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Wet Rainbow

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Sage stared in perplexion for a few seconds before realizing what Gerrel meant. “No, I did*’t mark him,” he said at last. “Besides, there are seekers around, so I wouldn’t trace him right now even if I could.”

“Seekers?”

“Yeah, blackguard, rocs, seekers. They followed us. I have to get him out of here. Tonight.”

This took a second to register, and when it did Gerrel leaped from his bed. “Zam’s beard, man! You brought seekers to Taverly?” He disappeared under his mattress, resurfacing with his equipment. “We have to leave! Vamoose! They might have sensed us already!” Hands made spry with haste, Gerrel started sorting five pouches at once, then tied them to his belt, all-the-while grumbling curses under his breath.

“We have to find the boy.”

Gerrel turned his wrinkled face to Sage. “To the abyss with your boy, Sage! You’ve cost us enough already.” He realized Cadantine was still watching them, growled, then returned to his packing.

“Gerrel,” Cadantine said.

“Mmm.” Gerrel looked up from fastening a bag with his teeth.

“We’re going to find him.”

“Woman!* Gerrel yelled, but stopped abruptly. He and Sage both felt it, a chill, as though the very air around them had frozen. It crept into Sage’s mind, numbing his senses, sapping his strength.

“What?” Cadantine asked into the silence.

Gerrel reacted quickly, a withered hand shot into his rune pouch and the next second the air in the tent sparked and burst into incandescent light. The shriek of the seeker outside rent the night, shrill enough to make Sage’s ears bleed. There was a clap as though of thunder, and then a silence filled with an invisible ringing. The three of them stood amidst the pallor of the room, bright afterimages etched on their retinas, listening.

30-Jun-2008 16:53:45 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:20:29 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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“What did you do?” Cadantine whispered at last.

“Confused it,” Gerrel whispered, “scared it. But it won’t last long. They’ll know we’re here now.”

“Who will?” Cadantine wondered, but any answer was cut short by the sharp screech of a roc directly above their tent.

“Gods, they’ve found us...” Gerrel said.

~~~

30-Jun-2008 16:53:50 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:20:52 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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Mort regained consciousness near a dark domi, the cloying, salty taste of blood strong in his mouth. He lay in the shadows, hardly breathing. Fire, light, stars reflected in a burning lake, black men, shadowy rocs spiraling high on their white wings - images washed through his head, becoming a torrent that no *** could block. I killed them, Mort realized. He could remember it vividly. The feel of cartilage snapping between his fangs, of tendons ripping in his jaws, of blood spraying across his muzzle, the animal fear emanating from their bodies; the same terror that glazed their eyes.

I murdered them.

The inhuman screams of his victims echoed through his skull. They hadn’t all been blackguard. Had he killed Sage? he wondered. He couldn’t remember much about leaving the domi; only an irresistible pull towards the outside. Mort tried to stand but instead fell forward, retching blood. There was a lot of it. He watched it fall to the grass below him, glistening black in the night. Not just liquid, but globs of dark matter. His mouth tasted bitter, metallic, but somehow sweet and that made him vomit up more until he felt his stomach must be empty, but still he heaved, large rasping gasps that brought up nothing but pink saliva. When he was done, he collapsed on the ground, his stomach on fire, every part of him aching.

The distant screams of people and crackle of collapsing buildings seemed unimportant here; something belonging to another world entirely. He curled himself against the nearby tarpaulin and drowned out the world, hardly stirring at the cry of a roc making a sweep of the city’s perimeter.

I killed them...

Who am I? the question resurfaced unbidden, and then: What am I?

30-Jun-2008 16:53:55 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:21:08 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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A freak, he thought. An abberation. There was no way that what he had been back there was human. No way that a human could tear through a person’* neck like that. In the heavy darkness he tried to recall fragments - any fragment - of his past from before Taverly, but found only a large blank space in his memory. As far as he knew, he had not existed before his interment in the drage on the execution platform. And after that? Dreams and semi-realities. He remembered a dark room with another man singing behind a wall, a sprawling battlefield, the magnitude of which pushed the breath from his lungs, his long journey with Sage up to Taverly, and... and the druid circle. In the cold night he relived that ethereal scene. The canine thing bound to the dais, moonlight playing on its writhing body as it tried to break the ropes that pinioned its arms and legs, howling

(just as I howled)

at the full moon and him

(I)

advancing with the ceremonial dagger.

(all the circles do is regurgitate the past)

Mort shuddered. What did it mean? Was it real? How much of what he knew was real? And as this thought passed through his mind, he once again remembered the woman in white; the woman who beckoned to him from beneath a tree. She was real. For some reason he knew that as surely as he felt the blood pounding through his body. She was real. She had answers. She could help him in a way no other being could, all Mort had to do was find her. In the cold night, he latched onto this certainty, drawing energy from it, and found himself able stand, although shakily, and take a few steps forward. The druid path seemed dimmer here, the bushes in the domi yards dark forms swaying in a breeze he could not feel. He was somewhere near the city’s perimeter, he realized, in an area slightly elevated from the rest.

30-Jun-2008 16:54:00 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:21:34 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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He could see the red smears of fires spreading through the city below. The closest blazes were still a good distance away, far enough that no smell of smoke reached him. Somewhere off in the distance, a bell clanged repeatedly, a hollow sound that sent shivers up Mort’s spine.

Where to? Mort asked himself. Back to Sage? He instantly dismissed this option. First of all, there was the impossibility of finding the druid’s domi amongst the masses, and second, what if he changed again? The process had seemed so natural, so right, as had the killing afterwards and... no, he would not endanger the druids. Escape into the mountains, then? This idea seemed more plausible.

Mort looked up at the precipices of Ice Mountain that loomed black even against the night, as though cut out of the sky itself. Above those peaks, a full moon half-wreathed in hazy clouds hung low in the sky. He remembered how the cliffs had looked in the day, sheer walls of rock overgrown with moss down which waterfalls plummeted. Surely he could not scale those. Especially at night. But then again, hadn’t Sage mentioned a path up the mountain? They had certainly traveled down one into the bowl. As he considered it, the thought became more attractive. Away from blackguards, away from humans - that open expanse would allow him freedom and time to sort through his jumbled past. And even more enticing was the sudden feeling that she existed beyond those mountains; a sense so powerful he could almost feel her to the west as though she was a beacon and he was a moth, pulled inexorably towards her brilliant blaze. He had to go. He had to find her. Pooling his energy, he started to stumble on stiff legs towards the cliff faces, unaware of the blackguard closing in behind.

~~~~

30-Jun-2008 16:54:04 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:22:06 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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There was a brief silence then Gerrel hissed *my door, you project.*

Sage nodded dutifully. Cadantine followed as the two druids rushed to the flap of Gerrel’s domi and yanked it open.

“Street’s empty,” Sage said, peering into the chill night.

“Won’t be for long,* Gerrel muttered. “Gods! Almost forgot.” He rushed to his bed, picked up his shears, then swiveled to face Sage. “Ready?” Sage nodded. “Then let’s go!”

The path outside was a two-way street, stretching away to the left and right and walled in on both sides by pale domis. Even as the druids exited the tent, the first blackguard came into sight, trickling into the street in either direction from intersecting paths. Blackguard archers dropped to one knee to level crossbows, while the men on foot charged, drawing sabers and batons. The roc above them was screaming bloody murder, which was soon joined by the shrieks of distant seekers. Sage had already drawn the Sa before leaving the tent, and as they leapt down the steps outside the domi to land hard on the fluorescent druid path below, he channeled the magic to project an image of himself, Gerrel, and Candantine several steps ahead of where they actually were. If Cadantine was surprised by this ghostly doppelganger, she gave no sign. The three of them sprinted across the path, crossbow bolts buzzing by several feet ahead of them, and broke through the door of the domi opposite Gerrel’s. No one was inside. A brief dash past half-lit furniture brought them out into another street where a group of blackguard who had been torching a small domi, looked up from their work.

“Right!” Gerrel yelled, and they veered down the druid path before the blackguard could fully comprehend what was going on. “Project along the sides,” Gerrel panted, and Sage immediately did so, their images branching apart from each other so that two ran on the right side of the street and one on the left.

30-Jun-2008 16:54:09 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:25:23 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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“Turn left!” They careened into an alley between two domis while their images kept running along the main street. As soon as the apparitions passed out of his sight, Sage knew, they would quickly fade away, leaving nothing but empty night.

White canvas flew past and then they were in another street. Gerrel directed them into yet another narrow passageway which ejected them into a moonlit square dotted with small trees. Here they slowed to a walk. Cadantine was breathing heavily. Sage felt Gerrel release the Sa.

“Where to?” Gerrel asked.

“Did you see that?” Cadantine shouted, her voice verging on shrill. “They’re burning the city! That’s - they said they wouldn’t - that’s direct transgression of the charter!”

“Never mind your charter, woman,” Gerrel growled, “how do we escape?”

“Gods **** escape! If they reach the healing quarters - the arboretum!” Cadantine seemed undecided whether to be more mortified at having the people or plants harmed.

“Look here -” Gerrel rounded on her, but stopped when Sage said, “I found him.”

“What?”

“The boy. I’d forgotten I cast a glamour on him when we came into the city; one that changed his clothes to druid’* clothing. It’s weak, but it** to the north.”

“Forget about the boy, did you see how many blackguard there were?” Gerrel’s face creased in frustration. “And the seekers; you heard them, must be at least twenty roaming the city.”

“All the more reason to find him. They wouldn’t send this kind of force after an ordinary mage.”

30-Jun-2008 16:54:14 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:25:54 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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All three jumped as a bell sounded. Its solemn peal cut through the night, drowning out the faint cries and shrieks, and was soon answered by a flat note echoing off of the mountains. For a moment it seemed that all sound stopped; the world held rapt by that one syllable. It reminded Sage of the knell of the funeral bell after Shachtnacht. All of those granite coffins, lined up so formally... And suddenly Kaitlyn’s face, swollen and bloated with frostbite in the healer’s tent resurfaced in his mind’s eye. Krystal...

“Saradomin save us -” Cadantine whispered, and the night’s ghostly screams and shrieksrushed back in. She turned to them. “It’s the meeting bell. Find the boy, take the passes, I don’t care. I need to leave.” She started to walk away, but turned back. “I’d suggest Camphor’s Col, or the Nightshade Run, anything near Guthix falls, they’ve likely secured the rest already. And make haste or you won’t get out at all.”

“**** woman,” Gerrel muttered as they watched Cadantine stride quickly away. “She doesn’t even run.” He looked at Sage. “Camphor’s Run she said?”

“Camphor’s Col,” Sage corrected. “And we’re finding the boy first.”

“Zam’s beard, Sage! We don’t have time. It’* his life or ours. Well, actually, it’s all of our lives or his, er,” Gerrel scratched his beard with the pruning shears in confusion. “I mean its his and our lives or ours. Well, you heard what Cadantine said.”

“Why do you have those, anyway?” Sage asked, indicating the shears.

“Thought they might be useful.”

Sage sighed. “Well, I’m finding the boy. You can leave if you want.” He turned and headed towards the north end of the square. Behind him, Gerrel growled, looked longingly to the east, then grumbled something foul and followed Sage.

“It’s never the easy way out with you is it?” he said.

Sage grinned. “It rarely is.”

“And if he turns out like the rest?”

30-Jun-2008 16:54:21 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:26:25 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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“He won’t,” Sage said. “I know it.”

But if he is like the rest? a niggling voice intruded. What if Gerrel’s right? What if all this destruction was for nothing? Sage repressed it. He must be the one, he assured himself. He set off magefire in Burthorpe at such a young age, and probably untrained too. He must be.

With a practiced hand-gesture, Sage called Lumin into existence. ‘Find the boy,’ he thought at it, and without a sound the light familiar spiraled up, to where a moon obscured by clouds peered down upon the twilight city.

~~~

30-Jun-2008 17:01:26 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:26:42 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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.

30-Jun-2008 17:01:32

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