Bladesinger

Chapter 28

The Year of Wild Magic

(1372 DR)

Marissa watched the telthor die.

Even as Cavan's powerful jaws locked on to the creature's neck and bit down, the druid found herself grieving. The telthor was evil or at least twisted by the one called Yulda beyond recognition. Still, as its body stopped moving and its luminous flesh began to fade before her eyes, Marissa grieved. Here was a part of Rashemen that would never exist again, and she had a hand in its passing.

There was little time to do anything but mouth a quick prayer to her god as the battle still raged in other parts of the cavern. Quickly she checked on Cavan, whose blood-matted fur and myriad open wounds made it difficult for the war-dog to walk; the loyal hound's front left leg hung at an awkward angle. Marissa reached out and opened her heart to Rillifane, asking his blessing upon the valiant animal. Within moments, divine energy poured out of her hand, repairing torn muscle and shattered bones. Cavan offered her hand a grateful lick before he bolted toward the rear of the cavern, returning to battle once more.

The druid was about to follow when Borovazk's cry of pain caught her attention. The ranger stood doubled while the demonic being advanced upon him. Looking carefully, she could make out tiny needle-sharp spores protruding from the Rashemi's flesh. Marissa saw Roberc slash valiantly at the demon, trying to draw its attention, but to no avail. Within a few heartbeats, the demon's wicked claws would shred Borovazk.

Gripping the Staff of the Red Tree, she called forth the power of the earth, shaping it with careful prayers to her god. Immediately the cavern floor around the Rashemi began to shift and buckle. Stalagmites grew in size, joining together to form a gray wall of stone that stretched from floor to ceiling. Protected from certain death, Borovazk reached toward his belt and pulled out a flask of green liquid. Marissa watched as the ranger pulled off the cork with his teeth and downed the potion. Relief flooded through her as the needle spores fell from his skin. She almost smiled as he picked up his axe from where it had fallen, ran around the wall, and engaged the demon once more.

As battered and bloodied as her friends looked, the summoned demon looked even worse. The matted feathers of its wings were rent with several holes, and even from her vantage point, Marissa could see gaping wounds that disgorged black blood and slime. The demon, however powerful, was the least of their problems, Marissa knew. Yulda, the renegade hathran, posed the truest threat. Anger washed over her, made more intense by the voice of the Staff of the Red Tree, whose agitated buzzing reached new heights. Ever since she had carried the staff, Marissa felt as if it had grown to be a part of her. Even now she wasn't sure where her own anger and loathing ended and the Staff of the Red Tree's powerful emotions began.

Readying her own power to assist Taenaran in his fight with Yulda, the druid sensed something she hadn't noticed in the first flushed moments of battle, or perhaps this was a gift from the Staff of the Red Tree itself. Either way, the druid could now make out a thin tendril of energy that erupted from Yulda's back, stretching deeper into the shadow of the cavern beyond. In each moment before the witch cast a spell, Marissa could see power travel along that tendril until it poured into Yulda's body.

Someone or something was feeding the withered crone power-power that threatened to destroy them and all of Rashemen. It took only a moment to call upon Rillifane's gift and transform herself. She felt the familiar dislocation as the shape within her mind took form. In three heartbeats her flesh had completed its transmogrification. The sounds of battle sounded impossibly distant to her new senses, more vibration than anything else. Deftly she scuttled forward on seven legs, maneuvering around the outer edge of the cavern, crawling closer and closer to where the tendril originated. When at last she stood before an alcove completely shrouded in darkness, Marissa returned to her original form.

Gripping the Staff of the Red Tree, she summoned light. At first it did little to pierce the veil of ebon darkness that hung over the alcove, but the voice of the staff swelled and the light grew in power. The darkness tore like thin vellum. When at last she could see what lay in the alcove, Marissa nearly cried out in horror.

An emaciated, wizened old man hung spread-eagled in the air by four obsidian chains. A writhing tendril of pure energy penetrated his skull, right between rheum-glazed eyes. The captive stared at her, pain obviously etched in every line of his face; his breath came in great ragged gasps. At once, Marissa knew that this was the vremyonni, the Rashemi wizard that Yulda had kidnapped. The wychlaran thought that Yulda had merely taken the wizard to glean vremyonni secrets. She knew now that the truth was much worse than that. Whatever spell had forged this unholy bond, it was sucking away at the wizard's power and feeding it to Yulda.

She reached out in an attempt to help free the enslaved wizard-and snatched her hand back in pain as it touched a wall of energy. Her fingertips still tingled with the force of the spell. Marissa tested the wall with elemental fire and the fury of winter itself, pouring forth her god's power in an attempt to shatter the defensive wall. The druid knew that breaking whatever bond joined the vremyonni and the hathran was the key to defeating Yulda.

"It… it's no use," the ancient wizard gasped as Marissa struck the magical wall with the full force of the Staff of the Red Tree. "The spell is wrapped in both of our power."

Marissa shook her head in denial. "Then how I can I free you?" she asked and felt desperation rise in her voice.

The wizard coughed and sputtered for a moment before answering. "Only my death can free me now."

"No," she nearly shouted, "there must be another way!" Destroying the telthor had been horrific enough; she would not kill another part of this wild land. Not if she could help it.

The vremyonni shook his head. "There is-" he started to say then gasped in pain as the arcane conduit drew more power from him. "There is no other way, my child. I knew that the wychlaran would not abandon me. Now you must end this, and quickly."

"How-?" was all that she asked before the wizard's gentle smile silenced her.

"You know how," the vremyonni said. "The power was given to you by the Red Tree, but only you can make this choice. Decide quickly, my child, for Yulda merely plays with your friends. If she wanted, she could destroy them with a single spell."

As if to prove the wizard's words, Marissa heard Taenaran let out a shriek of agony. She turned to see the half-elf caught in a beam of pure darkness that emanated from Yulda's empty eye socket. His flesh began to bubble and boil, as if liquefying right off of his bones. The druid's heart felt as if it were being ripped from her body. With a single cry of Taenaran's name, Marissa had made her choice.

Taen ducked beneath another swipe of the vrock's claw and rammed the point of his sword deep into its side until it grated on bone. Spinning swiftly, he wrenched his blade free, splattering the black-robed witch with gore and effluvia. The demon bellowed and leaped forward, borne slightly aloft by the strength of its wings. Three more claws slashed downward at the half-elf. Without missing a beat, he rolled beneath one, dived to the right of another, and caught the third on his blade. He moved as effortlessly as he had that fateful day in the alu'dala, flowing like water, raining blows down upon the vrock, and when he could get close enough, the witch herself. Abandoning himself to the powerful rhythms of the Song, he felt freer than he ever had before.

So much so that when the Song shifted beneath him, he did not resist it but followed its strains. It grew louder, more powerful-began to pull at him, yet still he flowed with it. When the crone sent pulsating green bolts of energy flying from her fingers, Taen leaped into the air, drawing his arms to his chest and spinning so that two of the missiles flew by either side of him. The third he caught on the tip of his sword, and the fourth he took square in the chest, but even that brief moment of searing pain did not slow him down.

Taen stood before the decrepit hag, sword poised to strike. The Song crescendoed around him; he could feel its need, its hunger drawing him down into its depths. It called to him-asked of him the only thing of any worth he had to give: his life. For just a moment, he hesitated. For just a moment, he resisted its pull, struggled against it the way a drowning man struggles against an implacable tide.

In that moment, the crone struck.

Power lashed out from the wreck of her eye, a beam of pure nothingness that caught Taen full in the torso. He screamed as the dark energy of the beam struck him. Agony coursed through his body-his very spirit was afire and every inch of his skin bubbled and boiled. In an instant, the vengeful cadence of the Song was stilled. Caught in the unquenchable power of the witch's eye, unable to move, Taen caught sight of Marissa in his rapidly dimming vision. The druid held aloft the Staff of the Red Tree in her remaining hand, and in that moment, the half-elf knew with utter certainty what she was about to do.

He summoned the last bit of strength remaining and screamed, "Marissa… no!"

Anger and desperation melted away from Marissa, replaced by a calm certainty. Choices bring their own comforts with them, she knew, and thanked Rillifane for the one she experienced now. There was so much that she had wanted to say, wanted to share with Taenaran, so much of this land she had wanted to explore, yet it was love-love of the broken half-elf and the rugged land they had traveled across-that had solidified her choice.

A single tear of regret, for words not spoken and feelings not shared, spilled down her cheek as she raised the Staff of the Red Tree above her head. She sent one last prayer to Rillifane that he would guard and guide Taenaran and her friends, before she brought the staff down hard upon a sharp stalagmite-

And everything became light.

The concussive force of the blast knocked Taen to the ground, tossing him like a paper doll in a raging storm. He lay there stunned for a few moments as his sight cleared. Desperately he cast around for some sign that Marissa had survived the explosion. The alcove where she had stood lay buried beneath layers of thick stone and rubble.

She was gone again.

He had failed Marissa once more-just like he had on the bridge. If he hadn't hesitated at the last moment, Marissa would still be alive. Despair and self-hatred rose up in him, like old friends who had departed for a long journey and returned. They accused him, called him a wretched failure and a murderer, demanded that he run away and hide in the darkness of his inadequacy.

This time, however, Taen didn't listen.

Though the faces of Talaedra and Marissa, frozen in dying, swept across his vision, the half-elf refused to despair. Both women may indeed have loved him far more than he deserved, but they both saw within him the person that he could become. He would honor them and spend the remainder of his life becoming that person. It did not spare him his grief-that cut like a vorpal blade through his heart-but it was a clean wound, without rancor or disease.

He would have wept, but a vision of the withered crone stumbling to her feet drove all sadness from him.

"Did… did you think you could defeat me?" she spat, blood-matted hair tossed wildly around her head. "I am beyond your power even now."

Taen pushed himself painfully to his feet, though the crone's spell had wounded him badly. Suppurated flesh tore from his skin and arms as he rose, grasping his father's sword. He concentrated for a moment, held the sword aloft-and suddenly the Song sprang to life, as deep and resonant as it had in the moments before the witch's foul spell had struck.

Borovazk and Roberc stood to his left, hacking at what remained of the vrock, who had collapsed beneath the Staff of the Red Tree's final blast. There, in the flickering torchlight, in a mountain cavern locked away from the rest of the world, Taen stood with his sword raised-beyond anger, beyond grief, beyond any emotion that had distracted him throughout the long years of his half-elf life-and he Sang. Slowly, painfully, he opened himself totally to the Song. If it desired his whole life, then he would offer it gladly, as Marissa had done for him and the lives of his friends. Without another thought, the half-elf surrendered, fell down a hole so dark and deep it might well have gone on forever. There was nothing in that hole-no thought, no sense of self-only thick, unrelenting darkness.

When he emerged, it was as if he had fallen into another universe. Power flared around him and through him, lived in each measure of the Song's flow-which was also each beat of his own heart. There was no "Taen" separate from the Song and no part of the Song that was not somehow a part of him. His father's blade sensed the change as well, for it burned with an intense argent light, filling the cavern with its own power.

"You are finished!" Taen shouted at the chanting witch. "By the will of the wychlaran and the blood of my father, it is over."

The half-elf raised his sword and moved to attack.

He gathered his arcane power, but rather than cast a formulaic spell as he had done for most of his life, Taen channeled that energy, used it to speed his limbs. The world slowed around him as he gathered speed.

The crone backed away slightly to her left and shouted, "Die, you fool!" as she brought her ruined eye to bear upon him. A black beam of power shot out once again, but this time Taen leaped to the side, avoiding it. A section of the cavern floor sizzled and popped for a moment before completely disintegrating before his eyes.

Another beam lanced out at him, but this time Taen tumbled behind a long-toothed stalagmite that took the brunt of the attack. Without hesitation, the half-elf sent arcane energy surging through his sword; bolts of force leaped from the blade's tip to strike the crone. She shrieked and fell backward, turning as if to run toward the back of the cave.

Taking advantage of his newfound speed, Taen ran to the side, intercepting the haggard witch before she could reach the circle of light that had just opened in the floor behind him. Her one good eye widened in disbelief. She raised a skeletal hand toward the half-elf and spit forth the words to another spell.

Taen didn't wait for her to finish. "For Cormanthor,'' he cried in Elvish before leaping through the air, "and for Marissa!" Like a living spear, he hurtled toward the witch and, focusing all of his energy, drove his sword deep into the crone's empty eye socket. The witch wailed in agony as the blade bit true, knocking both of them to the ground. Black power erupted from the wound, cascading around both of them, spinning and twirling like a mini whirlwind. Taen could feel the energy burning at his already battered body, but he did not let go of the sword that impaled the now-dead crone. His agony intensified as the ebon power covered him completely.

The walls of the cavern faded, until everything, at last, was darkness.