A deal worth making

Hildegard sweeps a hand through the space the wizard occupied until a few moments ago. She feels a hand clamp on her wrist. Anjali is slowly shaking her head and pulls her back.

Anjali is scared. The wizard has teleported away. As impressive as that is, what happened immediately before that is a more pressing issue right now. His face showed real anguish before he left by teleportation, presumably to escape a trap. She does not want to experience a weapon that blasts without warning through the wards a wizard of his calibre must have. They have to leave. Investigating by hand the place it hit him is a bad idea. She wishes they could backtrack their footsteps exactly, but that is not an option. She slowly emulates the headshaking motion these Westerners use for negation and makes a gesture she hopes indicates leaving the room.

Hildegard is puzzled for a moment, but then she understands that her companion thinks that the wizard stepped on a trap and was abducted. Neither of them is ready to deal with a magical trap that may be recharging right now. The demoness might be. Retreating, reporting and coming back with reinforcement is the correct response. She lets herself be led out of the room.

My face hits grass. My urge to vomit keeps me from appreciating the implausibility and softness of that grass. I hate vomiting. I know some people see it as a welcome relief. I don’t. I just lie in the grass fighting down something nasty and drawing deep breaths. I am even too preoccupied to switch off my full eldritch sight. In fact I welcome it. It is highly distracting. I don’t think I am under attack, as far as I do any thinking at all, because I should see it. The human digestive tract has two ends. Controlling both proves beyond my capabilities.

I pant and rest. I have gotten it out of my system, literally and figuratively. I hope whoever did this to me stood right behind me. Sadly there is no evidence for that. There is evidence for warm, viscous liquids following the pull of gravity and pooling. I get up, get away and get naked again. The sheet I was wearing has been redecorated and is a total loss.

My anger at the dryad has vanished. She probably just expected a reward from my captors. Disappointing, but business. The recent attack has been personal. Were I in the mood to think about body fluids, I’d declare blood feud. At least I am still hairless everywhere but on my scalp and face. There’s nothing to mat down.

I don’t really feel up to getting up. This attack has messed up my nervous system. I can tell. What happened up there? I doubt that the attack happening at the time I had decided that the dryad should die was random chance. Somebody is reading my mind. That is a problem. How do you fight somebody who knows all your plans? Spontaneously would be the logical but not helpful answer. I look at the blue sky and the incongrously plain rock walls. The eldritch sight reveals the sky and the sun in it as illusions, which provide a subset of natural sunlight limited to the frequencies humans can see. The illusion makes no effort to hide itself from anybody with the least bit of magical perception. Still, the illusion is warm and the grass is soft. I fall asleep.

Zewrepa is listening to a report she has trouble believing. She takes on of the two crossbows they have found in the meantime and accompanies her company to the room the dryad has been put in. Even her relatively weak senses see the receeding scar in the ambient mana. „Somebody has smashed through spacetime.“ she announces and concludes „This means that he has fled. A trap would have been more elegant. And I see no teleportation or other trap.“ She lets the meaning of her words sink in. It means that there is nothing they can do. Nobody of them can teleport. They cannot follow a teleporter.

Perversely this makes her task much easier. The execution is still awkward because there is no way she could speak in a way everybody understands. But the situation was clear. They were in a cave in the moutains. Snow was already falling. Their food supply would last only a fraction of the season. When she calls for making clothing and at least foot coverings from the available materials, building a few sleds for pulling stuff and all food that needed to be cooked to be eaten to be cooked everybody understands. When she also orders that they’d wait for optimal weather they agree. Nobody is eager for the trip.

I am back to lucent visions. Only that this time I am in an endless beige expanse facing our captor. He begins without an introduction „I have decided to confront you. Don’t be alarmed. Our difference in power means that you’ll profit most.“ I answer in kind „You can surmise that I consider you my enemy and want to eliminate you. Tell me why I want to talk to you.“ He actually grins and replies „I ultimately share your desire for you to eliminate me. My incomplete existance has turned out to be an indignity. You cannot kill me. I am a part of your mind. I can just cease to exist as a distinct fragment of personality.“ I notice that he has left out a part of the explanation and tilt my head in question. He gives a short nod and continues „Yes, what do you get out of it. The usage of a part of my impersonal knowledge, language, geography, that sort of thing. And before you ask, I get out of it that your desire to exact revenge on my original will lessen, both for practical reasons, as I, or rather he, become less of a threat, and by my mental influence.“ I am not satisfied and need to clarify „And why do you deem yourself an indignity? And how can I trust you?“. For a moment he cannot meet my eyes „I intervened for sentimental reasons. I am not in full command of my facilities. I made you spare her against my own interests. I rather not be at all than be not the master of my own mind. As for trust, this is ultimate our mind. Try stating nonsense or a lie.“ I do try. I cannot. O well, I am sure that club was not on the ground a moment ago.

Hildegard has claimed the second crossbow. She is well trained in ranged weapons. She doesn’t know carpentry or the craft of the cobbler, but she can sew. Making a shirt for somebody with four arms is a task everybody of them is unfamiliar with, so they let the worst seamstress among them do it.

I am back on the grass. This time I am fit enough to take a good look around. This cavern houses a tree, specifically a cherry tree. A sick cherry tree. Cankers abound on the branches, many of which have lost their leaves. It does not take a genius to make the connection.

More remarkable and mysterious are the golden bands binding the branches, connected to a pillar of blue crystal. I can feel Marental even without eldritch sight. I switch it on anyway. Bonds of subjugation. That is what he meant. He felt something for a slave. I react with more spontanity than I would like to see in myself. My thunderbolt annihilates the pillar.

Melo’s unconcious form twitches. A smile is slowly spreading on her face.

What do I do now? I put my hand on the trunk. I feel that I can use my healing power on anything alive. Was she commanded to kill me? If so, that does not tell me that she won’t do it on her own again. But in the end I don’t want another attack. I heal her.

There is a wash basin on the wall. I use it for reasons better not mentioned. I fly up to the entrance spurning the stairs. I end up in a corridor, new memories inform me leads on one end to the locked door and on the other end to Marental’s quarters. Something draws me to the latter. I am surprised that I share his physical dimensions almost perfectly match mine. Clad in his house robes and wielding his keychain I open the locked door.