Lady of Poison

CHAPTER 30

The Nentyarch’s home, as described to Marrec by Elowen, was gone, with no evidence of it having ever been there. In its place was a lone ash treean ash tree of towering size, a hundred or more feet high, though still below the height of the overhanging petrified branches, crowned with an oval mass of sickly green leaves. The leaves hinted that the tree lived, but even so, it was afflicted. The bole was twisted, blackened, and terrible. The tree’s leaves seeped a sick fluid, and at its base was a massive swollen cyst, partially burst, though the poor illumination failed to reveal what lay within the cavity.

Immediately before the cyst was a throne of hardened but putrid mud. A figure sat the throne. The Rotting Man.

From where Marrec and the others exited the mist, they stood not more than forty or fifty feet from the throne and that which sat upon it, but Marrec couldn’t help but shudder when he saw the Rotting Man. To his right he heard Elowen cry out, Ususi curse, and even Gunggari take a deep breath. Ash apparently had no reaction, though Marrec didn’t take his eyes from the putrid seat.

The Talontyr was the size of a man, but a man wasted with rot, disease, and madness, from whose pores constantly seeped droplets of blood. The Rotting Man’s body was a battleground for hundreds, maybe thousands, of virulent diseases, all of which strove against each other and the flesh which hosted them.

The Rotting Man could not perish from such ravages. Such was the gift of Talona, the Lady of Poison, the Mother of All Plagues, and other names more gruesome. Rot was the Talontyr’s strength.

Before the Rotting Man’s throne was an altar of rough-cut stone upon which sat a crystal vase. The vase held a slender stem to which a single bone-white petal clung.

To the Talontyr’s right stood Damanda, glowering. She had reacquired her swarm aura.

Surrounding the Talontyr and Damanda were various creatures, all disfigured with lesions, pustules, and other outward signs of sickness, though of course in the Court of the Rotting Man, these creatures obviously drew strength from their condition. Unfortunately, the Rotting Man’s forces created a buffer too wide for Marrec’s special gaze to touch directly upon the author of all their misfortune. Among the creatures arrayed around the throne, Marrec recognized a green-tinged unicorn, a satyr whose eyes were gone but for oozing sores, a score of nixiesor perhaps pixieseach the color of night, a dryad whose ongoing wide-mouthed scream of pain was too raw to be heard any longer, some diseased wolves and bears, plus a few monstrous insects the size of men…

“Ash!”

Marrec glanced back. The child he had so long shepherded was gazing with apparent interest at the large ash tree. Recognizing it. Naming it. Ash and ash…

Before Marrec could comment or question the potential enormity of Ash’s pronouncement, movement drew his eye back to the front.

A bone-slender hand slothfully extended from the rotting garments that clung to the Talontyr. The pointing finger selected Marrec as its target.

A voice, hoarse and phlegmy yet resonant, issued forth. The Rotting Man said, “The game has been amusing, but it is over. I will take the child. Now.”

A beam of virulent power pulsed forth from the Rotting Man’s entire body, washing over Marrec and his friends before any could do much more than blink and draw a breath in surprise.

Marrec fumbled with his spear as his vision cleared, expecting pain, wounds, or worse, but he was fine. Looking around, he saw that his friends were unharmed, too. Of them all, only Ash seemed unsurprised. In fact, she had somewhere acquired a golden glow, a glow of health, vitality, and promise.

“So,” said the Rotting Man, executing a look so sour that Marrec’s stomach threatened to turn.

Struggling for breath, the cleric finally managed to find his voice. He said, “We’ve come too far to fail now.”

The unicorn warrior didn’t know exactly why the Rotting Man’s assault had drained away so ineffectually, though he guessed that already Ash’s nature was beginning to assert itself. He needed to seize the moment, salvage some time for Ash to discover the missing portion of herself. That, after all, was the reason they had come so far.

Marrec continued, his voice gaining in strength and authority, “We’ve brought Ash, the Child of Light here, against all the obstacles you’ve set. We know the girl is but part of the Aspect promised by the Green Powers, among which my goddess Lurue numbers, the Aspect that was sent to end your reign here in Dun-Tharos.”

The cleric knew his speech was too short, but he didn’t quite know where to go from there. Ash was not taking any special action or initiative, unlike what he had imagined, except, of course, her mere presence may have been the only reason he and her other companions yet drew breath following the Rotting Man’s initial assault.

The Rotting Man hacked out laughter. Chuckling wet gasps of amusement, he finally said, “You have brought her to me, haven’t you? All my effort to bring her here, yet where all my servants have failed, you succeed. Marvelous!”

“Not true… you were trying to kill Ash. Kill her so the Aspect could never take full shape.”

“No, I’m afraid not, young simpleton.”

“You fought us hard enough just outside the ring of your fortress,” replied Marrec, confused.

“It is true I expended many of my servitors, many more than I thought I would, truth be told. I did not foresee that you would make common cause with a demon. If I had not thrown my forces against you, you would have begun to wonder why I offered no resistance here at the heart of my strength. You would have wondered if you were walking into a trap, which indeed you were.”

The Rotting Man went on, “You have something that I require. It may be that it retains sentience enough to protect itself and you against my direct touch. However, experience reveals that my servitors are under no such restriction.”

The figure on the throne oroaked something to Damanda. In turn, Damanda screamed, “Bring the child to the Talontyr; kill her guardians.”

Marrec brought up his left hand, his thumb already flipping the cork from the vial he held. As the creatures surrounding the Nentyarch surged forward, Marrec gulped down the contents of his vial. Of his friends, only Gunggari did the same; Elowen raised her living blade and gave voice to a cry of challenge; Ususi began to incant a spell. Ash did nothing.

The rot-eyed satyr charged Marrec, its head down and the ram-like horns positioned to smash him. The elixir Marrec had just drunk, fruity and pleasant, seemed to open his sinuses and expand his lungs. The potion was nothing less than liquid revelation, laying bare all that was shrouded, even Marrec’s own clogged conscious. Facts about himself broke free from his subconscious and begin to bob toward his surface awarenessbut he didn’t have time to take note. More than anything else, the elixir opened a door, however briefly, that had been shut in Marrec’s mindit made a connection where association had fallen away over the last few yearsit granted him a channel to Lurue’s grace.

The blighted satyr collided with Marrec, sending Justlance clattering from his hand, yet the cleric smiled. Not because he retained his feet despite the charge, not because his spear returned to his grip almost instantly Marrec smiled because unfeigned hope woke within him as he contemplated the array of abilities returned him.

Gunggari smashed the carapace of a five-foot-high beetle, then engaged the green-hued unicorn in a desperate battlethe Oslander attempted to beat the unicorn senseless before the blighted creature succeeded in eviscerating Gunggari with its blackened horn.

The pack of blighted nixies swarmed Elowen. The elf wove a defense by slashing Dymondheart too quickly for even a nixie to penetrate. She cursed when one still managed that feat and promptly bit Elowen with too-large teeth stained midnight black.

Ususi’s chant grew louder; in Marrec’s experience, that indicated that a spell of power would soon be unleashed. Damanda then said, “UsusiI command you to slay these who you call your friends.”

Ususi choked, ceased incanting, and instead began to slowly reach for the yellow wand at her belt. Her arm shook, and her hand moved only slowly, as if she fought her own hand’s movement every inch of the way, yet progress was made.

The cleric began a chant of his ownwith his new connection to Lurue, he felt he could dispel the evil influence that allowed Damanda to instruct Ususi. The damned satyr charged him yet again, spoiling what would have been his first god-given spell in days.

Marrec screamed in a fury quite unlike his normal manner, then was forced to defend himself physically with Justlance. Instead of incanting a spell, he yelled between spear thrusts, “Gunny, stop Ususi!”

The Oslander was pressed just then by a growling wolf that’d lost most of its skin to a cancerous scab that made its flesh particularly resistant to Gunggari’s warclub.

Damanda laughed as Ususi’s hand closed about the Wand of Citrine Power. The wizard drew the wand from its slender sheath, her face contorted as she fought the compulsion.

A shaft of brilliance like the sun’s, full and true, touched down then, piercing the mist, the overhanging petrified branches, the storm, and even the night. It fell around Elowen, who was holding her blade above her head, its shining surface reflecting and sustaining the sunlight. Elowen brought the blade quickly down from its position above her head, pointing it directly at Damanda, who still stood beside the Talontyr on his earthen throne.

A ray of citrine probed at Elowen from Ususi’s shaking wand. The wavering ray failed to find its target, but Ususi took aim anew, shaking her head as if denying her actions.

The greater shaft of sunlight surrounding Elowen changed its focus, sliding smoothly away from the elf and toward the target identified by her pointing blade. Elowen yelled, triumphant “Meet the day unbound!”

Damanda screeched, backpedaling. The Rotting Man raised an eyebrow in apparent interest, nothing more. The shaft of light slid across the intervening blighted creatures without harm, moving more swiftly as it approached Damanda.

The vampire began to run, but the shaft of light caught her, just as Ususi’s second wand-aimed ray struck the elf hunter in the back. In a moment, Elowen was encased in a slab of amber-like crystal, unmoving.

The following beam of sunlight was undimmed and flashed full upon the fleeing blightlord. Damanda’s scream was so horrible that even the Rotting Man’s forces paused a moment to determine the vampire’s fate.

When the shaft winked out a moment later it was established once again what happens when a vampire is subject to sunlight.

It dies.

Marrec, having recently witnessed another vampire’s fiery death in similar fashion, recovered a moment quicker than the hollow-socketed satyr. His erstwhile foe sank to the earth, stupidly clutching a newly created third cavity in its skull, courtesy of the cleric’s spear.

The blighted unicorn turned away from the crystal-encased Elowen and charged Gunggari from the side. The Oslander avoided being disemboweled by the horn but received a nasty wound across his side.

Marrec saw that Ususi was back in control of her faculties. He’d have to trust her to release Elowen from the confinement she’d created. He lunged sidewise, catching the blighted unicorn with the untainted unicorn tip of Justlance. The contact instigated an instant and dramatic response from the blighted creatureits eyes rolled wildly; it reared, neighing, then it collapsed.

The scabrous wolf leaped again at Gunggari, growling and slavering. Again the Oslander beat back the wolf.

Marrec didn’t want to shift too far over to help the Oslanderhe needed to plug up the middle, between the Oslander and the slab of crystal holding Elowen otherwise nothing would protect little Ash who still sheltered at his back.

Ususi finally found her voice, cried out, “I can release the elf,” then began casting anew.

Gunggari’s dizheri finally found purchasethe wolf yelped, rolled, then ran off into the mist. Another creature immediately moved to take its placea twigblight.

Worse, additional blighted creatures threatened to break around the other side of Gunggari, Marrec, and Elowen’s line that protected Ash. Ususi remained in the midst of a spell. Marrec quickly counted all that still stood between himself and the Rotting Man. He estimated only about ten or so enemies. With his connection to Lurue back, he wondered if he couldn’t catch them allor at least mostin a burst of holy power tuned to banish evil.

Ususi finished her last spell. With a tinkling of shattering glass, Elowen shed her crystal containment. The elf shook her head, looking around to see what she had missed.

“Hold, my creatures,” spoke the Rotting Man.

The blighted creatures paused in their onslaught, uncertain of their master’s command. Marrec and Gunggari paused, too, wondering what deal the Talontyr might be willing to offer. The Talontyr was getting nervous, guessed Marrec

“I tire of this game. I begin to think you’ll pierce my defenses, and what? You’ll attack me directly, Talona’s Chosen?” The Rotting Man laughed.

Marrec considered throwing Justlance right then, or perhaps moving just a bit closer in order to bring his gaze to bear, but the Rotting Man continued speaking. “While it might be edifying for you to begin such a contest, it is beneath me. It’s more fitting, really, that you meet your end at the hands of that which you’ve come so far to meet.”

The Rotting Man half turned on his seat, still choosing to sit even in the presence of his enemies. He waved his hand toward the great cyst bulging from the base of the tree behind his throne. He said, “Yes, Talona informed me far ahead of time of the Green Powers’ gift to the world I moved to intercept it. I grew the Thieving Ash to snare the divine energies of the gift as it was born into the world Those energies are contained therein, infused with my own special touch, Talona’s blessing, and the goad of continual pain.”

Marrec whispered, “Thieving Ash?” He looked around at the girl behind him. The child’s eyes focused then on the cyst, as if she expected something wonderful to emergeor something terrible.

The Talontyr, nearly giggling in sudden glee, continued, “Yes, the child there with you is the portion of the Green Powers’ gift that slipped through my fingers. Thank you for delivering it to me. Finally! The entire gift is now mine.”

“Behold, then,” continued the Talontyr, “what has become of the Aspect of Light. Behold Talona’s Step-Daughter!”

The fleshy flaps obscuring the partially burst cavity heaved and ripped. A fantastically large bubble of blood swelled darkly from the fissure, and immediately burst, releasing a wave of liquid in every direction. Shrieking, the blighted creatures surrounding the throne scattered before the scarlet flood, though the Rotting Man laughed as the stinking bile poured over him.

Something still fought to free itself from the cystsomething too large for Marrec to immediately comprehend. It heaved itself free of the cavity, showing first a vast expanse of festering flesh twenty or thirty feet on a side, like the side of a hill come to life. The heaving, pulsing body was supported by four wide legs, elephantine in their simplicity and shape but larger, yet the struggling monstrosity, when it finally extricated itself from its woody chrysalis, was headless. It was a vast mass of gross flesh supported by four massive legs with no front or rear, only body. Except… something protruded from the creature.

A slender horn, convoluted and fluted, but straight and spear-sharp at the end, jutted from the infeeted flesh. The horn was over fifteen feet in length if it was an inch, yet Marrec recognized its likeness from the first. The horn was like a unicorn’s.

“Abomination!” The words tore themselves from Marrec’s throat. The wrongness of the creature, the warped nature of its existence, the plight of the Giftit was all too much for the cleric to bear. He ran forward, past the throne on which the Rotting Man sat. A look of intense concentration suffused the Talontyr’s face, but Marrec barely noted it as he moved closer to the vast bulk.

Gunggari ran forward with Marrec. The Oslander was more nimble than Marrec remembered, jumping and leaping ahead with newfound vigor. Perhaps it was the influence of the Nentyarch’s final vial? Gunggari moved so quickly that he passed the cleric, running up so he was nearly beneath the Daughter. Utilizing his forward charge, Gunggari swung his dizheri around, two-handed, delivering a mighty blow upon the creature’s lower flank. The Daughter’s flesh rippled, and from somewhere, though no orifice was visible, a basso scream erupted.

The Daughter’s single horn slashed through the air with uncanny speed, nearly decapitating Gunggariit would have, were it not for the Oslander’s newfound quickness.

Marrec began incanting a spell, a spell he’d been unable to cast for months, a defensive spell. As soon as he felt its protective embrace enfold him like an old friend long missed, Marrec continued forward. He would try first his newfound connection with Luruehe would try to turn the creature from its present course, perhaps break it from the control of the Rotting Man.

Bringing his spear up, Marrec bellowed, “Lurue commands that you give way, abomination. Turn your face and be destroyed.”

His spear head, its shape that of a stylized unicorn horn, blazed with golden light. Unlike when he had tried this same ability against the vampires, his power did not break. He radiated a surge of holy power, which washed upon and over the Daughter.

The creature’s entire bulk shook, and a deep cry issued again from some unseen maw, but the creature would not be turned from its directive. The horn slashed forward, elongating as it moved, spearing at Marrec with a life-ending thrust. If not for the cleric’s just-cast defensive spell, he’d have been skewered. Still, the shock of the thrust sent him stumbling back.

By that time Elowen charged the Daughter, too. She came up to the creature several feet from where Gunggari danced, trying to keep from being trampled beneath the creature’s stamping feet. Fancy sword-work was impossibleshe faced a creature too large for such nicetiesit was too mindless to be distracted by feints and too massive for a blade to deflect a horn-thrust or a trampling foot.

Elowen ran up and shoved Dymondheart directly into the side of the creature, all the way to the hilt. Then she began to saw the blade back and forth, trying to lever the wound into something much larger. A spray of vile matter, fecal by its stench, began to spray from the widening wound, but the elf hunter had no time to finish her task. The massive horn, supernatural in its ability to elongate and shorten at need, found a new mark. The Daughter’s horn swiveled and struck, slamming lengthwise into Elowen’s body. The elf was sent bodily flying through the air, Dymondheart spiraling away the opposite direction. When Elowen rolled to a stop, she failed to rise.

Ususi finally entered the fight, this time on the side of her friends. A ray of yellow stabbed forth from her wand, but she targeted not the monster but its progenitor. The ray fell full upon the Talontyr as he sat his throne. A flash of amber and a crack that competed with the thunder still rumbling above followed. The Rotting Man was unfazed The power washed away from him with no effect, other than to catch his attention.

As Marrec cast Justlance deep into the side of the Daughtercausing the creature to buck and squirm, but only in apparent annoyancethe Rotting Man spared a splinter of his attention for Ususi.

He said, “You sought my attentionsee what you make of it.”

He gestured, and a wave of muck and rot gathered and flowed from around his throne, building, cresting and falling upon the wavering Ususi.

Where the wave passed, the imaskari stood unharmed, surprised to still retain her life. Ash’s influence still protected them from the Rotting Man’s direct power. Indeed, Ususi had moved to stand ahead of the child, even in her fear thinking to protect Ash. It was the child who offered their only protection there in the Court of the Rotting Man.

Marrec glanced back at Elowen. The elf had not stirred from where the Daughter’s horn had thrown her. Marrec realized she was out of the fight. He didn’t dwell on how hurt she might be. If they were unable stop the Daughter, they would all find themselves in a similar or worse state soon enough.

Time again to bring his gaze to bear. The Daughter had no eyes. Could he even affect that corruption of divine energy given life? He opened wide his eyes and reached again for the feeling in the back of his mind, the core of ferocity, the ember of his heritage. He called upon the gaze of the medusa.

Invisible lines of influence plunged from Marrec’s eyes, instantly wracking his head with pain. Where his gaze touched upon the Daughter’s side, flesh bubbledbubbled, then ceased all motion, as flesh became stone. He couldn’t encompass the creature in a single lookhe had to paint the Daughter with his gaze, moving left to right, right to left, and in the wake of his passing glance, flesh gave over to stone.

The Daughter reared up. A massive slab of hardened stone sloughed away to reveal terrible pink flesh within. The slab of stone, once part of the Daughter’s side, smashed into rubble, forcing Gunggari to skip away, though a few chunks caught the Oslander on the side, drawing blood. Marrec didn’t care. His power was overcoming that of the Daughter. His vision began to fill with red, blood pooling in his sockets from the strain, but still he pumped his force of will through the connection he’d made with the Daughter, through the thrumming invisible line of his sight.

Gunggari’s wail of agony was as water on the fire of his effort. The force of his gaze winked out immediately. The Daughter, rearing, had caught Gunggari. The Oslander was down. Down, too, came those hideously heavy feet, stamping. Gunggari rolled, but his pain hindered him, and he couldn’t roll far enough. The Daughter’s foot smashed down upon the tattooed soldier, breaking bones and bursting flesh. The tattooed soldier joined the elf hunter in stillness.

If Gunggari by some miracle retained grasp on life, his bleeding body would soon betray that effort without immediate tending. Marrec didn’t waste time thinking about ithe simply ran full out for his friend’s side. Where he presumed that Elowen yet survived her contact with the Daughter, he knew his friend would not. He might already be dead.

A geyser of fiery energy poured down upon the flank of the Daughter, distracting it long enough for Marrec to reach Gunggari’s side. Ususi was still in the fight and unleashing her most potent spells against the rampaging horror.

The cleric felt for the tattooed warrior’s pulsefaint, growing fainter, but still beating. Marrec called joyfully on his renewed link to Lurue and poured healing into his friend, but Gunggari’s flesh was grievously wounded. The Oslander opened his eyes but remained prone. He had managed to stabilize Gunggari, stop the bleeding. That would have to be enough.

The Daughter completely ignored Marrec, even though the cleric fairly kneeled at the creature’s feet. Furious at the fusillade of spells with which Ususi continued to burn it, the corrupted aspect charged the mage. Ususi cried out, seeing her death approach. She shot a look of apology Marrec’s way, touched the Keystone hanging at her breast, and was pulled backward, out of the Rotting Man’s court by the power of the amulet. She was gone.

The Daughter, deprived of its intended target, stumbled to a stop, its immense but dreadfully quick legs causing the ground to quake with each and every footfall. Its bulk hid from view both the Rotting Man and… Ash.

Marrec stood and began running in a single action. The creature was between him and his charge. If it killed her, then all their effort was for nothing.

Justlance was in his hand with merely a thought, but what hope did he really believe he had? The creature had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was nigh on unstoppable. What force could hope to breach its bulk and reach its heart?

What physical force… but waitthe beast was born of a gift of the Green Powers. It was a corrupted aspect, but an aspect all the same, and somehow, Lurue was tied up in all of it. Was slaying the creature the answer? Though foul, at heart it must be good. Something that seeks to do good, though it commits evil, can be redeemed, or so Marrec hoped.

The knowledge that was flushed from hiding by the Nentyarch’s elixir finally completed its work. Revelation illuminated Marrec, then, like the sun that lifts up from behind a mountain, revealing the plain that was previously dark. Marrec saw a parallel between Ash and himself, and the Daughter and his monstrous gaze. Moreover, he saw an equivalence between any creature that hopes to do good, but through inaction, inattention, poor judgment, or even self-interest, does evil. Does that action, then, condemn such a one to a life of evil thereafter? Does it mean that that one does not deserve a second chance?

Well, no, of course not.

Life is but a brief flicker, and as the saying goes, “What will it matter in one hundred years?” is all too true for most creatures. Life is a short-lived gift. If that gift is not explored in all its dimensions, it is like spurning the gift, setting it aside on a knickknack shelf where other things of little interest accumulate. How else can life be experienced but through decisions? How else can good be judged from evil, if mistakes are not made? That was the secret that revealed itself to Marrec: To err is to live, and to live is to err, but one can only pick oneself up after each mistake, wiser for the experience, and go on. What else is there?

One had to forgive oneself.

The Daughter’s horn nearly removed his head from his torso as he skirted its bulk, bringing him more fully to the present. Taking the knife-sharp blow along the haft of his spear, Marrec ran on, rounding the flank of the Daughter. There was the Rotting Man, still sitting upon his throne, concentrating upon the corrupted aspect, possibly controlling its actions, or at least preventing it from lapsing into unrestrained destruction.

There was Ash, defenseless and alone in the Court, looking up into the blank expanse of the Daughter’s flesh, as if searching for something. Despite having no eyes or any other organs for sensing its environment, the corrupted aspect paused, seeming to study the slip of a girl on the ground before it.

The Rotting Man commanded, “Take what is yours, Cystborn. Take the capstone of your power and your sentience. Become what you should have been these last six years. My scourge, Talona’s Step-Daughter.”

The Daughter moved forward, as if to engulf the defenseless child, but slowly, tentatively, as if the Rotting Man wished to relish his final victory.

Marrec, his head still spinning with his own personal revelation, knew that his own revelation applied, too, to Ash.

“I forgive you, Ash,” yelled Marrec. “That’s right. We all forgive you for allowing the Rotting Man to steal away your purpose, your form, and your power, but you have to forgive yourself.”

Ash’s gaze slowly swiveled upon Marrec and focused. She was listening.

“Let yourself off the hookput your mistake behind you and learn from it. Take back what is yours. You didn’t mean for things to come to this.”

Ash’s eyes narrowed, and her tiny head began a slow nod, as if in grudging understanding.

“Enough of this. Consume her!” thundered the Rotting Man.

The Daughter fell upon Ash, absorbing her entirely into its shambling husk.

The Rotting Man laughed. The cleric despaired, crying out his frustration.

The Daughter lay splayed across the ground where it had leaped upon the child.

Then a change came over it. The Daughter’s body began to throw off mass in great rotting layers, one after another, like an onion. Every layer broadcast images into all the living minds nearbythe layers were like records of the sordid malice the Talontyr had committed against the world. The first few were only insults and aggravations. Then came violence and death, and rot followed after. It was Talona’s influence, psychically manifest as each section of the Daughter fell away. The next layers revealed the Rotting Man gathering to his side minions versed in spells and foul sorceries. Marrec saw piles of skulls left behind where the Talontyr’s forces triumphed; he saw living trees burned with torches, the tree-dryads locked within, screaming; he saw crimes without number, and creatures rotting from the inside; he saw sacrifices made to Talona in all their gruesome detail. Marrec saw the war of the Green Powers against Talona, and the secret plan the Rotting Man and his goddess drew up to subvert those plans and redirect those efforts to decay. Every layer that fell away from the Daughter revealed fragments of the past to Marrec, as if he were remembering something he’d always known.

Then the molting layers revealed more recent occurrences. Marrec saw blightlords releasing poisonous spells, rots of terrible efficacy, and magical diseases spreading across the Rawlinswood and across the forest of Lethyr. He saw the cruel new sorceries devised by the Rotting Man Seeing, the cleric understood what the Rotting Man intended should the Daughter ever achieve complete integration; he saw the massacres, the deaths, the plains strewn with slain armies left to decay and disintegrate in the noon-day sun. He saw the Rotting Man’s hope for final triumph.

Little of the Daughter was left now. The core of rot remaining scrambled like a live thing, trying to escape. Marrec stabbed it with Justlance. Screaming, the blot skittered away but Marrec stabbed it gain. It lay quivering, and Ususi, stepping out of the surrounding mist where she had hidden, burned the place where it lay with magical flame.

The layers were shed and the core was gone, but something remained behind, hiding behind the core. It was washed clean. It was whole, complete, and shining. It was a great unicorn, white and gold, with eyes too bright to look into, or maybe it was a woman, whose features reminded Marrec instantly of little Ash. It was the woman Ash would have grown up to be. Rather, it was the Aspect the Green Powers had intended to send all along. Araluen.

Araluen fixed Marrec with a look from her blazing eyes. She said, “I forgive myself for succumbing to the Rotting Man’s trap, as you have forgiven yourself for your accident of birth. Redeemed in our own eyes, we are both of us fit to serve Lurue.” The unicorn touched Marrec lightly on the forehead with its crystal horn. Knowledge was imparted to the cleric, and he smiled.

With curses so potent that minor creatures of decay were produced from each utterance, the Rotting Man stood up from his throne.

The battle between growth and decay, years delayed, was joined.