Chapter Twelve
Trouble Trouble
How can you be so bad
To cause such horrendous deeds
And be such a lousy Dad?
The Master Scribe slowly shuffled his way through the darkened halls of the Liches palace on his way back to the library. The palace was dark and musky in the damp, crisp air of the springtime by the sea. It frequently rained now in Salastar, and his usual route through the open courtyard that had the large flower garden was typically to soggy for him to traverse. Instead, the senior man would forgo his preferred route for the more sheltered halls. Tonight things troubled him. It had been a little more than two weeks since his Master had come into the study and requested the information from him. That in itself was not unusual, he fulfilled his role as Master Scribe to perfection, diving deep into the foggy realm of the past to dig up history all but forgotten.
It was the subject that bothered him. Baine might have once been a scion of Chaos, but one of the requirements for the turning of a man into a reaper was the breaking of the mind. The soul was attached to the body by seven points of power, and if one of those points could be compromised, then the soul could be reaped while the person yet lived. Since the mind was the weakest of the links, Order preordained that reapers be driven to the tipping point of insanity and pushed off the cliff into madness. The great man that Baine had once been, a fearless fighter for the cause of Life, all that had been stripped away and replaced with a raving lunatic.
If Master Delver had found a way to contact one of the Seven and possibly bring them back, the consequences at the moment could be cataclysmic for all the Planes. With no caregiver to defend her, this world was now barren and void. In a generation, everything would cease to exist, and the Purposes would move onto another world and creation. Some might think it cold hearted but he, as a scholar, knew that it was how the war had been waged since the inception of the Physical Plane.
His steps echoed as he neared the door at the end of the hall and his eyes flicked up seeing it partially ajar with the lamp lit. Cautiously, he slipped a hand under his robe to fetch the poniard he kept on his belt and slid up to get a better vantage at who might be in the Masters Library without his permission. His job not only entailed carefully categorizing every manuscript in the Liches possession but he was to protect the knowledge contained there with his life.
Williams could see a single lamp burning on the table with the Chronicles of Baine splayed out on it. He heard someone shift and clear their throat and heave a long sigh.
"Williams--" a deep voice rumbled. He started to tremble violently in recognition of the voice and the consequences it held. "--Don't just stand out there and catch a cold in the breezeway. I don't have so many followers to lose one to a sniffle."
Williams placed a trembling hand slowly on the door and gave it a light push. The hinges squealed quietly in protest, and the being at the table looked irritably at the hinges, "Master Scribe, you need to have those oiled. My kind has very sensitive hearing."
The scribe nodded slowly at the shadow sitting at the table thumbing through the copy that Williams had been working on for the past month. It was smothered in a shroud and roughly human shaped with a blueish cast for eyes. From out of the mouth, came a red tint to let a person know when the lips moved and Williams eased the pesky door shut as easily as he could.
"Master Scribe as one of my Order, you know I may call on you when the need may arise." the rumbling words came out more of a statement than that of a question. The elderly man nodded and motioned with his hands as the shrouded figure watched in apparent amusement.
"No Williams, Chaos nor Order are done with this world, not by far. The universe has never been in graver danger than now, and that is due to your Master."
Williams' face went white as he staggered slightly. The figure looked at him compassionately and took hold of the man, guiding him to a chair. Williams sat shakily in the offered seat and motioned weakly at his guest and the book.
"Yes my son, it is Baine. He has returned, and Grim's son will damn us all. Baine was meant to be contained, with the curse an immortal slave for all time. When Order formed the universe, the brother thought to win the war by constraining this realm to time. By doing so, Order has always held more power than Chaos, but when the Grim was created, the Brother of Life saw an opportunity to bring balance back. If he did not, both were once more doomed for destruction just as on the Planes of Valor. He tempted Grim into mating with second-man, to bring the eternal balance that his mother, the Void, had always intended. Order was forced to concede permanent balance, and all was to be at rest, but then Order started to meddle again. He can not stand to be defeated. He placed ideas through prophecy into not only his people but ours."
Williams held up a hand and thought then he made a few signals with his hands gesturing towards the book. The being chuckled affectionately towards the skinny man before him.
"Yes, even that was placed by Order. If he could implant in enough peoples minds over a long enough period, then prophecy becomes truth. Sorcerers want Baine to come to deliver a universe free of time and death even though it is impossible without both brothers saying it is. The brethren started to hunt the Grim and soon found a way to kill him, namely your Master. Yes, it is your Master that gave the kill order to a First Circle sorcerer named Sedrick. Now, your master wants to set us down a path even more dangerous than one with the Grim."
Williams looked wide eye at his Master before him, shaking his head. He signaled for the being to stop, but it continued.
"No! You must hear it out. Your Master proposes a world free from any caregiver, and this cannot be, for it introduces a third Purpose. If second-man is allowed to create its own purpose, it could very well destroy not only this Plane but those of Valor and Chaos. You must bring this information to the Council. I don't know who you can trust with it, but you will know better than I. Delver must be exposed only through that will he bend and realize that this world must be ruled by one Purpose or the other. HE will realize he has been fooled by Order."
The apparition turned and walked towards the corner where a swirling mass of shadows absorbed the thing. The little man at the table lowered his head into his hands and let out small, short, trembling sobs as he prepared himself to take on an immortal.
"What do you mean you called this meeting?" Damon asked incredulously.
"Did I stutter? I did not think I drank that much." Wallace chuckled a little, "And I did it to prove a point."
"That you can be a royal pain in my ass?" the little man seethed clenching his fist.
"Oh sit down all mighty Grim, before you blow a blood vein. No, I did it to show you how only having two people in our little band of misfits that can hear both our messenger and our spy is damaging to our cause. Had everyone had access to Rascus, no one would be sitting here right now. Everyone would know that the meeting was a fake but can I ask you a question."
"Go on." Faldo said as he shoved the steaming Damon into a chair, "You have our attention."
"What if the sorceresses tried and succeeded with such a ruse? They could have us dead, and none of us would be the wiser." Wallace looked around with an upraised eyebrow.
"Ok, you have made your point." a nauseated Vic said, still clutching his stomach from the after-effects of Faldo's sorcery, "What would you propose? Split the group into two? We can't all hear bloody reapers, Cap."
"Grim?" Wallace said with a wicked smile towards Damon.
The little man shot him a hate-filled glare, "What, you expect me to wave my hand in the air and go, 'And I give you my all-powerful blessing!'? Well, forget it! That is the other halves department. I just happen to be the pretty one on the trip."
Faldo cleared his throat embarrassingly.
"What?" Damon asked irritably.
"I can't."
"Can't what? Just wave your damn hand and say the gibberish. That way we can fix this and get the work done."
"No, I can't. I can control things that have to do with all things sorcery. This particular power is out of my realm of expertise. I am afraid, friend." Faldo sighed.
Damon scoffed, "What use is it to have an al--"
"Son," his mother's clear voice cut through his retort, "do not be irritated at him. The power was never his to bestow. This is your birthright and yours alone. Be wary on whom you use it on, for that person will be bound to you and for life."
Damon looked at her in resignation and nodded, "So, whoever does this will be sacrificing again for me? All so we can fix this mistake and save existence. I can not ask this of any one of you."
"You don't have to mate." a trembling Wedge walked over and laid a hand on his shoulder, "I don't think it will be a very long engagement to your honors or anything. We are not likely to make it out alive, we are."
Damon chuckled despite himself, "My we are optimistic aren't we?"
"Realist. When you face the world them are long odds, but when you face all that exists, well let's just say you don't plan your next birthday." Wedge winked at him.
"Well, then how are we to do it, mother?"
"On anyone but me, son. I can never bear the power of Grim again, such an order, not even you can break. But it is a simple task, just reach inside the mind of the person and remove the illusion that shrouds their vision from seeing the truth."
"Any volunteers?" Damon looked around the table at his still group. Each face watched the next expectantly. Marlin finally sighed a long hollow dead man's sigh.
"I will not be taking that curse either."
Now Marlin--" Faldo started to protest, but Damon silenced him with a look. The small, dark man nodded at the big smith in understanding.
"You don't have to decide tonight but don't dally. As the good captain has already shown us this weakness could very well be our undoing if it is not corrected and soon." Damon finished and went to stand. Faldo reached over and whispered something in his ear. Damon smiled ear to ear widely, "Oh, perfect!"
Joseph waited impatiently outside the door to the back room of the Inn of the Darken Oak. He had watched each member enter the back room and had men covering the other exit. All his attempts to get in to see the Matron had been rebuffed and he was starting to lose his patience. Tonight, they would talk to him, one way or the other. The sergeant would have charged in there to demand answers had his sixth sense of sorcery not warned him of the ward.
Since a young age, Joseph had been able to sense sorcery when it was used. He has even been discovered by a traveling sorcerer when he was ten and offered an apprenticeship, but his father had refused. His mother argued hard that this was the best they would ever be able to provide him with, being one of thirteen children born to them. But his father had adamantly refused to part with Joseph to a sorcerer, to compromise his values for a slim chance at a better life.
Sorcery made his skin itch and hairs on his arms stand up. That talent had earned him the position on the Grim Guard he had today. He was the only man qualified to sense sorcery before others could see it. The door latch rattled and the door creaked open. The lights from an overhanging lamp falling on the face of the man claiming to be the new Grim, and closely behind him was the very powerful sorcerer known as Faldo. Joseph did not fully trust this pair yet and damn his eyes if he was going to let them run his town for him.
"Damon, I wish to know my Matron's condition," Joseph asked eagerly as he leaned up from his comfortable position against the wall.
"Have no fear, good sergeant. Your Matron is resting quietly in a room above us."
"How do I know this to be true? In the past three night, you have not bothered to let me in. I want to know the truth." The sergeant said through clenched teeth, working hard to control his temper. Out of all his banter with the sorceress Therese he never once came close to losing his temper, but he had always been in control. With this young upstart, he always seemed subordinate and one step behind.
"So you wish to know the truth. I warn you, sir, the truth is a life long commitment to our cause and the cause of Order. Are you prepared for that?"
"I am if it gets me in to see my mistress." He almost shouted.
"Temper, sergeant, temper." the little man chided him with a small, impish grin, "I would think my first convert would have a better disposition. All well, beggars can't be choosers. Faldo, make sure we can't be disturbed."
The big blonde's eyes went vacant as Damon walked forward and laid his hand on the sergeant's forehead.
"Now, this might sting a little. Or at least, it did for me."
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