[Mkguild] Justice in Vengeance Refrain (2)

[Ryx]

            The skunk’s illusion was all-encompassing; it revealed the savage 
slices left by the swords of his adversaries on the apparently naked flesh of 
the minstrel’s chest and flank.  Murikeer’s lips peeled back in a grimace as he 
gazed upon a deep gash scored across the man’s ribcage.  It still seeped blood 
but there were no telltale foamy bubbles that indicated a deeper wound than 
Murikeer’s mediocre healing skills could cope with.  “Elvmere, you’re better at 
this than I.”  He moved aside to open his satchel.
            “Even vengeance requires justice, Muri.” Malger hissed, forcing down 
cries of pain when Elvmere probed delicately at the worst of his injuries with a 
blade heated over the single candle flame they were permitted.  Murikeer gave 
that wavering flicker a brief sidelong glance and, slowly, the illumination it 
provided grew brighter.  It was a subtle change that went unnoticed by the 
watching guards.  “I could not stand aside.”  He rolled his head back and 
grasped savagely at the lip of the table against which he leaned.  “The 
memories, Muri, the memories were too sudden, too vivid.”  His eyes shifted to 
the rafters above and unfocused as the visions those memories brought forth 
played about in his mind’s eye.  “Too real.”
            “What memories?” Murikeer returned with a handful of herbs and a 
pestle and sat upon a bench opposite Malger to grind them to the required 
consistency.  Without uttering any words or making any gestures that could be 
mistaken as arcane he added a careful trickle of magic into them, enhancing 
their potency.  The careful effort gave his empty eye socket a twinge but he 
suffered it wordlessly.
            “Later, lad, later.”
            “This needs to be stitched.” Elvmere reported at some length, “Many 
of the cuts require stitching, Malger.”  He slid a brief glance toward the 
guards, “If you will allow me to do nothing else, allow me to do what I can.”
            “Nothing more than, Elvmere, please… I –“ the minstrel winced and 
sighed, “I cannot ask you to do more.”
            “It is given, not asked.” Elvmere hissed irritably, “It is offered.”
            “And refused.” Malger returned with equal venom, glaring at his 
would-be apprentice.  Elvmere capitulated with a sigh and nodded.
            “I can do nothing for the pain.” He admonished.  From the supplies 
on the table he found a needle and fine sinew.  Nearby was a ceramic pitcher of 
what his nose told him was a powerful liquor the likes of which he could not 
name offhand as he had never been given to any sort of drink beyond sacramental 
wine.  It would suffice to sterilize the tools and injury.  While Murikeer 
continued on his own work the priest put the needle and sinew into a small bowl 
and poured the clear liquor over it.  Malger took the pitcher and, after a brief 
sniff, raised it for a long swallow.
            A hiss of breath escaped his throat at the fiery potency of the 
alcohol followed a moment later by a cry of pain as that explosion of breath 
wrenched at his injuries.  When Elvmere dabbed his injuries with a cloth soaked 
with the alcohol he cried out even more loudly and grasped at the table while 
his body writhed.  Murikeer set aside his work to help the priest hold their 
charge still and even one of the guards stepped forward to lend his considerable 
muscle to the task.  While the two were distracted with the cleaning of Malger’s 
wounds Murikeer rubbed the side of one finger across a few lesser cuts that 
still leaked the minstrel’s blood and added that to the poultice he was 
preparing.
            For his part Malger struggled only against the pain of the alcohol 
on his injuries.  In moments of respite while the guard and Elvmere sank back to 
catch their breaths he worked to empty the pitcher.  Before long he was swaying 
where he sat.  The guard looked strangely discomfited but said nothing; he could 
feel fur under his grasp but his eyes told him he was grasping nothing more than 
a man’s arm.
            By the time that Elvmere was satisfied that the wounds were cleaned 
as well as he could manage Malger was barely able to keep his head up.  The 
pitcher was emptier by half than it was when he began and the room stank of 
sweat, musk, herbs, and alcohol.  “We must have privacy now, sirs.” Murikeer 
proclaimed at last as Malger’s body began to slump bonelessly in his seat.
            “The Earl bade us –“
            “We shant be going anywhere, as you can see.” Elvmere grunted 
breathlessly as he wiped his hands clean with a fresh cloth.
            “The healers’ art is not one given to unknowing eyes, sirs.  As he 
says, we shant attempt to flee with that dead weight between us.” Murikeer 
acceded as he stood from his seat.  Moving to the door he ushered the 
dumbfounded guards out and secured it behind them by shooting the bolt.  Once he 
returned he helped Elvmere move the drunkenly compliant minstrel up onto the 
table.  Once there they removed his leggings to examine him for other wounds 
only to find that those suffered to his appendages were little more than 
scratches.  Elvmere whispered a quiet prayer over the barely conscious minstrel 
but let that trail away at Murikeer’s touch upon his hand where it rested on 
Malger’s breast.
            “He refused, Elvmere.  I doubt your Eli will countenance your 
attempt to heal one who has refused of their own free will.” The skunk 
admonished gently.  The illusion making the minstrel appear human melted away 
when Murikeer drew the amulet from around his neck to reveal that his fur looked 
no better than had his flesh.  Blood matted it down around his alcohol wet 
injuries and the lather of his exertions had dried to an unpleasant looking 
crust on his pelt.
            “He is merely being stubborn.” Elvmere groused but desisted.
            “We’re not of your following, Elvmere.  What would Nocturna think if 
she felt Eli’s touch upon him?”  To that Elvmere could only shake his head and 
shrug.  He took up the small bowl in which the needle and sinew rested in the 
alcohol bath.  Murikeer took up the pestle in which he had prepared his 
unguent.   Carefully he dabbed the dark, almost black, unguent upon the savage 
wounds.  He worked it gently into them as deeply as he may while Malger writhed 
weakly, too drunk to offer any sort of coordinated protest at the treatment.  
Murikeer worked the unguent into the wounds and then helped hold the short, 
dense fur out of the way while Elvmere delicately stitched them closed.
            For what seemed like hours they worked quietly from wound to wound 
it careful diligence.  Malger passed out within the first few minutes from a 
combination of alcohol and pain.  Once the last of them were closed and dressed 
the two strange companions, lightbringer and follower, slumped together on a 
bench to ease the aches in their bodies from leaning over the limp musteline 
body between them for so long.  After putting Malger’s amulet back on and 
dressing him in a fresh pair of leggings and shirt from the minstrel’s pack 
Elvmere unsecured the door and drew it open.
            “We are finished.”
            “He will survive?” one of the guards asked as he looked past the 
priest’s shoulder to the slumbering form on the table.
            “We trust that he shall.” Elvmere said after a moment of biting his 
tongue; he had almost said ‘Eli willing,’ but forestalled himself before it 
escaped.
            “I’ll conduct you to seneschal Morgan.” The guard said with a nod, 
stepping back to let them from the room.  “The others will take him.”
            “May we?” Murikeer asked while he packed his satchel.
            “No.” the guard said flatly, “He will be conducted to the dungeons.”
            “But –“
            “He feels bloody damn odd.” The guard grunted with a sigh, nodding, 
“I was told.  Whatever dark blight he’s got, can we catch it?”
            “No.” Murikeer admitted after a moment while the other two guards 
filed in.  He snorted softly in humor when he saw them wearing heavy 
blacksmithing gauntlets.  “Just please have care, he truly does mean no evil 
toward you.”
            “Tell that to the Earl on the morrow.  If you would follow me, 
please.”
~~
            The bells were ringing, a clangorous din that throbbed in his skull 
and breast as he looked around in momentary confusion.  Still forms stretched 
away into the distant shadows; all of them garbed in armor from countless eras.  
Hard stone faces looked sightlessly into the distance while the bells tolled 
their doomful song.
            “No, you will not be going to her.” The proclamation detonated in 
his skull with a sound of a doom greater than the alarm bells clangoring in the 
clerestory high above.  He turned about slowly to face the speaker, his heart 
dropping into his paws; No, not again!
            “You make it so very, very difficult to love you.” The voice issued 
from his own throat despite his horrified realization of their import before 
they escaped.  No!
            White light flared and the form before him began to change; flame 
licked at the fur that rose from her body and her eyes began to glow with a 
blinding fiery light.
            Murikeer lurched awake with such violence that he fell from the 
chair in which he had fallen asleep.  He struggled with the throw rug in which 
he became entangled as he scrambled to rise.  Around him the opulent rooms 
supplied by the Earl was silent but for a desperate, gasping cry that came from 
another throat than his own.  Gasping for breath Murikeer managed to rise to his 
knees and cast off the rug as he looked around the room in a panic, still seeing 
in his memories the vivid image of Llyn’s torturous death.
            Elvmere thrashed about upon the bed nearby, caught up in some 
unknowable horror of his own, as tangled in the linens as Murikeer had been in 
the rug.  Crabbing on his knees over to the bed Murikeer reached out to give the 
priest a firm shake.  “Elvmere!” he cried out, his voice breaking in his hasty 
wakening.  The priest jerked away from his touch but did not seem able to escape 
the clutch of his nightmares.
            “She will come to you.” Seemed to whisper in his ears in Llyn’s own 
voice.  Not the voice of her anger or the sepulchral scream of her death but 
more the quiet voice she favored him in the private moments after their 
coupling.  With a violent shake of his head Murikeer cast away the dregs of his 
nightmare and pulled himself up using the headboard of the bed.  Raising one 
hand he begged Eli’s forgiveness and sent a short jolt of magic toward the 
writhing priest.  With a crackle the combination of static and ice forced a 
startled yelp from the sleeping raccoon and he jerked awake instantly.  
Thrashing against the bedcovers Elvmere’s wild eyes cast about the room trying 
to regain his sense of presence and, after a few long moments, he began to still 
against the constraining wrap of fabric.
            “Murikeer!” he gasped and gulped, scrubbing at his face with both 
hands.  “Oh, Eli’s mercy!  I had the most horrible dream!” his voice trembled 
and he shook himself.  “Truly horrible!”
            Murikeer slumped down against the side of the bed to sit on the 
floor and ran his hands through the fur on his head.  He found that his eye 
patch had become dislodged at some point and pulled it back into place.  His 
empty socket ached terribly.  “A nightmare, or a memory?” he grunted.
            “I saw the darkness again.  A man entered and slew my companions… I 
– “ he broke off with a gasp, covering his face with both hands.  “I saw again 
that horrible night when Akabieth was murdered.”
            “A memory.” Murikeer sighed with a nod, “Myself as well; Llyn’s 
death.”
            “Eli’s mercy, that was terrible.” Elvmere sighed after several long 
breaths.  He finally succeeded in untangling himself from the bedcovers and slid 
from the bed.  He shook himself vigorously and looked about.  “For a moment I 
thought I was back in the infirmary of Metamor when I first awoke.”
            “Ugh, I –“ a knock at the door interrupted Murikeer and he pushed 
himself back to his feet.  Tugging his disarrayed leggings back into place he 
crossed to the door and drew back the bolt.  A young page in the colors of House 
Asthill stood without.
            “Sirs, her most holiness, Lothanasa Rachael hin Caris begs your 
indulgence.” The boy piped quickly when the half clothed minstrel’s apprentice 
opened the door.  “At your leisure she wishes an audience in her chambers within 
the Temple.”
            “We have only just awakened, lad.  Convey to her grace that we will 
attend her summons as soon as we have refreshed ourselves and broken our fast.” 
Murikeer offered diplomatically after rubbing his face once with one hand.
            “If sirs wish I can show you to the bath house and have the kitchens 
bring you succor while you bathe.” Offered the youth warmly.
            “Very well.” Murikeer acceded with a nod, “Give us a moment.”
            “A bath.” Elvmere breathed happily as he dug out the shirt he had 
worn the night before and shrugged it on.  “Eli blesses us.” He grinned across 
at Murikeer, offering that last sotto voce.
~~
            The world was a gray emptiness all about through which a black mist 
swirled formlessly.  He cast about sightlessly in the murk looking for any 
feature to give him any hit that he was any place at all, but none appeared from 
the mist.  “Mosha!” he cried out but his voice emerged a plaintive whisper, 
swallowed up by the featureless gray void.
            He could not tell which direction was up save for his paws being 
down and his head up.  What alignment his body assumed, however, was as 
mysterious as the misty nothingness in which he found himself adrift.
            “The age of your minority approaches, my son.  As I have done for 
your elder brother, and will for your sisters, I have deemed the course of your 
life to serve our House.” The voice came from nowhere; be that within his own 
mind or somewhere unseen from the surrounding pall he could not tell.  “When you 
achieve your minority, in one month’s time, you will travel to Yesulam and join 
the ranks of the Holy Church.”  Within his breast the weight of those words 
clutched at his heart with a merciless fist and he fell to his knees, feeling 
the full weight of the emotions attached to that pronouncement fully even after 
so many years.
            And yet they were not his own; they were emotions shared.  “Father!” 
he heard someone else’s voice issue from his own throat and he grasped at his 
head.  No, not me, not mine! He quailed in horror.  What followed faded away 
into the gray distance while he reeled under the chaotic emotions lent by 
another from whom he had accepted them.
            “What is your name?” Maxamillian cum Sideshow asked with 
condescending arrogance and the gray emptiness vanished abruptly.  He was still 
upon his knees, but in mud that stank of his own offal.  Not his offal, but 
another’s.  The stench was overwhelming, intensified by the sharp clarity of 
recent memory.  One eye was almost entirely blind and he found he could barely 
lift his weary head.  No!  Inwardly he recoiled from the intensity of the vision 
but there was no escape from the trap.  “Mosha!” he cried out again but the name 
that escaped his throat was not that of his dreamland mate; it was another’s 
name.
            The reply, gasped and agonized as it was, did not satisfy the master 
of the show.  With a frown he slowly sipped from the filigreed silver cup held 
delicately in one hand.  With the other he waved at one of the burly companions 
at his side and the man smiled gleefully as he approached.  “All I ask is a 
name, child, you have but to speak what I desire and I he will leave you be.” 
Sideshow droned pedantically as a parent might a particularly dim witted child.
            No!
            No!
            No!  Mosha, I beg you!
 
             Malger awoke with a startled cry and surged from the stretched 
canvas cot he found himself on, falling unceremoniously to the floor spluttering 
for breath.  He shook his head to get the water out of his fur and regretted the 
motion acutely as a blinding spike of pain stabbed behind his eyes.  He groaned 
and fell face forward to the floor clutching his throbbing head.  Cold water 
spread across the floor as it poured from his illusion concealed fur and his 
shirt clung wetly to him.
            Writhing in the ache of his hangover and the beating he had suffered 
the day before Malger wiped his face with both hands to squeeze the water from 
his fur.  “You scream most pleasantly.” A voice offered with sardonic humor 
somewhere above him.  Turning his head slowly to mitigate another resurgence of 
his headache he gazed about for the speaker of that voice.  The small stone room 
swam and his eyes refused to focus clearly but he was well able to identify 
where he found himself.
            A dungeon cell; an uncommonly well lit cell, to be sure, but a cell 
all the same.  Sunlight streamed through an open grill of bars some distance 
above and glimmered with painful intensity from the walls that surrounded him.  
In one wall at floor level was a heavy door of some dark wood banded with iron.  
The door was securely closed and no one else shared the cell with him so, after 
some fruitless moments casting about he turned to look up at the barred opening 
above.
            He saw sunlight streaming from under some sort of awning his drunken 
eyes could not fully focus upon but there was no evident person up there.  “If I 
had not wished to speak with you I could have sat here for hours listening to 
you scream.  T’is such sweet music.” The unseen speaker continued from somewhere 
above.  Malger could not prize out the gender of the voice for it was a mellow 
tenor.
            “Begone, ill wraith, leave me to my misery.” He grunted as he 
slumped upon his back onto the wet floor.  A drop of water plunked onto his nose 
from the grate above revealing that the cause of his startled awakening had been 
water dashed from above.  That unceremonious bath had also been bitterly cold 
and left him with an aching chill to accompany his hang-over and injuries.
            “It is your misery that I wish to enjoy, master Sutt.” Intoned the 
speaker merrily. “But in all due course of time, for it will be a protracted 
misery the likes of which I have not enjoyed in many a year.”
            Malger’s eyes narrowed at the usage of his given name but despite 
all efforts he could not force his eyes to cooperate enough to spy anyone 
above.  “Then at least let me know whom my torturer is to be.” He snarled.
            “Tut tut, Malger.” The voice admonished, “I would have expected that 
you would never forget me.”
            Malger pushed himself up and crawled to the cot of stretched 
canvas.  The woolen blanket was soaked through as was the canvas.  “As many that 
I have deflowered over the years how would you ever expect that I might remember 
one spurned conquest?”
            The voice trilled a merry laugh that descended into a smooth 
baritone that still defied gender.  “Would that you deflowered me, the first or 
even second time, as it was by your wiliness that I was ever granted a second 
opportunity to be – ahem – deflowered.”  Malger’s keen ears heard the scrape of 
soft soled shoes upon the stone above as the speaker moved.  “It somewhat 
surprises me, but then again it does not, that you managed to escape the touch 
of that place.”
            “Quit bedeviling me with riddles, wraith.” Malger growled upward, “I 
have been beaten, hacked, stitched, and have a marvelously unpleasant hangover.  
Unless you have something of worth to offer, begone.”
            “Witnessing the cause of your hacking would have been pleasant.  I 
understand you conducted yourself admirably against five seasoned warriors.” The 
speaker sighed softly.  “Two still yet live, for the nonce, at the Earl’s 
sufferance pending the outcome of your rather bleak fate.”  Another sigh of 
shoes upon stone and something thunked against the metal grill above.  The 
spinning shadow of a smallish object dropping into his cell caught Malger’s 
attention and he watched it fall.  Once it came to rest he was more fully able 
to make it out with his bleary hangover vision.  “I’ve been saving something for 
you.”
            The object was perhaps a foot long or so and wrapped in age faded 
black silk.  Casting a furtive glance toward the opening above Malger leaned 
forward carefully and picked it up.  It did not weigh much but was rigid along 
its un-uniform length, thicker at one end than the other.  Finding the tucked 
end of the silk he unwrapped it.              Immediately he recoiled and cast 
it down to skitter across the floor with a sound like a dried ear of corn still 
within its husk; an eerie sibilant rattling hiss.
            It was a hand, roughly hacked from some poor soul’s arm somewhere 
between elbow and wrist.  The desiccated flesh was sheathed in a rust stained 
white ladies’ glove and three rings adorned the curled, shrunken fingers.  Two 
were simple costume pieces without any particular worth or signifigance but the 
one which adorned the ring finger bore a ruby surrounded by the crest of a house 
he was familiar with.  It identified the owner of the severed, mummified hand as 
clearly as if that name had been graven in stone.
            As it was, in a cemetery of Silvassa.
            With one hand over his mouth in horror Malger stroked his muzzle and 
drew back on the cot to look up at the speaker above.  “Gods curse you!” he 
snarled furiously toward the opening.  A chuckle of dark humor was returned from 
above.  “Gods curse you and drag you to the blackest pit of the deepest Hell!”
            A decade past Malger’s sire, the Duke of all western Pyralia by 
conquest, ruled his land with a harsh, iron fist.  His vassals had gathered 
together enough gold to hire the best assassins the world had to offer and 
unleashed them upon the entirety of the Sutt line.  One by one Malger’s brothers 
and sisters were cut down; some subtly, some in methods so violent that bards 
still sang of their deaths.  His own father’s head had adorned a spike on the 
seaward wall of his namesake city, Suttaivasse, for a year.  When the assassins 
first began their bloody purge Malger had been in Silvassa living the life of a 
monied noble sybarite far from the reach of his unpleasant family.
            When news of their decimation reached his ears Malger was concerned 
but, in no small way, pleased that the tyranny of his father’s expansion had 
finally come to a conclusion.  But all too soon the reality of his family’s 
purging came to Silvassa seeking the scapegrace scion.  A well capable fighter 
with many loyal contacts within the city Malger was able to avoid, or vanquish, 
many lesser skilled hunters.  With the minstrel’s talent of walking the dream 
realms he could find them long before they found him.
But one, who called himself nothing more than ‘the Hand’ proved to be far more 
subtle, yet at the same time far more sinister than Malger had ever imagined.  
Instead of striking directly the assassin struck at those close to the minstrel, 
leaving their severed hands where Malger would find them.  The assassin sought 
to bait the minstrel out into the open by withering down his friends and 
lovers.  Malger fled the day he learned at a promising young aristocrat, Lisanna 
sef Imalshan, was found in the River Isen with her hands hacked off.  He had 
danced with her, and bedded her, only hours before she was found.
And he had only known her in passing for a couple of days.
Afraid to see any more of his friends and lovers perish simply as some 
assassin’s nasty mind games Malger fled the city.  Over the next six years the 
Hand pursued him across half of the continent, from city to city and then town 
to town and by the time Malger was desperate enough to flee to the one place he 
felt the assassin would fear to follow he was down to hiding in hamlets.
Metamor had granted him his final escape, by changing him from the man he had 
been to the pine marten he now was, albeit concealed by Murikeer’s illusion 
amulet.  He had believed that the assassin had either chosen to flee the curse, 
granting him his last five years of blessed safety.
All that, now gone.  The Hand stood above; his scourge.
His death.
Pushing himself up from the cot he crossed to the hand and picked it up, 
remembering the night he had shared with its long dead owner.  Slipping the ring 
easily from the desiccated finger he hurled the hand toward the door where it 
slid under the gap at its base.  He slid the ring onto one of his own fingers 
and sank back down onto the cot.
“Okay then.” He sighed, defeated.  “Here I am.”
“Oh, indeed.  There you are, lovely thing.”  At that the unseen speaker turned 
and strode away leaving the wet, injured, bedraggled minstrel alone in his 
prison.
~~
            “I must warn you, Elvmere.  The Lothanasa s can see magic just as 
easily as I do.” Murikeer explained as they followed the page boy who seem to 
have been assigned to them.  In their wake walked the two guards that had 
likewise been assigned for the day.  The guards politely but firmly refused to 
take them to Malger’s cell until they were told otherwise by the Earl.  While 
that did not make the two feel any better they both understood the necessity and 
acceded grudgingly.  “She may very well ask us to remove our amulets.”
            At his side, freshly washed and fed, Elvmere blinked and missed a 
step in surprise.  “What shall we do?” he quailed with a frown.
            “As she asks.” Murikeer could only shrug and shake his head, “She 
saw the truth yesterday, but I am unsure how deeply her sight might extend.  
Raven’s vision was quite acute, but not so deep as mine own.  The Lothanas see 
things differently than I.”
            The page lead them through the Earl’s demesne which was a 
combination of ancient Elvish construction and more modern human additions.  
Sometimes the dissonance between the two was stark.  Passing from a human built 
corridor of carefully cut and skillfully laid stone and into a corridor of 
Elvish design left even the most skilled work of humans hands looking crude by 
comparison.  At the end of the Elvish built corridor stood a pair of tall plank 
doors of pale ash banded with polished iron.  Reliefs of Lightbringer mythology 
had been deeply carven into the wood and from the hand of one hero hung a heavy 
brass knocker.  When they reached the door one of the guards used it to rap on 
its brass striker.
            A moment later the doors were drawn open by a berobed acolyte and 
they were ushered into the temple.  It was far from vast, barely a quarter the 
size of the Metamor Temple, but it was just as well appointed.  Statues and 
carved wood adorned every wall and even the hammerbeam roof above was festooned 
with liturgical engravings.  The modern woodwork was clearly of human design but 
blended flawlessly with the older sweeping design of the original elvish 
builders.  Between the arches along the outer wall towering casement windows let 
in the light of the clear day beyond.  They were at the very base of the tower 
that dominated the center of the manor.  The prominent placement of the Temple 
in the center of everything very clearly stated that the chosen faith was to the 
Lightbringer pantheon.


      

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