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Wedgewood
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The Timberkeep sensitives rocked painfully on their bound hands as Larech drove the covered wagon in a mad dash down the mountain lashing at the team of eenus. He prayed with dogged faith to the Ancient Philosecleas for the eenus to see the road better than he. Lonely Soul, half full, was dying behind the shoulder of Mount Mars, and soon even its wan glow would be gone in the midnight. Trees rushed by their boles caught in the faint silver luminescence of the moonlight. The Washentrufel agent needed to be far away from the conclave by daybreak. Originally, they had planned to lure the six Timberkeep adepts from their conclave with the prospect of establishing a scrying service in Faldamar and then later draw them to Stith Drakas, but now, with the debacle at Murali’s, word would reach the adepts, and they would refuse to work with either the Paleowrights or the Drakans. To salvage their mission, the two Washentrufel agents, after rendezvousing with the Scarlet Saviors, had doubled back in the deep of night. Leaving the wounded, including the viscount, behind with the chaise, three Saviors and the agents stole back into Timberkeep territory, where the six adepts slept in an isolated cabin used for meditation.
“At least we’ll be able to achieve our part of the mission,” called Larech over the rush of the wind. Captain Irons sat beside him on the coach seat.
A last feeble ray of Lonely Soul slanted through the boughs and splashed on the captain’s red and yellow helm. He refused to either admit failure or cast aspersions towards the viscount. His duty was to serve the Faith, honor the Ancients, guard all that was theirs, and follow the viscount’s orders. The Ancients would provide the foresight, and the viscount need only interpret their guidance. That four Saviors had perished – a terrible toll – was justified in their attempt to retrieve the incredible Ancient talisman the Timberkeeps so flagrantly abused.
Larech gave up trying to communicate with the zealous captain; instead, he turned his thoughts eastward and to the experiments that awaited the captives.
Bonfires crackled with blistering heat. Per Doroman custom, the funeral pyres were lit at dawn, their flames rising with the sun to release the embodied souls to the light of a new day and thereby seek a path to the nether world before night darkened their way.
Christina, as Ascalon Defender and with the Wedgewood Mother Dianis Chamberlain’s blessings, gave the eulogy. Dressed in simple fawn-colored robes hanging to their sandaled feet, their deep cowls thrown back, the Defenders presided over the requiem. Seven bonfires consumed a fallen Timberkeep, freeing their souls, transmuting their bodies to ash spread amongst the groves of Ungerngerists. The trees, in turn, grew skyward as the Timberkeep essence strengthened the spirit of the boreal steward, Mother Dianis. Some said that woodland sprites were the departed souls of Timberkeeps who chose to stay behind, tiny boreal stewards, dancing amongst the tall, gnarled trunks. But all Lettern could think of was the horror and bury her face in her hands and cry. She had awakened in Mbecca’s infirmary covered in blood, not hers, but Mergund’s.
Outish, at a loss for words and out of sorts, scuffed his boot in the pine needles. Seeking some form of expression, he awkwardly put his arm around her shoulder, not knowing the Doroman custom for consoling, but it felt right to him.
“He died because of me,” Lettern wept, turning to him. “He was trying to help me, and they killed him.” A wracking sob shook her.
It was all the more difficult for Outish to cope and offer solace to Lettern, an accomplished warrior who considered herself the protector, the guide for the two young men. Watching the flames crackle and climb, consuming Mergund as he lay on the pyre, Outish felt the disconcerting queasiness of mortality. One moment Mergund was alive, vibrant, laughing, and the next, cold, grey, inert. Up to now, in Outish’s life, he’d never lost a person he knew. Medical science and extended longevity in the Avarian Federation had spared him the ordeal. However, Mergund would never again tease him about his ears; he’d never hear his cawing laugh except in memory. The pyre served as a stark warning that life on Dianis was harsh, precarious, and precious. Oddly, even with the pain and confusion, he’d never felt so alive and relevant as in that moment.
He caught Achelous watching him. When the chief inspector refused to turn away, Outish stared back. Outish didn’t see a chief inspector concerned about the mental balance of a novice astrobiologist, but the respect and understanding of a person who’d been through the same pain.
