Chapter Eight:
Seeds
Davien the word was ethereal. It drifted across him as though the word, like him, was everywhere. This was the Grayscape, a world just outside of, beside, below and maybe a smidge above, our own.
It was from within this place, in its subtle tones of gray, bright whites and hollow empty blacks that magic came. Within this place the learned elites, most devout of religious authorities and the mystically inclined could explore a reality not always bound by the same laws that those not ‘in the know’ could explore. With one exception; Death. At the time of death, and on occasion much longer for the more aggressive departed, a spirit could be found and spoken with. Sometimes these moments were enough to say goodbye. If they were ‘in the know’.
Leira did know how to enter the Grayscape, if the spirit of a body had not already departed she could follow that spirit until it too faded. She was not powerful enough, currently, to visit on her own. Leira also knew that as long as the Mentor’s spirit was weakened she could talk to her son.
Finally, Davien coalesced in front of his mother. They stood, briefly looking at one another. She would not be here if he were not alive, but dying, he told himself and shrugged. “So,” Davien hesitated a moment, “I guess this is goodbye?”
“Well,” Leira’s response was interrupted as the outline of the Mentor began to form and, even in the Grayscape, siphon heat from those nearby. The crackling of energy surrounding the Mentor, while distracting, did not prevent Leira from quickly blurting out, before it fully formed, “Do not trust it!” Fully formed, only a moment later, the Mentor angrily swatted the air in Leira’s direction and with a start she found herself once again in the regular world. To her amazement, her son sat up a moment later with a vacant, disoriented look on his face.
Thinking quickly, Leira drew a symbol in the air and mouthed a single word. Light quickly began to radiate from the symbol, which looked something like a floating candle. Looking directly at her son she directed the floating symbol towards the blue glowing, hate filled eyes.
Moments before it would have touched her son’s forehead the Mentor must have realized the danger he was in, weakened as he was from twice saving the body of his vessel, and he made a clumsy movement with her son’s damaged arms. Without dismantling the symbol before it touched, the entity that called itself an ancestor glared in frustration at Leira.
“Jym!” Leira shouted to get the goblins attention. He was occupied so thoroughly with turning the spit, holding what he must have imagined was the largest frog leg in existence, that the drama unfolding around him had escaped his notice. Glancing up quickly from the fire he acknowledged his surroundings for the first time in what seemed to him close to an hour.
The fires, flitting in his vision even after he changed his focus, confused him. Confusion angered him and getting angry made him happy. He focused on that for a moment before shouting back, “Who do I have to kill around here to get that fire put out! It is everywhere. How are you even alive?”
“Jym,” Leira said forcefully to get him to focus, “That is a spirit candle, it is not strong enough though, or I am not, it hardly matters right now. Do you see the symbol around the candle?”
“Uh.” Jym paused for a moment as he tried to focus on the wax being pushed into his friend’s head. “Sure. Yes. Sure, yes?”
“Carve it into something, quickly, before the candle is all gone. The Mentor is getting stronger and Davien is dying.” Leira maintained as much calm in her voice as she could. She knew that the already excitable, and currently agitated, goblin could easily perceive any statement with a bizarre interpretation. She need not have worried however, the goblin only had one friend.
Jymgreen, hearing that his friend was dying, quickly grabbed the nearest thing. A pity really, it made such a good spit turner. Little finger hold and everything. Jym could not read, had never seen a reason to learn really, and did not recognize the scribbled markings just above where he carved the symbol.
Finishing the symbol, despite the still brightly flickering flames that seemingly only he could see, a blue flash briefly lit the now etched rune of the previously floating symbol. Liquid, or something like it, seemed to fill the rune with a cold sapphire light. A scream of pain, followed by half formed words and guttural noises, made Jym look to his friend who appeared fully aware of his surroundings and without a Mentor to dull the pain.
Leira looked at her writhing son and, sighing heavily, told the goblin, “We have to go see my mother.” A tear, a torrent of them, made their inexorable way to the crease at the edge of her mouth, a deepening frown preventing pooling at the corners, “We need to make him as comfortable as possible, Jym, look through my pack. Search the temple above. Jym?” Waiting for him to look her in the eyes before continuing, “We have to be quick.”
Jym took only a brief moment to lament the loss of his still mostly uncooked frog leg, if it had not been for the demonic nature he may well have taken much more of it, before kicking over the spit upon which it roasted. With that last act against the Fiend they had been sent to find, the two began their preparations to move the gravely injured Davien.