A Land Far Away

The Doorway

She knelt in the snow. Every breath she drew was painful, her damaged throat wheezing with the strain of it, her mind a whirl of exhilaration and surprise that she could still breathe at all.

Between her rasps she could hear the moans and breath of the battered. The remaining hunters… survivors, like her. Why had they come here? To slay a demon? To safeguard those they cared for? No reason seemed solid enough to grasp at just now. She may as well try to hold the mist all around her, hovering above the snow like a shroud for the dead.

All around her the once smooth face of the snow was crushed by the stamp of boots, torn by the slash of a score of weapons, soaked with the blood of so many souls, just fighting to survive to the next moment, the next battle.

She knelt, and tried to breathe.

“Sarenna…”

Kal had hobbled back to her, from where he had been searching. The place they were in looked like an outdoor temple to Auril, complete with altar and statuary, or at least it had until the statues came alive and tried to kill them. Just lifting her eyes to look at him made every muscle in her exhausted body shriek with agony. She could see how wounded he was too, in an instant. Bloodsoaked, his leathers torn at the left shoulder, his right leg dragging behind him. None of his own pain was in his features though. Only concern for her. Oh, Kal.

“How badly are you hurt? There’s a door, love. I’ve found the key.”

She thought back to the Guild Hall, as they prepared for what must come. All her labour arrayed on the shining Guild floor for all to behold. Her art, and her true gift, beyond all the magic and lore. Preparedness. The lifeblood of the survivor. She thought of Kal, his eyes bright as his smile at her, for what she had spent a moon preparing them all for. Clarianna, Nipsy had thanked her. Cornelius. Even Vale, atop his stage, had drawn every eye to her, by praising her work. The inscribed words to Luther on the Memorial over Vale’s shoulder: Preparedness is Key.

She felt the tears in her eyes forming as she listened to him, feeling her pride crushing under the weight of the words in her mind, words she didn’t have the strength left to say: I’m sorry, Kal. I wasn’t ready for this. I don’t have any healing left to save you with. Yer going to die. I’m sorry…so sorry.

“There’s a door, love. I’ve found the key.”

Not two nights before, she had yelled in his face, shoved him back with her all her strength, told him to get the fuck out. To leave her alone, in his room, the room he had invited her into, given her the key to. She could see the hurt on his face, the pain in his words as he struggled to understand what wound her rage was pouring out of. Why could she never control it, when she needed to most? The performer, the bard…for strangers, she was flowing silk, deception made beautiful, moving them to tears and joy with purity and grace. But for Kal, the only one who ever saw a bright future when he looked at her, what was she? A knife in the dark. I’m sorry, Kal…yer going to die. I’ve killed you.

“Found the key…”

She had told him then. How lost she felt. How left alone to choose a path where it would lead, for her…for everyone. What it was like in the dark, with only hatred to keep her warm. Vale would pay. The city would burn.

“Don’t you remember?” She had said, “That night on the road, what you promised me?”

Show me a path, Kal. Be my scout alone. Lead, and I will follow.

“There’s a door, love. I’ve found the key.”

She found the strength to stand. The other survivors did too. “Endure,” Vale preached, and they would. What choice did they have? The demon would perish, winter would end, if only they pressed on.

They gathered at the door.

***

The Choice

Kal, at the door, his jaw set, muscles tensed. She had joked with him so many times, when they were with others, hunting, venturing. “Time to work, love,” She would quip, and he would smile at her. A smile that said “It’s fine, Sarenna, don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. I know what’s important.” In her mind she spoke the words now, but couldn’t bear to say them aloud. She was too afraid of what would happen if she did.

“Remember,” She had said to him, in the Guild, just before they left. Remember, Kal. Remember what’s important. Their familiar, comforting chant to each other. Don’t play the hero. It’s just us. You know it’s true. They can survive without you. Remember. Please. It would comfort her, but it was a lie. She knew what his heart was. Loved him for it, and hated him too.

“Kal. Do you have any healing left? I’m out.”

It stung to admit it, but she had no choice. She knew what was coming next. He healed her, and handed her the half-spent wand, all that he had. One small stretch of wood against the horde. The latch clicked, the door pushed open, and he was gone.

Cornelius and Vale charging in behind him, and then they were all through. Lightning crackling from where Aglorus ran, Nipsy’s bolts, and Clarianna’s too, whizzing past her. Nock, draw, loose…she lost herself in the comforting rhythm of the hunt, and tried not to think where he had gone. Elementals, Yeti, Cultists…the survivors pushed through, relentless.

The field they were on grew quiet, and colder. She could feel the sweat prickling on her forehead, bits of ice forming on the hairs of her arm. A stair of ice curved down into the ground ahead of them. She heard him before she saw him.

“I’ll go have a look, then.”

She touched at the weave over her wand. Five. Five scant uses left, and she would be defenseless. The survivor in her railed against it, rose like bile from deep inside her. We shouldn’t be here, she thought. We can’t win this. This isn’t our fight. She looked behind her, to the door, just barely visible now through the mist. But unmistakeably closed. Locked. And Kal, as ever, had the key.

“Come back, love,” She whispered. “Time to go.”

Miraculously, she heard fleet footfalls on the icy steps, approaching. She had spoken her fear aloud, and been heard.

Only it wasn’t Kal.

The cultist loosed at Aglorus first, and struck hard. The arrow struck him in the stomach, and hurtled him back against the wall around the stair. But the Halruuan was already moving, hurtling past her up the steps to safety. She pointed the wand, and healed him as he ran for safety. She hadn’t turned all the way back when the second arrow tore into her back, and dropped her to her knees. With a cry she snapped the arrowhead off jutting through her abdomen, and pulled the arrow free, touching the wand to her side. She looked behind her down the stair. Cornelius and Vale encircled the cultist, and in seconds it was over.

Three. Three uses left.

The others were already descending the stair, their faces drawn, but determined. They knew what must be done. She thought again, of what she had said to him, demanded of him, in the safety of their room, in the mountains that first time, in the Westwood. Show me the path, my scout. I know where my path will take me, take us. Show me how to walk yers. Lead, Kal. Lead, and I will follow. Her wound had stitched itself shut now. It wasn’t injury that kept her from rising to her feet. She had long ago accepted that she was alone. Unclaimed. That if she was going to survive, it would be on her own merit. Because she alone would be the one to decide.

Her face drawn in anguish, she looked to the stair, back to the door, to the stair again.

“Hells, Siren” she whispered, “Who are you now?”

Kal appeared, halting the procession.

“They’re close to the base of the stair. There are many of them.”

Weakly, she called out. “How big is the cavern, Kal?” Stupid. What did it matter?

“It’s huge, love.”

And he was gone. They all were. Would that be the last word she ever heard him say?
Show me the path, Kal. I know where mine leads. Remember. Don’t play the hero. She took one last look behind her, rose to her feet, and chose.

“Time to work.”

***

*hushed whisper* I'm ashamed to post in here and take away from the mood this created. You are a wonderful writer, PA.

***

The Descent

Her choice was made, her mind attuned, and everything became sound. The staccato of her steps, the allegro of her heart beating, the crescendo of her breath. The first bars of the symphony of pain below flowed up the steps to meet her, a building chorus awaiting her instrument’s entrance. The roars of untold horrors, the high screams of the cultists, the clash of steel, and flesh, and bone. But dissonant strains were already playing in her mind, before she reached the bottom stair. “Not now,” she pleaded with her own mind, but the memories played on, slowing her tempo, taunting her. The Shadow Thieves’ bank of acid fog all around her, eating at her will and skin; her tree perch dissolving into ash from a mage’s touch, and her plummet to capture; and the nightmare that had plagued her for moons now: The ring of trees, the arrows nocked and pointed at her, the Siren naked and helpless at the centre.

She jumped clear of the final stairs, desperate to flee the demons already wearing at her resolve, desperate to find Kal and the others, to not be alone with the voices in her head.

The cavern was immense, as Kal had said. She couldn’t see its walls. A thick bank of icy fog hung heavy over the battle raging everywhere around her. The freezing touch of the fog prickled her skin like acid. Her memory turned reality, and the cacophony of voices inside rose to a shriek of victory.

She ran.

A swirl of fog to her right formed into Aglorus, flashes of arcane power streaking ahead of him to slam into half seen fears. Blood was flowing free from a slice across his temple, but he charged forward undeterred, sure of his purpose and path. She lifted Kal’s surrendered wand and sprinted after him, loosing a wave of healing that staunched his wound as they ran. The other survivors were unseen, but the ferocious chorus of battle seemed to come from everywhere at once. Three yeti, their mouths wide in withering roars, coalesced out of the nightmare fog to the left. Aglorus hardly slowed as he veered to meet them head on. She skidded to a halt in the snow, and nocked an arrow to send flying ahead of him to slow their murderous approach. She drew the bowstring back to her ear before she felt it on the nape of her neck; cold waves of hatred that buffeted the fog all around her. She turned, and for the second time since descending saw what this cavern truly was: Her plague of memories made real, and deadly.

Her perch of safety, the hide of the Siren of the Wood, that had been turned to ash from under her, was reformed, and before her. Kringus, the ice demon, was her tree.

She had only had herself, for so many years. Long years spent perfecting her skill, her survival skill, and more. Solidifying her conviction that she was prepared, sufficient. When the Shadow Thieves took her tree from her they had stolen her faith, and she had spent nearly a year now bitterly trying to rebuild what had been lost. And now Kringus stood before her, to shatter her to pieces once more. The demon took a ground shaking step toward her.

Rage, pure and clarifying rose in her. Gwafiner’s lute had come to her. She alone held the instrument of this demon’s destruction, the song that would herald the end of winter, and rally the Springtide. No one else stood near to her now. All that had come before felt preface to this moment. If this demon and its hellish cavern were truly the manifestation of all the demons she had carried for so long, then she faced them now, and would destroy them. She swung her lute into her hands, and glared a lifetime of pain at the mockery of her past walking purposefully toward her.

She gripped the fretboard, and slammed the perfect chord of hate and destruction at Kringus, the embodiment of all she had ever suffered and lost. An unbelievably powerful surge of lightning arced free of the lute, and crackled mightily into the demon’s trunk.

All the anguished music of battle, surrounding her and within her, was absorbed into the single deafening crack of air and wood ripped apart by the blast. For a full measure after its cymbal crash, there was only silence, as Sarenna watched, and waited. Kringus was bent back on its giant limbs, at the last possible angle to defy gravity its prize. And then it righted, and took another step toward her.

Sarenna, lost in shock and horror, felt her muscles slowly turning to ice, creeping up her body from her feet. Kringus had survived. And she was going to die. For what felt like a full minute she struggled to turn her frozen limbs and run. Kringus, in its triumph, lifted a limb in victory and brought it down across her back, driving her to her knees into the snow. She tried to breathe.

“Sarenna!”

Kal was racing forward, sword drawn, her protector. Defiant and unrelenting, charging a fate that was never meant for him. A fate that even now hovered above her, a moment from sounding her final note.
He doesn’t know, she thought. He doesn’t know I’m already dead. She heard her own words whispering to her, as they had before. Who are you now, Siren? Who are you now?

She lifted her eyes, drained of all hope, to meet his just as she felt the demon once more buffet the air between them and Kal with waves of fear and hate. She saw his eyes widen in silent terror, his sword drop out of his hand. She watched, emotionless and cold, as if it were a play in Waukeen’s Square, something to glance at as she walked through Athkatla’s centre on her rounds. He was running hard now, back the way he had come. Kringus, indifferent to her now, discarded in the snow, lumbered after him. Unclaimed, she thought, and absently ran her finger over her armour where her tattoo lay underneath. Who are you, Siren? Who are you now?

She found the strength to stand, and wandered away.

Blood in the snow. Splintered shields. Shattered armour and bodies. Trees burning. Numbing fog. The sound of battle and fury everywhere, but with no melody or rhythym. She looked up from the ground, out of some half remembered habit.

She was at the centre of a grove of pine trees, their branches laden with snow, their trunks coated and sparkling with ice. Beautiful, she thought. They’re beautiful. Lost in the thought, it was a few moments before she perceived the Cultist archers stepping out from behind the trees, arrows nocked and bowstrings tight. She turned slowly to count them all. They closed their circle around her. Naked, she thought. In my dream I was naked. With a sigh, she knelt once more in the snow, the burden of her demons too great to bear standing. How could I have been so wrong, she thought. Alone, and unprepared. Insufficient. And Kal? What had her Siren song meant for him? A death knell, that he never deserved. I’m sorry Kal, she whispered to the frozen air. Who are you, Siren? Who are you now? The archers loosed their arrows.

Darkness claimed her.

***

Awakening

When she awoke, it was in the Guild. The first face she saw was Vale’s, standing near her, his face as impassive and inscrutable as ever. He nodded once to her as he saw her eyes open.

“Kal,” he said, “She’s awakened.”

Sarenna blinked, her mind fighting to comprehend what she was seeing.

“Vale? You…did you…” His silent composure and stillness was the only answer she received.

Kal appeared at her side, his features heavy under the strain of his grief and guilt.

“He did, love. Vale, Cornelius, and Nipsy. They got us out, brought us back.”

She winced, as if struck.

“Rest a moment, Sarenna. You’re going to be all right.” His eyes were wet. “Inen, Sarenna. Hope rises.”

She fought back tears, and tried to breathe.