Chapter 4

Despite all the weighty matters at hand, Tarrin Kael knew that sometimes, one just had to put it all on the top shelf and worry about it later.

His plan had been the only thing on his mind for some time, but now that everything was more or less worked through, and a couple of the little bugs were recognized and corrected. So, to avoid nitpicking himself to oblivion, he knew when it was time to step back and just let it sit.

That meant that he had to occupy himself with other matters…and there weren’t many other matters into which he could get involved, given that he was trying to keep a low profile. He ended up spending most of that time talking to Szizazz or stalking the stacks of the large library in the Sage’s Council, searching for more information about Demons and Deva, more about the Deva than the Demons, trying to learn more about those who were his enemies, and were soon to become his enemies.

And in this he found something of a curiosity. It turned out to him that the Demons were much more researched and documented than the Deva, and this was a darkly amusing irony to him. The sages and wise men had spent much time and effort studying the beings that were dark and dangerous and potential enemies, but spent virtually no effort studying the mysterious Deva. What made it odd to him was that these men knew more about their enemies than their allies. Demons were heavily researched, entire bookshelves in the library devoted to the subject and written by sages who, often at risk to life, limb, and soul, had laboriously penetrated the veil of secrecy of the Demonic culture and learned…where the Deva barely had a shelf of books devoted to them.

But that little bit of information was useful to him. Mainly those few books on the subject glossed over the powers of the various Deva and attempted to penetrate the wall of silence of the Deva concerning who they were and what they did, and had no success.

And that was probably why the Demons were so much more well known. Demons would, with enough incentive, reveal their secrets, where the Deva would not. They were united in their silence.

But the books had enough in them, as Tarrin was able to study the powers and abilities of the various Deva, from the warrior Agathinon to the almost godlike Solar. And of course, much like anything else with the Deva, the researchers had never managed to get the Deva themselves to talk about it…their findings were the results of laborious research of watching the various Deva in action, where there was no way to hide what they were doing. But it was enough for him. He had no doubt that the various Deva had more abilities than what the books attributed to them, but the observations recorded in those books was enough to give Tarrin a foundation of understanding in the Agathinon, Deva, Planetars, and Solars to understand the nature of their abilities and the best ways to go about combatting them.

He just had to be careful. He was in a vulnerable position here, and he knew it. The Deva were not the Demons in how he could deal with them. They were united as a whole, and when he started opposing them, they would be much more dangerous to him because of that unity…and this was their home ground, as it were. Certainly, the first thing he had to do after earning their wrath was get out of Crossroads, and stay out. He couldn’t come back here after he took what he needed from a Solar.

After doing all that reading and deciding it was time to take a break, he spent much of his time getting to know Szizazz. The four-armed creature who looked so much like a marilith was an interesting female, in both her personality and her history. It took him a while to get her to actually talk to him, and he found her personality decidedly reptillian. She was a cold, unemotional woman, devoted to the concepts of knowledge and logic and shunning emotional outbursts as a useless waste of energy. Her race, whose names were literally unpronouncable to him, were not like her, she told him. They were consumed by greed and hatred and fear, and warred with each other and everyone else. Szizazz was part of a very small minority of her people who saw the futility of these actions, but unlike others, he saw, she had so utterly rejected the actions of her people that it also caused her to reject the emotions that caused them to act the way they did. Her status as a Wizard meant that for her, life would be nothing but one endless war until she was killed on the battlefield. When a magical accident propelled her here, to Crossroads, she saw no reason to return to a life she did not want to lead.

But Tarrin liked her, despite her cold nature. She was intelligent and wise, and she was loyal. That seemed odd to him, but it was an extension of her some of the customs she had yet to shed from her past life, one of the customs of her people. Guests welcomed into her home were afforded respect and protection as if they were family, until they did something that caused her to withdraw that hospitality. She insulated herself from potential problems by being very selective over who she allowed to rent a room within her inn. Only those she felt were worth her hospitality were permitted to come under her roof.

He had shared spells with her, and had told her about his homeworld, and had even taught her how to play chess, after using magic to create a board. He did these things because he found that he just needed someone to talk to, he needed a friend, and he felt he could trust Szizazz. He’d even revealed at least the main framework of the events that had brought him to Crossroads, and his plans to correct his mistakes and return to Pyrosia.

“So, that is why the krin spell became uncontrollable,” she mused as she held a knight in one of her four hands, studying its form with her cold orange-red eyes. “It reacted to your divine nature. It is designed to drain the power of the Wizard and transform it into krin, but your power is potentially limitless. What the spell drained was immediately replaced, so the spell never found its terminus because it never ran out of power to siphon.”

“Ah, I see,” he said with a nod. “That certainly explains what went wrong. I never thought of that when I cast it.”

“Obviously,” she sniffed, setting the knight down in a new position. “And that is how gods make krin in infinite amounts. Check.”

“Most likely,” he agreed, studying the board and resisting the urge to frown. Szizazz had picked up this game entirely too fast for his liking.

“Do you feel that your allies on Pyrosia will endure until you are able to return?”

“They should,” he said, moving his king out of danger. “If Dolanna can get a handle on the power she has at her disposal, Pyros will be a very hard target for the Demon Lord to conquer…and he can’t do anything there without taking Pyros first. Dolanna’s the lynchpin of everything there. So long as she’s in Pyros, she controls all magic in Pyrosia, and that’s a threat that the Demon Lord can’t leave unchallenged.

“How does a mortal do this?”

“Well, because she’s just a focus for a guiding power,” he answered. “Dolanna maintains the integrity of the Weave I built there, but the one who’s doing the actual controlling is my Goddess. She doesn’t do it by doing anything conscious. All it requires is her physical presence. A Weave cannot exist without Sorcerers and a coherent force holding it in place. My Goddess can’t provide that coherent force because it’s not Sennadar, but Dolanna can. So, my Goddess is the sentient force behind the laws of magic that the Weave enforce on Pyrosia, but Dolanna is the focus of coherent will keeping it in place. In a way, Dolanna is a living icon for my Goddess, giving her a window into Pyrosia.”

“It sounds stressful for her. A mortal was never meant to control such power.”

“Dolanna’s resilient, and it’s not as hard as it sounds for her,” he answered. “She doesn’t have to control that power, Szizazz, she just has to be the will of the Weave. She has to actively keep the Weave stable, but it doesn’t require her to understand every secret of magic to keep it up. That’s what my Goddess does. Dolanna just provides the conscious will to hold it in place. In time, she’s going to learn how to control that power much more comprehensively, and that’s when she’s going to be dangerous to the Demon Lord. That’s why he has to kill her as fast as possible, because if he gives her time to understand how to control that power, she can lash out from Pyros and decimate his entire army, no matter where it is.”

“Truly, magic is much different in your world than in mine. In my home dimension, no magic-user could ever perform such a feat.”

“I guess it is,” he agreed. “Too bad you weren’t born there, Szizazz. I think you’d have liked it.”

She sniffed. “Then I would not be who I am. And I am content with who I am.”

“True,” he agreed. “But I’d love to have you come visit someday.”

“You said the world is closed.”

“It is, but when I finally get back home, I’m going to assert some authority. I’m sure I can swing getting you through the gate and in for a visit.”

“You are going to bully gods,” she remarked.

“I’ve done it before,” he said with nonchalance. “They’ll want no part of me after I get home, because I’ll be very unhappy over how they tried to keep me out. And by then, they’re not going to have any bloody way to deny me my home. Ayise will give in, or I’ll get nasty.”

She gave him a cool but amused look.

“What?”

“I find it amusing to hear you speak so,” she told him. “I think you are the first person I have ever met who sees gods as nothing but a minor inconvenience.”

“Well, technically, I’m also a god,” he chuckled.

“In name only.”

“Well, yeah, but let’s not quibble over little things,” he said flippantly. “I was able to bully gods long before this happened,” he said, jerking his thumb over his back to point at his wings, which flowed from his back to display themselves for Szizazz’s benefit.

“A strange world you live in, Tarrin Kael,” she told him, her expression still dryly amused. “I would not be happy living in a world with such power. It trivializes what is important.”

“It’s not always fun, believe me,” he told her. “Sometimes, I’d much rather be the kid I used to be, when I didn’t have any magic, and where my whole world was nothing more than my parents’ farm and the surrounding territory. And I certainly agree with you, Szizazz. Sometimes I look at how things have turned out, and I wonder just how in the nine hells it came to this. Here I am, a bloody god, fighting against a Demon Lord. You know, ten years ago, I was that kid whose entire world was a farm and a stretch of forest. I’m just a farmboy from Aldreth. What in Sennadar am I doing out here?”

She gave him a strange look. “Perhaps, that is exactly why it is you who are here,” she told him. “Because you are that farmboy from Aldreth, and not a god.” She leaned her cheek against the palm of her hand, elbow on the table between them, as two of her other hands clasped before her and the fourth reached down to the board to move. “Check.”

He frowned again. “I understand what you’re saying. That’s how I got into this mess in the first place,” he told her. “I was chosen to go after the Firestaff because I didn’t want to use it. My Were-cat mentality doesn’t make me seek out power like humans do. I could be trusted with that kind of power, because it wasn’t what I was after. But in the end, I used it anyway. Strange world we live in sometimes,” he sighed.

“Why did you use it?”

“Because it had to be done,” he told her, then he glossed over the situation with Val. “Me using it was half out of revenge for what he did to me and my family, and half because the world just wasn’t big enough for him and the Elder Gods. Part of me really enjoyed killing him, though, I can’t deny it, it wasn’t completely about duty. He harmed my family, and that’s something you don’t do if you want to live. I can be quite vindictive sometimes,” he admitted.

She gave a low, undulating hiss, which was her form of laughter. “It certainly seems so,” she told him. “Do you regret doing it?”

“No,” he said after a moment’s thought, blocking her attack with his rook. “Even though it did this to me. This is the result of it, but the act itself, well, I’d do that again. This is the burden I bear for it. I’ve had to learn to live with being what I am, and it caused me a lot of problems early on. I’ve never been very comfortable with being a god. It’s just not me, you know?”

“And does it cause problems now?”

“I guess it does. It’s not what I want to be. It’s not who I am. I’ve learned how to use it, but if I could have things my way, I’d gladly give it up, in a heartbeat.”

“You are wise, Tarrin Kael,” she told him.

“I don’t think so,” he chuckled. “I think if I’d been given the mind of a god instead of keeping my mortal mind, I’d be singing a different song.”

“Then you are truly wise,” she told him, one of her four hands moving over the board as she took his rook. “When I use the spell that changes my shape and gives me legs, I feel decidedly like I am not who I should be, even though when I am in that form, things are much easier for me. Despite knowing that this place is not designed for someone like me, I cling to my natural form, because it is who I am. You understand the truth of being who you are, and being faithful to it, Tarrin Kael. They truly chose wisely when the chose you to bear the burden of the Firestaff. Check.”

“Legs, eh?” he said, giving her a slight smile. “I’ve never seen you like that.”

“I have no reason to use it within the bounds of my own home, Tarrin,” she told him.

“You’re going to have to show me some day.”

“Perhaps,” she told him. “If I were not a proper maiden, I would almost think you were making an improper invitation.”

He laughed. “No, Szizazz, I like to stay within my own species. But you are a handsome woman to me…at least from the waist up.”

“For some strange reason, that pleases me. Though I have no idea why.”

“Girls like to hear that they’re pretty,” he told her with a grin. “Even four-armed snake girls.”

“You are indeed a dangerous man, Tarrin Kael,” she told him with a clever little smile. “I think you are trying to distract me from defeating you in our game.”

“I’m not that petty,” he laughed. “You’ve pretty much well got this game wrapped up. I need to start teaching people who aren’t smarter than me,” he mused aloud. “And you just learned!”

“This game is war, my friend, and if there is one thing I understand, it is war.”

“I guess you would,” he told her with a hint of compassion in his voice. “Well, I’m going to resign this game, Szizazz. You more or less have me in four moves.”

“A wise person knows when to admit defeat with dignity,” she said simply. “I would return to my apartment, Tarrin, to rest and to take a meal.” The door of the inn opened, and that hulking insectoid creature who was staying at the inn entered. It nodded silently to Szizazz, and she nodded in return as it shuffled past and up the ramp towards its room.

“Oh, there was something I wanted to give you,” he told her as she slithered backwards, away from the table. He went up with her as she slid up the ramp, then she paused as he opened the door to his room and entered. He came out holding a small crystal bell. “This is for you,” he told her.

“A spell of some kind?” she asked as she looked at it.

“The bell itself, no, but there is a spell on it, one taught to me by an old friend,” he told her. “If you ring the bell, I’ll be able to speak to you for a short time, regardless of distance. I don’t think it will work if I leave Crossroads, though. My friend knows a spell that can do that, but she never taught it to me.”

“A nice gesture, my friend,” she told him. “And it is a lovely gift. But fear not, I know a spell that will allow me to contact those in other planes. Do you plan to leave soon?”

“Well, you know that I’ll be leaving when I get what I need from the sages,” he said as he escorted her towards the ramp to the third floor, which was her personal apartment. “Since I don’t know when that’ll be, and it’s certain that I’ll never be back here once I leave Crossroads, I decided it best to just give it to you now, instead of trying to wait until I leave.”

“Ah. Well, I appreciate your thoughtfulness. When you do leave, I would much like the chance to keep in touch with you. You are truly a friend.”

“I appreciate that,” he told her. “I guess I’ll go back down to the Sage’s Council and see if they have anything for me yet.”

“Good luck with that.”

“I need some,” he grunted.

He had no luck with the Sages that day, or the next, or the next. But there was little that he could do except wait, and check in regularly with the receptionist—who was still terrified of him—and wait until the day she told him that they had information for him.

But at long last, after many days of waiting, the stodgy receptionist finally told him, in a quavering voice when he appeared, that the leader of the Sage’s Council had left word that he wished to speak with Tarrin.

He passed through the large council chambers where the sages met, and was directed to a surprisingly small office in the back, filled with books, and books, and more books, and a single small desk in the back, upon which sat a simple lamp that glowed with a soft white light, obviously magical in nature. The lead sage of the Council sat behind that desk, scribbling on a piece of parchment with a quill pen. His lightning-colored hair was different than the last time he’d seen him, much shorter, and neatly trimmed. “Come in, please,” he said without looking up.

Tarrin nodded to the receptionist and stepped inside, and found that there were no chairs in this man’s office aside from the man’s own, leaving Tarrin to stand. But this didn’t overly bother him.

“I apologize for the delay,” he said. “Some of our brethren weren’t exactly punctual in returning an answer to my query.”

“And what did they tell you?”

“You have…a bad reputation, my Lord,” he said bluntly. “I had no idea of who you were until one of the sages replied with a detailed exposè concerning you.” He raised a piece of paper. “According to him, you are a renegade entitity who has earned the wrath of both Demons and Gods, and whose appearance within Crossroads immediately put the Deva on alert. He responds that he will have nothing to do with you or your contract. Pity, he was probably your best option to get your question answered.

“But, it seems that there is at least one sage out there who isn’t too concerned with your, ah, past. That might be because he himself is something of a renegade, and there are any number of individuals who would very much like to catch him out where they can get their hands on him, One Rule or no One Rule. The reason it took so long for his reply to reach us is because this sage lives within the area where no power of any kind functions, near the boundary that marks the closest any may come to the Core. This missive had to travel by mundane channels to reach me, and so it has reached me last.”

“Renegade?”

“This sage has written several articles and journals defaming the gods,” he said directly. “He denounces them and considers them false beings who seek nothing but to steal the souls of mortal man. His ideals are…radical. There are any number of mortals, archons, and gods alike that would like to send this fellow to whatever force holds sway over his soul. And thus, he lives in an area where no magic functions, to protect himself from his critics.”

“It sounds like he’s a real firebrand.”

“He is a crackpot and a maniac,” the lead sage said evenly. “But, he is also an expert in the fields of theology and planar geography. He has the background to answer the questions you posed to me. I would send you to any sage but him, if not for the fact that he is the only sage who has agreed to take your contract.”

“As long as he does what I need him to do, I don’t care about his views,” Tarrin said.

“Very well,” the lead sage said with a nod. “His name is Rolteford. He lives literally within sight of the Boundary, in a large compound where he grows his own food. To my knowledge, he has not left the walls of his home in over a century. How he conducts his research when he never leaves his home and cannot use magic is quite beyond me, but that is a problem for you to handle, not me. His address is the Gojoris neighborhood. Here, I have a map for you,” he said, grabbing a rolled parchment from his desk and extending it towards him. “Because you cannot use magic within one hundred miles of the Core, this means you must use natural transportation to traverse the twenty miles between that boundary and Rolteford’s compound. I suggest you hire a winged mount to take you there. You can ride a winged mount?”

“I can manage,” Tarrin said. He advanced to take the map, but when he got close to the lead sage, he detected…nervousness. This usually wouldn’t stand out too much to Tarrin, he often had that effect on people, but the man’s outwardly calm demeanor seemed to clash with his scent. The man wasn’t lying to him, but he was nervous about something.

“A word of warning,” he said in a measured tone. “Rolteford is…erratic. Just because he is expecting you and you are going to hire him, do not let your guard down around this man. He might attack you without provocation, or warning. Approach his manor with caution, as he may have his compound trapped. Do your business with him quickly and then take your leave of him, then return when he is finished with your task.”

Ah. Perhaps that was why he was nervous. He was sending someone whose temper was probably well documented on that paper on his desk to someone that might attack him out of some kind of paranoid impulse. If Tarrin were in his shoes, he’d be nervous about that too.

“I can handle a single human,” Tarrin said dismissively.

“As you say, but do remember that I warned you.”

“Yes, you warned me. And thank you for that warning.”

“Very well. Our business here is concluded. And, as you no longer have reason to come here, I would much prefer that this be our last meeting.”

Tarrin gave him a cool look. “I usually educate people who use veiled threats with me, mortal,” he said in a flat tone, his ears twitching. “But I’ll forego it, if only because you’ve helped me. But don’t ever do it again,” he warned as he turned and stalked towards the door.

“I will have no reason to do so,” he stated.

“You’d better pray you don’t,” Tarrin growled as he left the man’s small office.

Tarrin put the man out of his mind as he unrolled the map and paced through the halls of the Sage’s Council and studied it. This man Rolteford’s manor literally was within sight of the Boundary, sitting across from the large paved plaza that marked the final expanse of land where anyone could tread before they reached that point where one could simply approach no further. From what he remembered reading, it was like a wind without wind, an invisible giant hand, a force that pressed against one as one neared that boundary, until the force became so overwhelming that it flung the approacher away. According to writings and legend, only a Solar could pass beyond that boundary, and only the magical powers of a Solar would work that close to the Core. Not even the powers of the other Deva would function in that close proximity to the Core, not even the powers of a god.

Tarrin would need a mundane, non-magical winged animal to fly him the final leg of the journey. Tarrin’s wings were a creation of his divine power, and their power too would fail when he got within one hundred longspans of the Core, though the wings themselves would not disappear, as they were considered a part of him and would not disappear any more than his arms or legs would…but they would be trapped in whatever shape they held when he crossed into that area where no power functioned. The boundary was, according to this map, eighty longspans from the Core itself. That left Tarrin with twenty longspans of territory to traverse without any kind of magical means.

That would be no real problem.

Luckily for Tarrin, he saw that the Gorojis neighborhood was almost a straight line from where he was now, on the same side of the Core. That meant that he wouldn’t have to circumnavigate the Core the way he did when he first came to the City.

Returning to the Gzargmoth, Tarrin prepared for the journey, which basicly amounted to leaving everything of magical power behind, including his staff. It was a direct creation of his power, and it would disappear if it was taken beyond the boundary and into the place where no power worked. His magically protected belt pouch, the weapons and amulets he’d taken from the Demons, his Portable Hole, they all had to remain behind. But he wasn’t about to leave those things just laying around, either. He put everything within the Portable Hole except for an amount of krin he felt he’d need to buy what he needed for the journey, then hid it by using magic to separate the fibers of his blanket and then sliding the Portable Hole between them, literally making the piece of magical cloth vanish into the weaving of the blanket. A few well-placed spells of non-detection, which were themselves undetectable, ensured that the device would not be found. And the finishing touch was a powerful defensive spell on the room itself, something that not even Szizazz could counteract, a powerful and deadly magical protection that would attack anyone that came into the room.

But he certainly had no intention of going out there unarmed.

After warning Szizazz that he might be gone for a couple of days and telling her that the sages had finally come through, he went out into the City and bought two things that he felt he might need. He had to look around for quite a while to find exactly what he was after, but it was worth the effort.

The first thing he needed was, obviously, a new staff. He looked high and low until he found exactly what he was looking for, a staff of the perfect height and weight, and while not magical, was made of a wood that seemed exceptionally tough and resilient, almost as tough as his old Ironwood staff…but not quite. It had to be very strong, because Tarrin’s strength would shatter a staff made of normal wood if he struck something with it using all his power. That strength was a function of how he built this new body; it was not magical. That strength required him to be very careful about the weapons he used.

Because he would be forced to enter a manor that, according to the map, included enough open land for this man to grow his own food, that meant that he needed some way to strike at this potential maniac from a distance if the need arose. So, he went shopping for a bow. Again, his special condition demanded that he find the right bow. He looked for nearly three hours, until he found what he was looking for in an open market. It was a bow made of what looked like jet black wood, but was actually some kind of pliable mineral, almost like stone that would bend, but not break. It was strong, the merchant declared somewhat boisterously that it was absolutely unbreakable, made from the Living Stone of Gladsheim, and he also claimed that the bowstring was also unbreakable.

This was what Tarrin needed. Tarrin’s claws could potentially snag a bowstring when he shot it, and the sharp tips would slice a bowstring in half with no effort.

Testing proved, at least tentatively, the tiny green-skinned little biped’s claim that the bowstring was unbreakable. Tarrin actively tried to slash it apart with his claws, both with the bow at rest and with it fully drawn. It wasn’t made of string or fiber, it too was made of the same dark pliable mineral as the bow. In fact, after studying the bow, he saw that the string was actually part of the bow.

The bow’s balance wasn’t that good. It wasn’t crafted by the hand of a master, but as bows went, it was tolerable. But the special qualities of the bow were exactly what he needed, and a little magic here and there could correct the imperfections of the bow and make him comfortable with it.

He paid the little man his asking price without even bothering to haggle, then procured two quivers full of adequate quality arrows. He then used a Wizard spell that shaped stone to buff out some of the burrs and imperfections of the bow and fix its balance problem. Once he had the bow in a suitable condition, he shouldered it and bought food, water, and a saddlepack, then went off to find himself a mount.

It didn’t take him long to find what he wanted. There were any number of services that rented out flying mounts to take people places within the City…a flying taxi service. There were also any number of different species of flying creatures to chose from, from winged serpents to griffons to hippogriffs to giant insects to giant birds, but Tarrin found himself not a rented mount, but a mount in a stable that was being offered for sale.

It resembled a Pegasus, but it was not a Pegasus. It was black as pitch, from the mane on its neck to the feathers of its wings, and it had glowing red eyes, just like a Hellhound. In fact, a lick of flame flared from its mouth as it whinnied in a threatening manner as Tarrin approached it, and twin puffs of smoke issued from its nostrils. It was a big animal, more proportional to serve someone of Tarrin’s height as a mount than someone of human size.

“Please tell me ye’re thinking of buying her,” a voice called. The black Pegasus narrowed its eyes and snorted, fixing an ugly glare on someone behind Tarrin. He turned to see himself looking at a Modron.

A Modron was a rather unique creature that originated from Nirvana. They were a race of creatures that resembled solid three dimensional shapes…the more sides a Modron had, the lower its rank within their society. They supposedly represented the perfection of law, a perfectly regimented society that existed for no other reason than to obey the laws of Primus, their leader. This creature resembled a ball of some kind, a dark gray color, and after Tarrin counted his sides, he saw that he was an eight-sided Modron, among the middle ranks within their society. This creature literally resembled a die with arms and legs, its eyes, nose, and mouth resting within its central mass. It was diminutive, only coming up to Tarrin’s thigh.

“Strange to see a Modron here,” Tarrin said in surprise.

“Spare me, please,” it snorted. “So, old Fury has your eye, does she? I’ll sell her to you for ten krin.”

“Ten, eh? Sounds like a steep price for a Modron desperate to get rid of an animal,” Tarrin noted.

“Well, she didn’t try to jump her gate and pound ye into the yard, so she obviously likes ye. That at least gives ye a sporting chance with her. Most people can’t get even half as close as ye are without her going after ‘em. Worst investment I ever made, buying that brute.”

The animal gave the Modron a nasty, narrow-eyed glare.

“What is she?”

“She’s a Firewing Pegasus,” it answered. “They come from Gehenna. Some people call her kind Nightmares, but that’s not really right. Nightmares don’t have wings. She’s got an evil temper, but she’s a solid mount if you can get her to obey you, she can fly long distances and carry very heavy loads, and she can breathe fire.”

“Gehenna?”

“She ain’t one of the Tainted,” he said quickly. “She’s an animal, milord, one of the natural creatures from that hellish place. Sure, she’s got a bit of evil in her, but that’s her natural disposition. Her kind of evil is just damned contrariness.”

“Breathe fire, you say? Is she immune to it as well?”

“Aye, milord. Fire can’t hurt her.”

That was perfect. Tarrin was a being of fire, she was a being of fire, and it meant he could unleash some of his more destructive Wizard spells without any fear of doing her harm. He also realized that this animal would be of great use to him later on, after his plan was well into motion. Besides, Jenna would love it.

“I’ll take her. Ten krin. And I’ll buy whatever tack and harness you have that’ll fit her.”

“Sold! Thank Primus!” it exclaimed.

Tarrin advanced on the black animal. It gave him an odd look, then it snorted aggresively, lowered its head, and unleashed a blast of flame directly at him. Tarrin simply walked through it nonplussed, which surprised the evil-tempered creature. It gave him a startled look, but that expression became mean when Tarrin stared it right in the eyes. She snorted again, blowing smoke from her nostrils, then reared back and clamped her teeth down on his paw and forearm.

Her teeth were not blunt. They were very sharp, very hard, and the animal had incredible power in her bite. But Tarrin didn’t even flinch, even when her powerful jaws snapped one of the bones in his arm.

“Are you about done?” he asked levelly, directly addressing her as a Druid would any animal he wished to understand him. “Mind you, if you take that paw off, I’m going to take something off of you. And mine grows back. Does yours?”

The animal blinked, and immediately released his arm.

“She understands ye!” the Modron gasped.

“Of course she does,” Tarrin snorted, absently rubbing his arm as it healed itself. “Now then, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to buy you. You’re going to serve me as a mount. You’re going to be behave yourself and obey my orders, and in return I’ll take good care of you. When we’re done here, I’m going to use magic to send you to my home where my sister will care for you. She’ll absolutely adore you. You’ll have no want of attention and care. You can have that, or you can stay in this stall by yourself. It’s your choice.”

That struck a chord with the animal. It gave him a deliberate stare, then gave a mollifying whinny.

“Well, milord, she don’t eat grain and hay like a horse might. She eats wood and coal and drinks oil, to fuel the fire of her furnace. She can eat anything that burns if you’re strapped for food, including letting her graze on grass and twigs, but she likes coal the best,” the Modron explained as Tarrin unlatched her stable door, then stepped inside. She was a tall animal, as big as Azakar’s Ro, but not as heavily built. She was sleek and graceful, but Tarrin knew that, like any flying animal, she was deceptively powerful, her muscles highly toned. Flying was very hard work. Her hooves, he saw, were black and shiny, and looked like stone. He picked up one of her feet, and found that those hooves were harder than steel, and were very sharp on the leading edge.

“You’re one well armed little girl, Fury,” Tarrin noted as he released her foot. “That explains the strength of her bite, if she eats coal and wood,” he said to the Modron.

“Aye, milord, those jaws of hers can snap branches and pulverize coal.”

“They also didn’t do bad on my arm,” he mused as he patted her flank. He came up to her head and urged her to open her mouth, revealing a set of shiny obsidian-colored teeth, all of them sharp, including an impressive set of fanged canines, stained with his blood. “No damage done,” he told her, “to my arm or your teeth. You have a saddle and tack for her?”

“Aye, milord, but I’ve got them stored in the loft. She won’t let nobody put them on her.”

“Go get them.”

“Aye.”

She may not have let anyone else put on her saddle and bridle, but she wasn’t dumb enough to object when Tarrin did so. He saddled her and put on her bridle, then noted that he needed to buy a pair of saddlebags. He adjusted the straps until they were snug enough to hold the saddle securely but not uncomfortable to her, and she fidgeted in place as he did so. While he did so, the Modron explained how she was trained to obey commands while in flight, at least admitting that that was how he was told she was trained, given she wouldn’t allow anyone to ride her. “Don’t like saddles, do you?” he asked her.

She gave a derisive whinny.

“I’d agree with you if I were in your position, but I’m afraid I’m going to need it. Don’t worry, you won’t have to wear it for too long.”

She gave a short snort

“Well, that’s about it,” Tarrin noted as he stowed his bow and staff in the saddleskirt, on either side of the saddle. He urged her to move her wing, then he mounted her in an easy motion and immediately tied himself into the saddle. “All things considered, Modron, I think I got the better end of the deal,” he said with a slight smile.

“I’d disagree with ye. I’d have paid ye to take that evil brute off my hands. The money I’ll save on coal alone makes it worth selling her for a song.”

“Your loss,” Tarrin told him.

“So ye think,” the Modron said dismissively. “Given she’s attacked every single person who’s looked into buying her, I thought I’d never get rid of her. She even attacked ye.”

“That just means I like her more,” Tarrin chuckled. “How did you manage to keep her for so long without the Deva coming?”

“Well, near as I can figure it, milord, her attacking people don’t really attract their attention because she’s an animal, not a person doing it with evil intent, ye know. That, or they won’t attack an animal that don’t really know no better, or they won’t kill an animal just acting out of instinct. She’s gone after plenty of people, but the Deva ain’t never once come. Take yer pick as to which reason sounds best to ye that they don’t.”

“That does make a kind of sense,” he said. “If they won’t come after an animal just reacting out of instinct. Well, thanks for the mount, Modron. I appreciate it.”

“Good journey, milord.”

“Have a good day,” Tarrin mirrored as he urged Fury out of the stall, then snapped the reins and sent her into the air.

He enjoyed only a short flight with her, getting a feel for her capabilities as a flier…and he was impressed. She was very strong in the air, both faster than a Pegasus and able to turn much sharper, even at higher speeds. She seemed to enjoy the demands he placed on her, almost showing off for his benefit, until he brought her back to the ground, dismounted, and led her by her reins as he returned to the same open-air market where he’d bought his bow.

He left her at a post at the edge of the market, but did not tie her to it. “Now listen,” he told her sternly. “I’d like you to wait right here for me while I buy your food. No biting, no kicking, no stomping, no breathing fire. Just leave the people alone unless they touch you. If someone touches you, then by all means, defend yourself. But no scenes, Fury. If you attack someone, you might attract a Deva.”

She nickered in understanding, then levelled a flat stare at an archon that had paused to gape at her, who then scurried away fearfully.

“That’s my girl,” Tarrin chuckled, patting her neck fondly.

He bought two more saddle bags, and filled both of them with coal. He also bought a small cask of oil for her to drink, then finished up the shopping he needed by buying a single large emerald of fine quality, a component for a spell that would eventually send Fury to Pyrosia, where she would stay in the care of those at Pyros until he could get her back to Sennadar and to Jenna. He would have definite use for her later; in fact, she filled a small hole in his plan that he’d been planning to address when he reached that point.

He returned to Fury and found her standing where he left her, giving all those around her dangerous gazes. He tied on the new saddlebags and cask, then mounted her with graceful ease and took the reins. He could easily have flown alongside her, but he wanted to get a feel for what it was like to ride a flying mount instead of flying himself, something he’d not really done very much.

“All right, let’s go, Fury,” he told her, urging her to take off.

It was almost surreal.

This close to the Core, which he could now see, a distant pillar of soft, rotating light in the sky, almost resembling golden water illuminated from within pouring up into the heavens in a spiralling pattern, he could feel its effect on him. It was exactly as it had been described in the books he’d read, almost like a wind without wind, a gentle force that seemed to try to push him away. But that was not all that he felt.

The sensation of passing beyond the final boundary between the area where the powers of gods worked and where they didn’t was dramatic within him. He’d felt the systematic and continuous draining of something inside him, feeling it retreat like the tide away from the center of him. It was still there, still a part of him, but it was beyond his reach. The same thing happened when he passed into this area, where no power functioned at all, a strange disassociation of self when his divine abilities retreated from him, but it was much more profound. He felt…incomplete now, almost as if a part of himself had been stopped at that invisible line where his divine powers ceased to work, and now he was separated from himself. The oppressive force exerted by the Core affected his mind as well as his body, feeling like he was trying to think through a layer of damp wool.

It was the Core, he knew it. The Core was the force pushing the magic away, and now, this close to it, it had pushed away his own divine powers to such a point that he could no long use them. It felt like it was pushing against his very soul. And it made him feel…vulnerable. This was not a feeling which Tarrin Kael often experienced, and he did not like it one bit.

But what he felt within was only half of the surreal nature of what was before him.

Below were, literally, palaces of such extravagant opulence that they made the Imperial Palace in Dala Yar Arak look like a hovel. Streets were paved in precious metals like gold and platinum, gems glittered on almost every wall and column, and the architecture was both fantastic and absolutely breathtaking. This was a place that would make a mortal’s knees tremble, and fill him with artisitic glory for the rest of his life. It was that beautiful.

And it was deserted.

That was what made it so surreal. All this beauty, all this stunning opulence and grace and breathtaking perfection, and there was no one here.

The stunning streets below were empty. The fluted balconies were graced with nothing but furniture. The elegant bridging walkways between stunning towers were deserted. There was no one here to partake of the wondrous perfection that stretched out below him.

Perhaps…perhaps, Tarrin pondered, this was why this mad sage Rolteford lived here. Who wouldn’t want to live surrounded by such amazing beauty and wonder? The only thing that it would cost one would be access to magical power…and for many, that was not much of a sacrifice.

That thought caught in his mind, and nagged at him just a little. Why didn’t people live here? After all, it was empty, deserted. All these wondrous buildings were already here, just begging for someone to simply move in and take up residence.

At least, he wondered that until he looked up.

The Core. Of course. The weight of its unseen push against his soul was a tangible thing. Despite all this opulent wonder, who would want to live with that constant pressure being exerted against one’s soul?

Besides, just looking at it, it made him feel…insignificant. That was really the only way he could describe it. The Core was a thing of beauty, but it was also a palpable force that made him feel exactly like what he was…not a mortal, not a god, not worthy to look upon it.

That was why virtually no one lived here. And it made him wonder…did Rolteford move to this place because he was mad, or did this place cause his madness? Either was a distinct possibility. Feeling that inexorable pressure on his soul every second, every day…it certainly could drive someone mad.

He consulted his map again, and recognized one of the landmark buildings on the map, a gleaming silver obelisk so unimaginably tall that it seemed to defy rational thought, clawing thousands of spans into the sky. Fury flew past it at such a height that the smaller buildings below looked like dollhouses that Jasana once owned, and they weren’t even halfway up its length!

They flew on for several more moments, and then Rolteford’s compound came into view…and it was a stark, glaring difference from the amazing elegance that surrounded it. The walls of Rolteford’s compound were squat and ugly, made of rough stone and topped by rows and rows of barbed metal stakes. Within those walls were a surprisingly large expanse of farmland, done in neat rows, and a simple cottage that didn’t look like it could be more than two rooms sat in the exact center. Smoke wafted from the chimney of that simple slate-roofed stone house.

It was…amazing. From the way it looked, Rolteford’s compound pre-dated the awe-inspiring artisitic perfection that surrounded it, looking very much like a cannon in a ballroom, as Kerri might say. That rough-walled compound looked almost laughably out of place.

Fury circled the compound three times as they descended, and Tarrin used that time to look over the place. It was nearly a quarter of a longspan from the front gate to the cottage, along a simple cobblestone path that ran between two fields of beans. He saw no obvious mechanical devices that might be traps on the front gate—they had to be mechanical, since magic wouldn’t work here. There was a bell on the gate, attached to a rope that hung from the gatehouse roof on the outside. The whole place looked decidedly domestic, just a hermit living a life of isolation…but a hermit that had a violent disposition and a touch of madness.

Fury landed lightly near the gate, and trotted to a stop close to it. It was unpainted, a simple bare wooden gate that had no lock on it, with a bellpull to warn the occupant that a visitor had arrived. There was not even a window on the gate so the occupant could look out to see who was paying a call.

That seemed…illogical. If this man was paranoid, why would he not even have a way to see who was at his gate? For that matter, why have a gate that one couldn’t lock?

Could it be trapped? The lead Sage warned him of that possibility. Tarrin dismounted and pulled both his bow and his staff out of the saddleskirts, slung a quiver over his shoulder, then shouldered his bow across his torso and approached the gate. His soft padded feet almost seemed to echo loudly in the utter silence of this place, and the bellpull rope made a loud creaking sound. That silence was shattered when he pulled the rope, causing the bell behind the wall to toll, a harmonic and sweet chime that seemed to echo in this place of utterly still air and nearly oppressive silence.

Of its own behest, the gate opened, swinging away from him on surprisingly silent hinges. There was no magic involved, and this man Rolteford was nowhere near the gate…and yet the door opened. Tarrin stepped up to the gate, perplexed, then slowly stepped through. He looked around at the gate door’s frame, and saw a small spring and pulley, with a small, fine chain attached to the end and going down into the ground.

Clever! The man had rigged up some kind of mechanical device that allowed him to open the gate from his cottage, nearly a quarter of a longspan away!

Now this was more what Tarrin was expecting. Obviously, this Rolteford was a mechanical genius, on a level with the Tellurians and Wikuni. No doubt that the man had other mechanical gadgets, and there was little doubt in his mind that some of them might be seeded on the path or the fields before him.

Tarrin motioned for Fury to stay where she was, and then he started towards the cottage on silent, cautious feet. He paid attention to the cobblestones before him, looking for anything that might be amiss, a loose stone, a tiny switch or button, a faint tripwire that might signal the presence of a trap of some kind. His nose tested the scents that reached it, searching for the scents of metal, anything that might be out of place in this place of beans and earth and cobblestones…but it wasn’t easy. The air was dead calm, almost thick, and it didn’t carry scents like air would anywhere else. He could barely scent the beans to either side of him, the only smell that was promininent within his nose were the scents of himself and what he carried and the stone beneath his feet.

He moved cautiously yet steadily, until he was nearly halfway to the house. Fury gave a whinny behind him, which caused him to turn around. The black-coated animal seemed agitated for some reason, braying and whinnying, stomping the ground as it pranced in place. Then it turned, spread its wings, and then vaulted into the sky.

“Fury!” Tarrin shouted, shaking a fist at the pegasus. “Fury, come back here! Come—“

He stopped dead, eyes narrowing, looking past his traitorous mount. There was…something up there. Very high, very faint, but he could see it.

Demon!

It was a single lone winged Demon, a vrock, glaive in its hands as it soared a drastically high altitude above the ground, so high up that it was barely a speck in the sky. That was what spooked Fury! Being from Gehenna, a lower plane, of course she would fear Demons!

Tarrin immediately dropped to the cobblestones, testing the stones for faint traces of scent. Not only was there no trace of any scent of Roldefort, there was no trace of any scent of any kind, as if the stones had been scoured clean. It was too clean.

Things weren’t adding up here. There was no reason he should see a Demon this close to the Core…it had no reason to be here. Only gods came to this place, to meet and discuss points of contention in a neutral atmosphere. It had no reason to come here.

No. Wait. It did have a reason to be here…because Tarrin was here.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, he should have realized that he should be able to scent Rolteford on the stones and the gate before starting in!

Damn the Core, and its dulling effect on his mind and his senses!

This was no interview to hire a sage!

It was a trap!

Turning, Tarrin bolted for the gate. Damn that animal, flying off and leaving him! Unless she got over her panic and returned, he was looking at running twenty longspans to get to where he could use his own power to fly out of here! He raced along the cobblestones, abandoning caution, and then hurtled through the gate and out into the vast paved area between Rolteford’s humble compound and the nearest opulent palace. But he skidded to a stop when he saw what was outside of his view before, hidden by the walls of the compound.

There had to be a hundred Demons, from half-blood Cambisi to no less than three balor, moving quickly but very carefully and quietly, so as to sneak up on him, coming towards the compound from those very same opulent palaces he thought had been empty before he landed!

Tarrin stood, momentarily gripped in a moment of indecisive panic. He couldn’t fight his way through that many, but he couldn’t run away from them, because the Boundary was little more than a stone’s throw in the opposite direction!

Damn them! And damn that sage for setting this trap up! And he’d fallen for it so cleanly…if he weren’t in so much trouble, he would beat himself for being such an idiot.

No wonder Fury fled…in a moment of clarity, he found he couldn’t fault his treacherous mount for running away, not with that coming towards her.

Tarrin pondered furiously for precious seconds, watching as that horde of Demons abandoned stealth and charged after seeing him appear in the doorway. A sound behind him made him glance back, and he saw a marilith and a winged vrock appear from the cottage at the center of Rolteford’s compound, clamping the jaws of the trap shut by promising a fight if he retreated back into the compound…but that itself would be suicide.

Or would it?

He couldn’t run away. He couldn’t go through them. That left escape running laterally, and hoping that he could run faster than they could cut him off before turning back away from the Core and outflanking them. If he bolted straight ahead, running across their field of vision, they’d see him and be able to cut him off. But if he ran back into the compound, the walls of the compound would hide him from their eyes and they’d have to respect the possibility that he might go in any direction, which would spread them out and give him a chance to break through if he couldn’t outrun them. And least there were only two of them inside the compound that he could see, which was much better odds. The marilith’s snake body would hamper her ability to chase him, they weren’t very fast on the ground, but the vrock would be highly mobile. That would restrict the vrock in its pursuit, because he’d gaurantee that the marilith was smart enough to order the lesser-stature Demon to remain with her, so they would have a better chance bringing him down.

Making up his mind quickly, Tarrin turned and darted back into the compound, grabbed the gate, and then slammed it shut. He looked back and saw the marilith and vrock moving towards him, and to his chargrin, yet another balor squeezed from that small cottage and started towards him. In a smooth, graceful motion, Tarrin dropped his staff into the curl of his tail, wrapped it up, then rushed forward even as he pulled the bow from over his shoulder. He ran forward even as he nocked the first arrow, then had to slide to a stop and raise it as the vrock took off from the ground and charged at him, its glaive presented and ready to try to spear him as it passed. It gave a cruel, gawking cry, and looked right into Tarrin’s eyes as he loosed the arrow.

Tarrin’s skill as an archer had not dimished a whit. The arrow slammed into the vrock right between the eyes, and to the Demon’s shock and dismay, the arrow was not turned aside. The materials from which the arrows were made were from Gladsheim, they were not made in Crossroads of materials native to Crossroads, and so the Demon’s invulnerability did not protect it from them. The Demon crashed to the ground, rolling and sliding in a cloud of dust, fragments of bean plants, feathers, and black blood, and then slid to a motionless stop, its body already starting to dissolve into that foul black ichor.

Tarrin ran by the congealed mass of the dead vrock without so much as a glance, already nocking another arrow even as he picked up speed. The two mighty Demons near the house seemed to understand that Tarrin was a real threat, given he could conceivably kill them before he got anywhere near them, and both moved to retreat behind the cottage wall, to break his line of sight and not present a target. He continued rushing forward, mindful of that lone flyer he saw high in the sky…it would be the perfect opportunity for it to swoop down on him from that dizzying height while his attention was fixed elsewhere and there were no other Demons around him to get in the way. He raced along the cobblestones of the pathway, nocked bow held low as his mind raced, pondering where those two would be hiding behind the cottage, how best to attack them. The balor would only want to attack him, but the marilith, that was the one to watch. That was the one that would be the true danger. Of all the Demons around, she was the one that would see this as a coordinated effort to kill him, not a collection of Demons all trying to be the one to bring him down and earn favor from their Demon Lord master.

He couldn’t see them on either side as he charged closer and closer to the house, but then he realized that they couldn’t see him, either. They would simply wait to see which side he went around, and try to catch him on the far side.

But there were more ways to go.

With a short vault, Tarrin soared off the ground and landed on the slate roof, then charged up the slanted slope. He took firm grip of the bowstring in his free paw, then vaulted off the apex of the roof, soaring thirty spans into the air, so high that he could see all four sides of the house under him. He looked down from his jump and saw the two Demons behind the house, as the balor was flexing his wings and preparing to launch himself into the air to come over the roof at him…the balor had the same idea as him, but Tarrin had been the quicker to implement it. Both Demons looked up at him in surprise.

Tarrin had never fired a bow while in the air like this before, where he had no stabilizing force. But his natural agility and ability to orient himself to the ground helped immensely as he aimed down the shaft of his arrow first at the marilith, but then he realized that the winged balor was the more dangerous of the two in the short term because its ability to fly was probably faster than his ability to run. He loosed his arrow at the balor; it was an awkward shot, without the true power he could have put into the missle, but his aim wasn’t off by a terrible amount. He’d been aiming for the center mass of the Demon, the middle chest, and the arrow struck it high in the left shoulder. It wasn’t a killing shot, but it did make the Demon roar in pain, staggering back and clutching at the arrow protruding from its hide with its right hand as its left dropped its long nine-tailed whip to the ground. He let go of the bow when he landed and rolled with the force of the impact, and his staff was swept up into a waiting paw by his tail as he suddenly turned on those two Demons with equal measures of hate and fury in his glowing green eyes.

With a shriek of hatred, Tarrin crashed directly into the injured shoulder of the balor as it tried to turn and get its jagged-bladed sword into a position to defend, and he used the winged Demon as a shield to keep the six-armed marilith out of reach of him. Tarrin slammed the staff into that wounded shoulder as the larger Demon caused him to rebound off of it, then hooked the back of its ankle with his shin and pinioned it, executing an Ungardt takedown. Before it even finished hitting the ground, the marilith was on him, her three swords, rapier, and two axes whirling in a dazzling dance of black steel death. Tarrin managed to turn aside uncountable thrusts, slashes, and jabs of those weapons, pushing Tarrin back as the Demoness did something that Tarrin found almost unthinkable in a Demon; she was covering for the balor, giving it time to recover while keeping Tarrin off of it.

He’d been right. The marilith truly was the most dangerous Demon in the pack, and not because of her martial skill.

In a stunning display of dexterity, Tarrin parried over thirty attacks in less than two seconds, the ends of his staff almost looking as if nothing joined them together in the middle as it whirled and blurred, defeating an amazingly complex and invariably deadly attack routine the marilith unleashed against him. Were he not trained by some of the best warriors alive, it would have killed him. This Demoness was not Shaz’Baket; she was better than Shaz’Baket. Tarrin gave more ground as he furiously defended himself from her onslaught, watching her movements with a trained eye, looking for a hole in her almost smooth and endless array of complicated thrusts and shallow slashes. It took inhuman coordination to flawlessly wield six weapons in perfect harmony, and though a marilith had that kind of mental capability, even they were prone to slight pauses in their attacks as they transitioned from one attack to the next, as they got their six weapons into the proper positions.

He saw his opening. He stopped giving ground and pressed in as she paused for the slightest of instants to reset one of her axes, and she shifted into a defensive posture smoothly and effectively. She parried a quick series of attacks in a high-low sequence, then bit at a feinted high jab at her face. She slithered to the side and tried to skewer him from the flank as he turned into the feint, but that only put her where he wanted her to go. The end of his staff swept the rapier out of his path, and then his foot came up just behind the staff and planted itself squarely in her the side, just under her breasts and almost into the juncture of her middle left arm and her ribs. The breath wooshed out of her as he felt bones snap under his foot, and then he slammed the butt of his staff on the ground and used his foot on her as leverage to lift himself into the air, vaulting off the staff. He whipped his body around, just over the axe that tried to cleave itself into his hip, and bones of his ankle and lower shin impacted the side of the martilith’s pretty little face. She went flying away from him as he spun in the air in the same direction as the force of his kick, just as the balor had pulled the arrow out of its shoulder, regained its whip, and had started rushing for him. But Tarrin was ready for it. Tarrin landed already facing the balor, and instead of bringing his staff up to defend, he instead rushed forward with the staff held low and away in his left paw. The nine-tailed whip lashed out at him, trying to entangle him, but the Were-cat melted out of the way, then brought his staff up and around as the Demon simply released the whip instead of trying to recoil it and took its jagged-bladed sword in both of its mighty hands to meet the smaller Were-cat’s charge. It decided to move into a defensive posture as Tarrin charged it recklessly, readying to parry aside his staff as he charged towards it. Tarrin brought the staff into the end-grip and narrowed his eyes, laid back his ears, and surged ahead with shocking speed.

The balor was almost stunned with shock when, instead of attacking with his staff or trying to knock the Demon into an awkward position, Tarrin instead vaulted himself high into the air well before the Demon could reach him with its jagged-bladed sword. It realized that Tarrin could not in any way strike at it from so high up almost immediately, and Tarrin could see the methodical calculating behind its eyes as it tried to guess where the Were-cat would land, so it could be there with its sword.

Tarrin’s back coiled like a spring even as he turned over in the air, and then exploded into motion, uncoiling as Tarrin came head over heels. His body had been blocking what he’d been doing, and the Demon didn’t realize it until it was too late.

Tarrin’s staff sizzled down towards the Demon with horrific speed, thrown with such force from the airborne Were-cat that it caused his body to rotate in the opposite direction and literally stopped his forward momentum.

Just as it had done to Jegojah so long ago, the move completely took the Demon by surprise. It could not react fast enough to evade or block, it almost seemed to stand there in disbelief as the blunt end of Tarrin’s staff impacted it high in the chest at a sharp downward angle, plunged into its red-skinned flesh, and then erupted from its lower back, just over the muscle of its buttock, and then drove into the ground beneath it with an audible thok. Tarrin had thrown his staff like a spear, and while his ability to aim an arrow had not been very good, his ability to aim his staff had been deadly accurate and right on the mark.

The balor shuddered horribly on its impaling pole, black blood erupting from its mouth as its jagged-bladed sword fell from nerveless fingers, even as the staff continued to vibrate from the impact of being driven into the ground. Tarrin landed lightly on two feet and a paw, then he had to roll aside as the marilith slithered up behind him with surprising speed and tried to brain him with her axe.

“You have no weapon now,” it purred aloud, in a dreadfully eager voice, raising its six weapons into an attacking posture.

“Can’t use your telepathy here, eh?” Tarrin answered in a low, growling tone. “That means that you can’t command the minions the way you’ll need to. And here I thought you were the dangerous one,” he said with a hiss. He spread his feet and held his paws up for her to see, then extended his claws slowly, letting her see them. He then held his paws out wide and low, in that slouching stance he used when fighting unarmed. “Come get me, little girl. If you can.”

She gave an infuriated cry that drowned out the gurgling of the balor as it struggled feebly to free itself of its impaling stake, then rushed forward with strong undulations of that long, dangerous snake body. From the onset, she tried to end it quickly, probably understanding that Tarrin Kael was no easy kill, even unarmed. She charged at him for everything she was worth, swinging her weapons with all the speed and power and grace and precision that she could bring to bear. But, freed of the burden of his staff, Tarrin’s paws and elbows and knees and feet proved just as effective as his staff had been in blocking attacks, provided the attack was anywhere near him in the first place. He moved with incredible grace and agility, silthering, sliding, ghosting, almost gliding along the ground in a display of terrible beauty, showing the Demoness the wondrous awe that was the Dance. His movements were almost perfectly synchronized with her own, as if two bodies were controlled by one mind that sought to dazzle the onlooker with displays of precision, of how close a weapon could come to Tarrin without finding him. Tarrin was one with the ground, one with the Demoness, one with his body, one with his soul as he performed the Dance with absolute perfection. He was a blade of grass in the wind, swaying, bending, absorbing but not breaking. He was the inu, his movements fast and precise, lightning speed tempered by exacting precision. He was the kajat, power, strength, the guile of slow movements and the shock of the burst of speed. He was the water, a great force of flowing symmetry, deceptive in its graceful power. He was the desert stone, unyielding, resilient, the only force in the desert which could part the winds.

In that fleeting moment, as both combatants moved with a speed that almost defied rational comprehension, did he truly understand the Dance, did he truly become one with the warrior within, in an almost religious experience that brought him to understand the very soul of the people for whom the Dance was an intricate part of life. In that moment, he was Selani.

That which was easily avoided, was avoided. That which could not be avoided, was blocked, with paw or foot or knee against the haft of the weapon or the wrist, or blocking against the inside of the forearm or the elbow. That which could not be blocked, was deflected, with lightning-fast strikes of paw or foot against the flat of the blade.

Even with six swords, the marilith could not wound him. After that furious exchange, after the marilith backed off a split second to recover her wits after having been foiled, she could see that she had done little more than nick him. He was bleeding from several cuts and gashes on his arms or legs, from where he had literally batted aside her weapons using his bare hands, but not so perfectly done that the edges of those weapons didn’t bite into his arms, legs, hands, and feet.

She rushed right back in, trying to kill him with a coordinated attack of all six of her weapons that would be absolutely impossible to prevent, but the Were-cat vanished. She surged forward after making no contact with her foe, her mind racing as it tried to wrap itself around the fact that one second he was there, and suddenly he was gone, out of her line of sight, in an area where it was absolutely impossible to use any kind of power, not even her own natural telepathy. Only at the last instant did she sense him, realized that somehow he had slipped to the side of her in a way that she did not see. She turned to face him—

--and turned her head just in time to see his open paw, claws out and leading, racing towards her nose.

She gave a wailing cry as those claws ripped across her face, cutting four deep lacerations into her handsome yet alluringly wicked visage, and one of his claws slashed directly across her right eye, blinding her. Only her flinch and the bridge of her nose, sheared through, saved her left eye from the same fate. She slithered backwards, her snake body and tail thrashing wildly as she put the backs of her upper hands against her torn face, screaming horribly in pain and fury. At first she couldn’t understand why she was still alive, why he didn’t finish her in her throes of agony, until she cleared enough blood away to see with her remaining eye.

The Were-cat was already at the balor, kicking it down from its stake to retrieve its staff from its impaled body. In the distance, she heard the screaming of the other Demons, who were now inside the compound and charging towards the cottage.

Tarrin managed to get his staff out of the dying Demon, then turned and raced away, not even slowing down when he leaned down and scooped up his bow. He’d run out of time, and simply had no more time to play with the marilith. But, since she couldn’t use her telepathy here, it meant that she could not coordinate any pursuit once the Demons got out of her sight…and he’d done his best to make sure her sight wasn’t going to be very much use. He knew for certain he got one of her eyes, but wasn’t sure he got the other one…but no matter. Now that she was wounded, and her snake body would make getting over the wall very hard unless she used the gate, she was effectively out of the battle.

And Tarrin had no intention of making it that easy for her.

Besides, there was another clock ticking in his mind, and that was the clock that would herald the arrival of the Deva. Once they entered the fray, then all bets were off. It would be very hard for Tarrin to escape, since all of them could fly, and they could easily chase him down.

He streaked across the back side of the compound’s fields, his feet a blur as he ran with all the speed he could muster. He knew there were Demons outside the walls, moving to surround the compound and seal off his escape, but he was gambling that not many of them could run as fast as he could. He slowed down only to sling his bow back over his chest, then stripped the black blood from his staff as best he could with one paw and slung the spoor in his paw aside, making it less slippery. A single glance back showed him that the balor was slumped on the ground, dissolving away in death, and the marilith had her head in his direction, looking at him with her one good eye that peered from a slashed and battered face. A large number of howling Demons came rushi