the horizon, as if she saw the scene unfolding before her eyes.
"We lived in the shadow of our love, my guilt over replacing Maia mingling uncomfortably with her guilt over her betrayal. It was an uneasy pairing, but it was the best solution to our problems. I became captain of the Rogues and I settled into a routine of fighting and preparation, coming home every day to her drawn, tired face and trembling hands. Then, Tristram. Everything..."
She leaned her hands on her knees. "You probably are sick of this story already. Who wants to hear about..."
"I am listening because you need to tell it. Let me hear the rest."
"The fall of the Kingdom had been long in coming; it was not an if, but a when. Still, we expected it to happen later rather than sooner and were ill-equipped to send troops to combat the evils springing unchecked in the land. When the Vizjerei came to request our aid, we could spare only a handful of recruits and five veterans."
"Gira, Ravenna, Elyhaim, yourself and someone else," I ventured.
"Kaya the Red, we called her, because of her hair. Or, as we came to know her, Kaya the Red Vex. She was the first to fall under Diablo's spell and helped to give me that scar you liked so much." A bitter smile played at her lips.
"So what does this have to do with Blood Raven, with why Gira's out in the wilderness, probably killing your scouts?" She flinched at the name of her former lover, but carried on.
"Tristram was a bloodbath," Kashya's voice raised with ire and scorn, then settled down again, "even with the assistance of the mages and the warriors of the south. I lost most of my soldiers in the first few days, killed by creatures not seen on this earth for centuries. As the remnants of our band moved forward, our weapons lost their power to harm these monstrosities and we were forced to depend on our magic. Replenishing our energy from the earth around us was like breathing poison and it became rapidly apparent how potent this taint was. The mages succumbed quickly once we reached the depths of the caves, turning on us as the foul power of the demons overtook their minds. They resisted as long as they could, but depending on the hellspawns' energy for their spellcr-"
"How is that possible," I asked sharply, "The Vijzerei do not draw on demonic magics. Horazon and Bartuc taught them as much." There had been no reports out of Tristram about the presence of mages, save that none had returned to tell the tale.
"They were desperate. We all were, wandering in the endless darkness, the tortured screams of villagers echoing in every corridor, the labyrinth that wound its way into nothing. We were fighting in the antechambers of Hell; I have seen things that haunt my dreams, and I did not even reach Diablo himself. The mages heard the endless whispers of the damned and the promises of Lazarus in their sleep, the mocking of the demons that could resist the mages' holy magic. Most of the Vizjerei convinced themselves that they could handle drawing from a tainted source or that they, unlike their predecessors, could channel dark energy to a positive end; once again, they were wrong. Kaya was early among the lost, for by all rights she should have been of the Zann Esau. For the whole of our trip, she rarely unshouldered her bow, preferring to cast relentless fire and lightening at our enemies, and thus leaving her open to the corruption. She slipped away one night, betrayed us to Lazarus. I recall her behavior now, before that crucial point, as strange and dark...but at the time we were all so addled by the haze of evil that nothing was unusual."
"So Ravenna and the others were also contaminated?"
Kashya shook her head. "No, actually. Save Kaya, we were not primarily magic users, though I suppose in the end those who faced Diablo used whatever was at their fingertips to kill him. Remember, I had fallen before the battle, to Lazarus, so I do not know and they never spoke of it."
"Then what happened?"
"Diablo is the Lord of Terror. He used whatever he could glean from the minds of the fighters to weaken their resolve, to cause them fear and doubt. Ravenna came out of that battle a shell of her already hollowed self, convinced somehow that Diablo had taken Maia with him to Hell. Nevermind that Maia had died years before and had committed no sin worthy of such punishment, nor that Diablo could conjure any manner of lie to achieve his victory. It became a sickness, an obsession, and I watched her tear herself to pieces for months, fading more and more into a hopelessness I could not reach. Every night, she called Maia's name, sleepwalking around our barracks, pounding on the walls and attacking whomever came near. She spent her days pouring over esoteric texts, praying and cleansing herself to try to assure her lover's safety in the halls of the Light. I have never seen such fervent nor such terrified devotion."
Kashya shuddered a long breath; I could see her crying in the beginnings of the dawn. "When Andariel attacked the Monastery, it got worse. The Sisterhood knew that we could not hold off against the forces of Darkness, but we tried. Once again, Hell vomited its inhabitants into the mortal realm, making us fight against monstrosities that should not exist. The constant visual reminders of the battles below Tristram wore heavily on all four of us. Elyhaim stopped talking, Gira did not sleep for a week, Ravenna turned to mortifying her flesh in her rituals, and I..." She trailed off, once more, and restarted again.
"Well, it soon became apparent how badly we were losing. Akara ordered us to retreat to this Encampment, which all of us did, reluctantly fleeing our ancestral home. But Ravenna disappeared. We thought her dead and mourned the passing in the scant seconds between battles. So imagine our surprise when she came back, quiet and calm as I'd known her before Tristram. She didn't say much to anyone, just told me she loved me and collapsed in our tent, sleeping soundly for the first time in months, finally at peace. The next morning, she was gone again, returning at evening filthy and bloody, but again, unperturbed by her state. She smiled at me, told me she'd found her answers, and again, went to sleep. She repeated this for three more days, always claiming she was out hunting demons, and bringing home enough pelts to more than confirm her tales. I wanted to believe her, to think that Diablo had released his hold on her troubled spirit, that she'd finally come back to me."
"You couldn't, could you?"
"No, I couldn't. Looking into the eyes of my still-tormented companions, I knew that the presence of the dark one was as strong as ever. There was but one explanation: she had switched sides. I told no one of my suspicion, but took it upon myself as the captain of the Rogues to eliminate the traitor in our number, the traitor in my bed. I followed her one cold morning, fearful that killing her in camp would bring a wave of attack from my uncomprehending Sisters. She traveled to the burial grounds in the plains, where she had unearthed and laid bare every coffin within. I heard her calling softly, sweetly, to her lover as she searched among the dead for the corpse of Maia, for she could not read the tombstones enough to locate the grave. Revulsion gave me strength and I shot Ravenna without warning, four silver arrows into her heart. They were like nettle stings to a giant. She overpowered me, called me endless bitter names, accused me of the most horrific betrayals, saying that I caused the fall of our comrades at the Monastery, that I was to blame for the endless deaths in our lands. All of this, with the most...beatific...look of peace on her face that I'd ever seen. After breaking most of the bones in my body, she bound me and continued her grim hunt."
"She found it?"
"Yes. Remember that Maia had been dead maybe six years by this point. The corpse was little but bone and scraps of flesh, but to Ravenna it might have well been the live body of a goddess. She lay the corpse upon the slabs as tenderly as one might a newborn child, arranging the skeletal limbs neatly before standing back to admire her work. Looking at me, she smiled and said, 'I have the answer now. If I can bring her back, I can send her spirit wherever I wish.' She raised her hands and in a thundering voice called on the dark powers she served to reanimate the corpse. I watched in horror as new flesh grew on the rotted carcass and the limbs twitched as if alive. It rose from the ground, complete and made anew, but not alive; no, not in the human sense. Its head lolled to the side, the eye sockets still empty of their orbs, the body strange and disjointed, hanging in midair and not touching the earth, but Ravenna embraced it as if it were Maia herself. Her joy was cut short when the body fixed its blank gaze on her face and asked, 'Why am I here? Why did you bring me here? I was so happy...they say I can't go back now. Where will I go?'"
"That's impossible," I whispered, "not even a necromancer can reclaim the soul of someone dead so long."
"I do not know if it was a malevolent spirit sent by Andariel to animate the body, a magic that cast the illusion of life, or Maia's soul returning from the Heavens to this imperfect vessel. It was enough, though, to convince Ravenna that she'd just denied her beloved the chance for eternal happiness. She snapped, let out a howl of madness and agony, threw back her head and screamed to whomever she'd bargained with, 'You promised me. You promised me she'd be safe, that she'd be whole.' All the while, this strange confused...thing...hung before us, whispering its banishment in its otherworldy voice. In her blind rage at being tricked into giving her freedom to Andariel, Ravenna lashed out at the still-babbling creature that held Maia's form, striking it to the graves and shattering its skull. Ravenna's head must have cleared at that horrible sound, realizing she'd undone the very reason for her corruption. We both watched the wisp of spirit evaporate from the mass of brain on the stones, heading to realms Ravenna could not control or know, taking with it the vestiges of Ravenna's humanity and most of her sanity. She dropped to her knees and crawled to the body, cradling it and weeping over its destroyed from, smearing herself with the blood that flowed openly from her love's wounds. She caught me in her furious gaze, finding an outlet for her hate and frustration, as if to transfer the blame for her fall onto another. But her attack was short lived, as Elyhaim and Gira snatched me out of that accursed place. They'd discovered my absence and drawn a few conclusions about my lover's disappearances, tracking me to the graveyard in time to save my life. We returned to the encampment, banishing Ravenna's name from our tongues forever, leaving only the creature Blood Raven behind."
"She warned us as we fled, Ravenna...Blood Raven...she called out that she had seen our deaths, that they would be in fire and in fear. That we carried the essence of the Hells in our blood and that we'd never remove the stain for as long as we lived. That we would give in as surely as she, willingly and without hesitation, to avoid that slow crawling towards destruction."
"And you believe her, the words of a demon?"
"The words of a demon who had power, faulty as it was, over life and death and whose words I had trusted since I was sixteen. She merely confirmed what we already knew: that the mages who'd survived Tristram with us had gone irretrievably mad, the town of Tristram burned to ashes, and the lone warrior who took Diablo's soulstone transformed into the Dark Wanderer. Elyhaim is the luckiest, for she has died without taint. Gira has made her choice, that she will take a certainty of Hell over the constant nagging strain of this fight. And I...I will run, as I always have. I will wait behind these walls, a broken coward of a soldier who sends her Sisters to their deaths while she stays behind. I will outlast my foes and my friends alike and die alone, ashamed that I could save no one but myself. I will run, with the knowledge that someday, whatever is chasing me will catch me."
"Far lesser warriors have gone to their graves with the title of hero, young Kashya. Surely you cannot believe the lies of a demon, even one you loved," a deep voice spoke from behind us.
The barbarian had come upon us silently, and though I resented the intrusion, his words were my own. Kashya was suddenly mortified, but a large hand on her shoulder prevented any retaliation. "The truest sign of a warrior is that he lives to tell the tale, not that he was foolish enough to die early on the battlefield. You command respect and loyalty from your troops and that you returned from Tristram alive is proof enough of your valor."
"But I was injured," she protested angrily, "I spent the fight against Diablo dying aboveground..."
"From a wound that would have outright killed someone with less strength." I finished. "Not to mention you were in a battle-weakened state to begin with, in a town with one healer and no supplies. Kashya, no more. You aren't her. You aren't Blood Raven or Gira. You are far stronger than either of them."
She hung her head. "How do you know? How do you know what evil may lurk in my veins?"
"I'm trained to recognize such things, remember Kashya? I am an Assassin; I seek out the evil in places where it may hide. I have touched your mind with my own and I have seen no blemish. Be free of this needless fear."
The large man stood after I stopped talking and looked down. "We will leave in a few hours. I shall prepare. We shall not speak of this again." He walked away, leaving Kashya and I alone on the riverbank. I watched him leave and scanned the area, confident that no one else was watching us.
"Will you be alright, Kashya?"
"I've not told anyone this before. Not even Akara knows why we call Ravenna's tortured form Blood Raven, nor why she turned so willingly to the darkness. Of those who knew firsthand, one is dead, and the other insane."
"And none else shall know, not from my lips, nor from those of the Barbarian. We both have sworn it. Now go, try to sleep. You've been carrying that weight for so long..."
She gave a tight-lipped smile and nodded as she helped me up. The healing spells had worked well, but I was still sore from my injuries as we stumbled back to camp. We returned to her tent to wake Paige and send her outside to eat and dress. I watched Kashya settle in to sleep, feeling protective now of the older captain. I brushed my hand over her head and whispered in her ear the same thing I'd been told every night when I was a child, "May your dreams be empty of sound and form." Then, I left to join my companions.
well these have been the first chapters i've ever read written by you and all i can say is wow. i'm currently looking through your old post's to find where the series starts so i can see how it all started.
keep up the good work
Location: In your mirror! Go ahead, take a look, twin!
Posts: 57
Quote:
Originally Posted by raphiel20
well these have been the first chapters i've ever read written by you and all i can say is wow. i'm currently looking through your old post's to find where the series starts so i can see how it all started.
Allow me to spare you the effort of looking for them on the message board, as...um...you won't find them there. You're best bet would be here, at the Dark Library.
EDIT: *looks up* Curses, I really must check for new messages before posting on a thread I've had up for over an hour...
Well thnx for the advice i found them in tdl at the same tiem i was re-loading this page :lol: well i've got afew more chapters left before i'm fully caught up (about 5 i think now) and form beginning to current end its all been of the highest quality i've seen for along time.
well done and thnx for writing such an interesting story, i'll be egarly awaiting the next chapters
Wow Anyee, you have a lot of talent. I cant wait to read this when it gets published Hey, see you around here more often, with writing like that, Its definitly worth coming here to read :lol: . Afk, going to TDL to find more of your work
Linear Mode
