Chapter Three
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Decisions have to be made
As madness slowly creeps
Into my slipping sanity
Somewhere within a demon sleeps 396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaDIyvA2Qod
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Damon stared silently out the glistening bay windows of the council chambers at the dreary rain falling on Tharpe Proper. Three days ago, a trader brought them two pieces of bad news for certainty. His ancient brother was making war with his wife's damnable father down south at Farthest Reach on the Great Inland Sea, and someone from the Sorcerer Council was sowing strife within their fellow city of Doldrom.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7CFQhFwkOc
He acted calm and played nice for everyone in the council chambers, but inside he seethed like boiling water. He still owed that son of a bitch, Fredrick, castration and then, that same cock would be corking Fredrick's screaming mouth. He had been playing around with the thought of roasting him on a spit at the same time, rather slowly. For some reason, the view of that old man over the fire with his cock hanging out of his mouth brought a smile to Damon's thin-set lips.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLwGzi2F73Z
He heard the office door shut behind him, and the little man turned from his grim vigil and thoughts to see Jen wearily walking the final three stairs down from the upper door. She looked weary, wore down over the past few months of the trials of leading these fearful people without the guidance of his Father. She walked, with her shoulders slouched, over to her seat and sat with a heavy sigh as she laid her head in her hands. Her red hair was tied into a tight braid but the loose, wispy strands stuck up and around like a red halo. Damon walked over and sat in Wallace's hard seat, shifting to get comfortable in the Master Sergeants un-padded chair, next to her.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpYdXdHpdxz
"Did you finish with Cariline?" He asked in a soft, worried voice, laying a hand on her shoulders. Not only was he worried about whom he considered his real wife in the office upstairs but the new Grim was concerned for someone he had considered an aunt his entire life.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ530AVVvxI8
She raised her coppery head and nodded slowly, "The only guess I could make Damon is that she is married to you. I know you don't want to hear it but technically…"396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbXKOfwQDpJ
"I know, I am the damn Grim." He finished her statement sitting back irritably smacking the wooden table with a smart rap with a slap of his right hand. It stung sharply and did nothing to relieve his irritation. He did not want to be the damn Grim, and it seemed that was the shitty qualification for the job. If he had known that, he would have applied to be a Necromancer or some similar position at a very early and tender age. He glared at the Mother Matron, his black eyes smoldered beneath his thin eyebrows. She returned his glare gently, a look of understanding in her tired, green eyes. 396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpEprHBhaeN
"You know Damon; you do have the single easiest job for the next three years. You don't have much to do besides be yourself. Everyone else has things to adjust to. Cariline is the perfect example of that." Jen tried to explain as she took her adopted nephew's hand soothingly, "Which brings us to a fascinating problem."396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDSXar4P3ay
"What's that?" Damon asked tentatively, looking at her a little suspicious, noting the hesitation in her voice.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRzjzZoCSvR
Faldo and Cariline came down from the offices in the third story to the council chambers to join them. They were supposed to meet for the third consecutive day to discuss what should be done about ongoing events in the Free Towns of the East. Marlin and Wallace would be there after breakfast and Isobelle had to complete the morning rites at the Portal to the Underworld.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJhLd9pmOuR
"We are down a Necromancer here at this Temple. My Second should be here with me at this moment, in this meeting but she can't, because of attending the portal." She said looking at him in his red tinted eyes, "and we will be walking into the same problem in Doldrom. Well, we might even have to replace the whole Temple there with the age of Delfina, but it has to be done to restore Order's hold there."396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnMLdhfcfAG
"So just hire some on, you know, take some applications," Damon said with a casual wave of his hand as if nothing was unusual about it.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXVBpwWCdLu
"Damon, that is not how we get our powers. Cariline is getting powers because she is married to you. Um...how do I put this… You inherited me." She stopped a little red-faced, turning her head and looking girlish for a few moments. Everyone looked at her blanked faced before recoiling to the statement of the Matron.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoFZe05X1TF
"Oh, that is gross Aunt Jen." Faldo protested as he went a little green at the thought.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3FFoKXdDuA
"Oh no, you don't Jen. I will kill another woman for touching my man." Cariline said vehemently, taking up a defensive position beside her husband and glaring at the older woman.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSfS1CFmL99
"Hey, I can speak for myself." Damon said raising his hands to his friends to quiet them, then he broke into a wolfish grin looking at Jen, "Is this a perk of the Job?"396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFkM8H7qPEI
Cariline slapped him over the back of his head loudly and grabbed his ear painfully making her husband wince, "You remember what you threatened to do to my father?"396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN72ExWlEy9
"Yes dear?" he said, grimacing as she tugged hard enough to lift him slightly out of his chair.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFYEtSJxLpj
"How about we practice a little?" She menaced letting go as he thumped back down tilting the chair back slightly with the force of the landing. Jen reached a calming hand to her and gave her a look to ask Cariline to let The Matron explain.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOtLo2FudtD
"Damon, the marriage is nothing but symbolic, but it also binds our loyalty to you. It is not a real marriage to you." She sniffed a little, "Yes, I loved Grim deeply, but that is different. It, just like with you, could never be a physical relationship. It delves much deeper than that."396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4LfZ9HpPUL
"So I have to go through a ceremony and get a new 'wife.' Then they go to Necromancer academy, and we restore Order?" Damon asked her with a puzzled look, trying, as usual, to grasp at the peculiarities of the religious concepts with his logical mind. Jen had found that if she kept the ideas very elementary, it tended to make things easier for Damon to accept.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZvyrHLHVh6
"Pretty much sums it up. If Cariline will accept, we already have our replacement here after the baby is born. She is already married to you after all." Jen extended the offer to the feisty little auburn-haired woman whom she already cared for deeply.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLwHCKznxhh
Cariline walked over to the spot with a newly designed symbol over it. It had a baby in the upper coils of the emblem of Grim, for she was to be the Mother of the line of Grim. She maneuvered her growing belly into the chair and sat with a sigh of relief. After a few minutes of sitting in silence, she looked at her older friend with a sad smile and shook her head.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwhLmqPfLJi
"I would love to Jen, but I fear for my child being raised around the Temple like Damon was." She looked at her dark husband sitting by his aunt across the oak table. The light shined in from behind him giving him a shadowy silhouette that reflected the real man that appeared from time to time from within.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf0CVcKGSeW
On the outside, he tried to keep up the front of the good going Damon, but once he was on the hunt, Damon turned into a dark, murderous demon out for blood. She contributed it to growing up around death and Order. She did not want that for her child that was growing inside her, the wonderful life that was hers. She cradled her belly as she gazed at the image before her as Faldo's ominous warning broke through to her revelry.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡucevsVWQOg
"Cariline, no matter what happens, in the next three years, your child's first memories will be death and destruction. It is what we are destined for now in a world whose very existence is at war between Order and Chaos." Faldo said as he sat on the edge of the table. His blue eyes were serious and in thought. His ordeal this last winter had changed him from the jovial, easy-going dandy into a strong leader. Everyone saw it except him and they would gladly follow him to the Planes of Chaos if he asked them to.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyBzs6kaUdx
"He speaks the truth," Damon said staring at the floor in front of him. He lifted his eyes and stood to height, "Which is why I have decided something."396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ70F8cVuYV0
With the somber, even tone Damon had used, everyone's eyes fixed on him. Damon hated making decisions. He rarely participated seriously in council meetings and only sat on the council to keep the town happy. To have his dark visage speak in as serious as a voice as he did, begged attention. His voice echoed around the chamber hollowly as everyone was quiet to hear him out.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKoxPJ2rNM6
"We must not only go to Doldrom, but we need to have an army, a real one, not the few hundred guardsmen that honor our walls." He stated, looking in the eyes of each person letting his words sink in, "We can fix the problem in Doldrom with a small team, but we are fixing a symptom. I have been thinking about it. We can't cure the problem with a fractured East."396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV5UuoVEoSg
Faldo smiled a little looking at Damon, his blue eyes twinkling with a mischievousness that had not been there in months. Like a mountain lion trapped in a hunters pit, the big man's eyes had lost their luster over the past few months during the tedious task of the execution of his office. The thought of getting out of Tharpe bode well for Faldo, he longed for the chance to not see the inside of his office or the continuous signing of parchments. To be staining his clothes with mud and not with splotches of blue and black ink.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMbCG4dJN6O
He stepped forward off the table and clapped his smaller friend, whom he called brother, on the shoulder with a big hand, "You did happen to study history in that stuffy old Temple when you were younger right? No one has ever succeeded in doing exactly what you are proposing Damon."396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj3dVDhNd1b
"Yes he did Nephew, I taught him," Jen said now grinning impishly, eyeing Damon speculatively. Damon retreated under her steady inspection, "But you forget we have a few things that none of the previous conquers ever had, not even Gras. We have the first officer in the East that will lead the Armies under the first Disciple of Grim, and to make it sweeter to get them to march to the beat we call but how about Grim himself marching at the lead. We can make his eyes glow you know."396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡExStULRGoc
She stepped over and stroked right over Damon's eyes teasingly. Damon jerked back, slapping her hand away and glared at her, the glint in his eyes was murderous as he stared at the pair.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKc23xAf756
"Aunt, are you suggesting we lie?" Faldo said in mock surprise putting his hand over his heart, "But I do think his eyes have always been a little dark for my taste."396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡueKpGpV957
"I am saying we have the most powerful sorcerer in the land now. Let's make use of him and win this damn war. What do you say, Grim." She emphasized the name as she looked with an evil grin at Damon.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPw8kjdj9wM
Damon looked at his wife for some help, his face a picture of dismay. Cariline laughed hysterically, holding her belly and shook her head, "Nope you brought this on yourself. You will look fine. I have always wondered if you would look just like your father."396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrAcNRDFTDu
"Oh shit. Why me." Damon threw his hands up in disgust, outnumbered and defeated, and went back to his window helplessly to watch the sheeting rain.396Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwft1zZK0nK
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