“It is said that his commitment to his craft left him without peer, without equal,” intoned the preacher, standing beside the headstone, briefly sweeping the gathered crowd with his eyes as he let the words hang in the air. Almost three dozen people had gathered for the service, at least ten of them other tradesmen of great repute in the realms’ westerlands. “It is said that some of the finest weapons and armors in all of the lands were shaped under his hands, and that no matter what the cost, the work was worthy of it when he finished,” the preacher continued. “But more than just his degree of skill, the departed never failed to deliver on a contract. He was, and will forever be known as having been, a man of his word.”
There came murmurs of agreement, and the preacher opened the black-covered, aging book in his hands, turning to a satin bookmark within and turning his bespectacled eyes there. He read over the passage once more, to quickly remind himself of how it went. “Norto Bialik did not often speak of it, but he was a member of my congregation, here in Desanadron, and it is with my deep thanks that his earthly remains were returned here from Bios by his apprentice, Dren,” he said, looking to the young human smithy, standing slightly off to one side of the mourners with his closest companions. “And his friends, Holly Redtail and Andrei Dolstov.” The minotaur and cuyotai, each dressed in formal mourners’ blacks, nodded to the others in the crowd. “As a faithful follower of Oun, the Great God of Light and Order, Norto Bialik is owed this reading from the Book of Oun, as he is lowered into his final grave.”
The preacher shifted his eyes to a pair of strapping storm tribe werewolves, one standing on either side of the casket, coils of rope bound around their arms. With precise motions, they began unraveling the loops from around their wrists, moving in sync to lower the casket a few inches at a time.
“’Let thou who comes to me now, at the end of your burdens, to lay down thy head in rolling fields, and to take peace from the world and all of its woes. Let no pain or suffering follow you here, for you are my child, my ward. Though darkness now falls upon thy flesh, let the light of the everafter glow warmly upon your face here, in the realm that is given me and mine, and speak freely as you would with all those who have here gathered at the end of their mortal days.
“’The strictures of life shall follow you no more, and the terrors that beset you upon the mortal coil are no longer free to stalk. Your mind is free, your heart is free, and in the moment you awaken in mine fields, your soul is free. May you be forever blessed for offering it to Mighty Oun, and following his way as best you could, in life.’”
The preacher eased the book shut and hugged it to his chest, watching with the rest of the mourners as the casket holding Norto Bialik was lowered the rest of the way down into the grave. When it settled in the bottom, the gray-furred lycanthrope men dropped the remaining rope down atop the casket into the grave, and each of them made the sign of Oun’s symbol briefly in the air before stepping back.
A squash-faced gnome fellow, wearing patchwork leather armor with thin accent lines of deep green on the edges of the patches, stepped up beside the grave then and waved his hands over it, the fingertips giving off a diffuse emerald light. The scent of pine drifted off of him as his magic shifted the soil, quickly filling in the grave.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you, and may the Mighty Oun bless you as you go,” said the preacher, stepping away from the grave. Dren and Holly stood leaning against one another, arms wrapped about each other’s waist as the others who had gathered for the ceremony began muttering among themselves and discussing business affairs.
“So, you guys want to meet up in a little bit, raise a glass before I head out of town,” Andrei asked them quietly.
“You’re leaving Desanadron,” Holly asked, turning with Dren to face the burly freelancer.
“Yeah,” said Andrei, rubbing at the back of his head. “There’s a kind of cousin order to those Enlightened Fist folks just a few days west of the city here, along the coast,” said the minotaur. “When we were at that monastery, those few days before that, thing, showed up, I didn’t feel the usual need to drink, to quiet these guys down,” he said, pointing at his own head. “I think, maybe, they could help me work through some stuff. Maybe take some training while I’m there, too,” he said with a snort and shrug of his shoulders.
“I think that might be good for you,” Dren replied. “Do you want to swing by the shop, then? Closer to sundown?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.” Andrei looked around quickly, as if to ensure nobody was paying them too much attention, then took half a step forward and threw his arms fiercely around both the slender smithy and narrow mage, careful not to break them, but powerfully enough to let them know the depth of his intent. “I’m gonna miss you guys,” he whispered.
“We’ll miss you too,” said Holly, reaching up to pat his arm. “Or we will, if you don’t choke us to death.” Andrei let out a laugh and released them, stepping away. He lifted his head slightly to indicate something behind them, and when Holly and Dren looked, the cuyotai mage let out a weary sigh. “The Tradesmen’s Union reps. This ought to be fun.”
“Honey, it’s fine, we knew they’d be here and that they’d want to talk,” said Dren, slipping his hand over hers. “Let’s just deal with them and have done with it. Andrei?” Dren cast one final look up to the freelancer minotaur, their eyes holding on one another for a moment. “We’ll see you at the shop?”
“Sundown, bud,” Andrei replied. “I’ll see you then.” And he did see them at the shop at sundown, as promised, the trio having a few drinks and a few laughs, reminiscing about their time on the road together all those weeks back. It seemed almost impossible that only ten weeks had passed since their return to Desanadron from the Brotherhood of the Enlightened Fist, more unbelievable that their time together on that adventure had been just shy of a month in and of itself.
Dren and Holly updated the freelancer on their circumstances; Dren had, apparently, been named in Norto’s will as the sole inheritor of the forge and its apartment overhead. The old sot had had no family of his own, and seemed to have recognized, in his own way, that this was the only surefire way to carry on his legacy. Holly had finally been granted the title of standard member of her guild, though she had no need of the better lodgings this would normally have given her access to in the guildhall; she had moved in with Dren just a couple of weeks after their return to the city.
All seemed well for the trio, and Andrei wisely cut himself off after only a couple of beers in the living room above the forge. “I’ve got an autocart to catch,” he said, setting aside the bottle and rising up off of the couch. “I hate the things, but they are a pretty handy means of conveyance if you don’t want to go through the hassle of paying and caring for a horse. Dren? Holly? I’ll come visit you guys as soon as I can, okay?”
The trio shared one last embrace, and then the minotaur freelancer saw himself out, pausing for just a moment halfway down the stairs. He cocked his head to one side, hearing the playful tone of their voices behind him.
-It isn’t polite to listen in to such things, you old pervert,- Finn grumbled in the back of his head.
“Right, right,” Andrei said aloud, moving down the steps once more.
**
“They are too dangerous to keep around,” said the acolyte, standing across the desk from elder brother Renkit, whose arm had healed well, but now bore a long, wide scar of blackened flesh. The ankari blades left on the courtyard and bridge when the spectral creatures had been struck down still housed their essences, ready to be unleashed if the proper circumstances came to pass.
The wizened old lizardman rested his chin on his steepled fingertips, gazing down at the blades. “You are correct, of course, brother Foster,” he said slowly. “This purification ritual, you learned it while in the priesthood of Lenos?”
“I did,” said the hume acolyte, his hands tucked into the sleeves of his oversized robes. “But the ritual carries its own dangers. I would prefer to be able to do it in some measure of solitude while still in the temple.”
“There is a chamber,” said brother Renkit, standing up and strolling over to the long, low trunk he kept in the corner of his chamber, opening it for just a moment and coming back with a folded map. He offered it to Foster, who took it and unfolded it to look upon. “It is deep beneath the temple. Show the map to the guards posted there, and they will let you pass. Return to me with the map when it is complete.” The lizardman settled back down with a sigh, shaking his head. “And if I should not hear back from you within the day, I shall have them ordered to retrieve your body and deal with the ankari.”
The hume swallowed nervously, but nodded, tucking the map in his robe pockets along with the blades. He made his way down to the lowermost level of the temple, pulling out the map and following its directions, descending a roughhewn set of steps that had been mostly concealed by a pile of old gear left behind in the bowels of the temple by converts who had come to become members of the order.
The walls of the stairwell and the passage at their bottom were rough, unshaped, natural stone. Torches had been hastily bracket mounted to the earth, and kept lit periodically. Brother Foster made his way through several winding corridors, until finally he turned a corner into a short, rounded antechamber, where stood four monks, two jafts and two lizardmen, in the scarlet tunics of the order’s most elite warriors.
The guards tensed the moment brother Foster came before them, but he held the map up before him, and they seemed to relax. Behind them stood a dense, black iron door with a lever handle. They said nothing to brother Foster, merely stepping aside so that he could proceed. He nodded to them, grasped the handle, and pushed it down with an echoing ‘click’. He paused to give them all one long look, then pressed his way forward.
The room beyond the door wasn’t really a room at all, from the look of it. Stepping inside, brother Foster could feel the ground under his slippered feet, and when the door clapped shut behind him with a kind of queer finality, he whipped about, and saw the blackened steel door standing there, but set, seemingly, into nothing. All was pure whiteness, nothingness, as far as he could see in all directions.
Except for the doors.
Arranged in a kind of semi-circle, each one looking to be about twenty feet away from where he stood, were five doors, also free-standing. Four of the five appeared to be simple, dull brown wood, each bearing a golden number plate upon it; 4, 8, 12, and 16. But the one that trapped brother Foster’s attention, that seemed to call out to him, stood dead ahead.
A throbbing, swirling orange light whorled about the wood of this final door, and the number it bore on it was ‘26’. A deep hum emanated from this door, which of them all, alone appeared to have no handle or level to use for access. Brother Foster smiled, and snapped the bony fingers of his left hand. The robes disintegrated, reforming as the black Armani suit he always felt partial to, his leather driving gloves forming back over his hands, hair streaming back over his head with a hint of flames.
The illusion had been difficult to pull off, and the pain from the pathetic little man’s sneak attack had been monumental; whatever the underlying truth of the stranger named Jago’s nature, being smashed in the back of the skull with an enchanted hammer hurt like nothing else he had experienced in his long, strange life. It had been a calculated risk, but one that had paid off, in the long run. The monks thought their prophecy fulfilled, the outworlder was destroyed, and all could go back to their regularly scheduled programs.
Biding his time, hiding in plain sight, had been a challenge, but the stranger had felt more than up to it, and now, the payoff had come. He had found the final kalpa door, as Lord Quoth had commanded. He was under strict order not to attempt to use it, but merely to confirm that it was in fact there. Now, it was merely a matter of getting back to his own world.
Thinking back on all of his travels, the stranger stalked toward the door marked ‘12’. It would be rather round-about, but he knew he could make his way back by starting there. Stepping up to the door, he took a moment to tap the dagger butts sticking up out of his belt; he would have not only good news for his master when he returned, but a few handy little presents, as well.
The stranger named Jago pulled open the door, stepping through into another world, leaving the realms of Tamalaria behind. It wouldn’t be his final departure from that world, however; he would be back one day, and with plenty of company besides.
-Fin
Nicely done. Very believable characters.