Wild Card segment 7

Sparhawk related the tale of the ball of fire falling from the sky, the damage to the Rose Street Inn, the guards' pursuit, and Sparhawk's decision to follow and question the man who he'd come to learn called himself 'Anthony'. "... and after we left the hideaway he seemingly created from nothing, he carried me from alley to roof top, then from roof to roof without either of us moving through the space between."

Sephrenia blinked at him. "That's... are you sure you didn't just lose consciousness from the sudden motion?"

"There WAS no motion. We were in one place, then the next, with no motion, just a chant and gestures and then we were in another location."

"That's not possible," Sephrenia declared. "Magic can't do that. It doesn't work that way. The best that could be done is to... blur travel between one place and the next, and it's an extremely advanced form of magic."

Vanion looked over the strangely attired old man. "Perhaps he's a devotee of one of the Elder Gods," he said speculatively.

"Even they have limits, Vanion," Sephrenia replied, and Sparhawk caught Anthony shifting slightly as she said the name. Sparhawk felt a certain discomfort as he unwillingly found himself considering what it must be like from the man's perspective. He still didn't much trust the notion that the man simply... HAD to do what Sparhawk told him for the next year. But the doubting part of himself was starting to ease enough for him to at least passingly consider the notion that the man might actually be telling the truth. Which left Sparhawk with an unexpected manservant of uncertain but exceeding magical power.

[i]No,[/i] Sparhawk thought to himself grimly. [i]I must be honest with myself. A slave. If he is what he seems, what he says he is... he's effectively a slave. One that can't even lie to me without a harsh and permanent punishment.[/i] "He says he's not from our world," Sparhawk suddenly interrupted Vanion and Sephrenia's discussion on the known limits or willingness of Elder Gods to grant power to mortal worshippers. "Doesn't that mean that the gods of this world and their rules... don't necessarily apply?"

"He'd still need a connection to whatever gods he worships, though, to draw on their power," Sephrenia protested. "He can't possibly..." She trailed off as Anthony looked progressively more and more upset, although despite his agitation he neither spoke nor groaned nor even made any movements that might make a sound.

Sparhawk's discomfort intensified, looking at him. Sephrenia leveled her sternest gaze at him, and Sparhawk suddenly found himself not only uneasy with his apparent power over Anthony, but also subject to Sephrenia's distinct disapproval. "Sparhawk, this has gone past pettiness and into the realm of cruelty."

"I didn't do this to him!" Sparhawk protested.

"But you ARE the one holding his chain, even if you weren't the one to put it on him or voluntarily pick it up," Sephrenia pointed out. "Free him of this silence you afflicted him with."

Sparhawk grimaced, and shamefacedly nodded at Anthony. "You don't have to be silent anymore," he muttered. His guilt wasn't alleviated by Anthony's forbearance from speaking even after the order was rescinded.

"Maybe this is a good thing," Talen volunteered suddenly. The rest of the room looked at him, and the boy shrugged. "When Platime sends one of his people into someone else's territory to help them, there's limitations on what they can do and how they can operate, especially if they're the knife work types. And it's always a matter of trading favors. Maybe someone outside our world owes Sparhawk a favor but can't just leave this guy free to do whatever."

"You may be on to something there," Sephrenia commented, looking over Anthony thoughtfully. "Sparhawk said you have restrictions you're bound by on pain of punishment. What restrictions exactly?"

Anthony looked reluctant, and Sparhawk nodded at him. "Answer her questions, and any others she asks henceforth."

"Sparhawk, that's hardly necessary!" Sephrenia said, but Anthony began talking.

"I have two immutable restrictions, and two geasa-"

"What's a Geasa?" Sephrenia interrupted.

Anthony grimaced. "Plural of 'geas', a magically enforced set of instructions. The geasa are that for six months, no lie may pass my lips; each breach of this robs my magic by a set amount commensurate to what the initial geas empowered me by. The first violation removes all benefits it provided and the second begins depowering me. The second geas works similarly, empowering me initially but penalizing me progressively more for each breach I commit, and that geas is to protect Sparhawk and follow all his commands for a full year. In addition to the loss of power, breaching this command even once compels me forever afterwards to obey any orders I receive given to me by someone saying my full name." The expressions of everyone in the room - most especially that of Flute, to Sparhawk's surprise - were of shock and horror. But Anthony wasn't finished speaking. "In protecting Sparhawk, I cannot harm him, nor through inaction allow him to come to harm, on the same penalty as disobedience. The absolute restrictions are that I must conform to a standard of behavior that promotes goodness and wellbeing of others, that I never allow evil to be commited unchallenged in my presence nor act in a way that hinders good acts, that I protect the innocent, even to the point of challenging authority and defying cruel or unjust laws. Furthermore, I can never use a weapon, tool or other equipment that is not shaped, altered, or created by my own magic. Both of these strictures are also for a full year."

The room remained in silence for several heartbeats, before Flute played a shrill, angry trilling on her pipes, looking more incensed than Sparhawk had ever seen her.

"The... heartlessness of the execution of these commands against him aren't truly as bad as what many angered Elder Gods would afflict him with, in honesty," Sephrenia admitted. "But the Younger Gods would never countenance this sort of enslavement of someone they chose to empower. If they trusted their servant so little to require such things, they wouldn't choose them as a servant to begin with."

Anthony frowned. "Enslavement is a little... okay, maybe it's accurate, but it's also temporary."

"With a penalty clause causing permanent enslavement," Vanion noted unhelpfully.

"What if he's lying?" Berit said suddenly. He hadn't relinquished his hold of his axe once the entire meeting, resting it on his shoulder the whole time. This, too, added to Sparhawk's agitation. Berit looked around at the others, and insisted, "It's not impossible! So far we only have a short demonstration of his obedience and less than a full day of knowing him."

"My teleporting spooked you that badly?" Anthony said quietly, to which Berit gave no reply but a clenching of his jaw. "Look, I apologize for startling you, but it was literally the only way I was getting up that wall where Sir Sparhawk wanted me going. I'm too old and fat, and my hands too damaged by poor decisions in my younger days to make it up a rope without my legs. Or probably even with them," he added ruefully.

"How does one get to be so... ah..." Tynian started delicately, before trailing off.

"Out of shape? Fat? Decrepit?" Anthony said unkindly about himself, and Sparhawk couldn't find it in himself to disagree with the assessment, regardless of its lack of charitability. "I used to be a martial artist, and barehand kicks and punches against heavy bags, boards, bricks, every time you do them wrong you do a little more damage to yourself which never quite heals completely. I worked labor in a meat department, wearing out my back and knees a bit at a time for a living. Then I retired from meat work to become a writer. Craft stories and compose professional documents. Time just... passes, when you spend eight to twelve hours a day trying to write, to arrange words effectively so they can convey emotion, sight, sound, smell, touch. I wanted to be more than just another laborer, contributing to the largely surplus flow of meats when I could contribute to society with ideas, direction, philosophy, and even just entertainment. I wanted to create stories about a better future, of technologies that didn't exist, and societies better than the one I was born into." Anthony scoffed to himself. "I always loved books. Wanted to write a few myself, someday. Instead, it was a book that got me here, and all those ideals and ideas... gone." He shook his head. "As incredible as magic is... I think I got the raw end of the deal even discounting the whole geas thing."

Something suddenly occured to him, and Anthony uttered something explosive that whatever translated his words didn't bring across but by his demeanor was probably something obscene or profane. "I have no idea how I'm going to get back to my wife. I can't even guess how scared she must be right now. And Sparhawk, I have about two more minutes before my Tongues spell wears off, and then I'm not going to be able to understand any of you, nor you me. May I recast it?"

Sparhawk felt his discomfort ratchet up yet another notch. "You have permission to use your translation spell as needed," he instructed.

Anthony grimaced, and spoke alien sounds accompanied by arcane gestures rather unlike those used in Styric magic for perhaps thirty seconds. "... Thanks," Anthony said.

"What deities do you worship?" Sephrenia asked curiously.

"Eh... well, I've always held a respect for the nondescript conceptual 'divinity' in both male and female aspects according to Wicca. I practiced regularly for a while, although that's somewhat lapsed through aging and a general feeling that anything truly divine and powerful enough to create the world, the universe in its entirety... I'm less important to such a being or force than a flake of skin or a cast off hair I find on my pillow is to me. Not worth talking to it; it's not only not listening, it wouldn't even notice me."

Anthony suddenly looked tired, worn down. "Beyond that, I've always had something of a... compulsion that takes over for me when certain things happen in my life. Without even knowing why, I perform an action, speak to a stranger, give advice or do a favor for someone. Small things, inconsequential things, that end up making things a tiny bit better for someone. And in exchange I've always had an instinct for what to do that things turn out for the best for myself- although I often feel like that force has a prankish sense of humor. Like it wants to teach me things, or keep me safe and well, but likes to teach or protect me in ways that stretch my personal boundaries, embarrass me, or otherwise just keep me from taking myself too seriously. I've always sort of called that force 'Loki' in the privacy of my own head because Loki was reputed to be a trickster deity, but in Norse mythology he was usually the only one of the gods actually fixing any of their problems, even if he foolishly or through pranking was the cause of half of what he wound up fixing." Anthony blinked. "... Loki was also a shapeshifter and -" here he used a word that didn't precisely translate to Sparhawk's ears, "- which makes a strange sort of sense given one of the strongest magics I have right now is shapeshifting..." He trailed off.

"You think your god Loki sent you here, then?" Ulath said, rubbing his chin.

Anthony shrugged. "I wasn't even seriously convinced that I wasn't reading too much into random coincidence and good instincts on my own part," Anthony admitted. "Magic doesn't exactly exist on my world except maybe in ways so subtle as to be dismissed as coincidence."

"No magic?" Sephrenia seemed simultaneously confused and almost offended. "How could a world even exist like that?"

Anthony shrugged. "We got by through wit, ingenuity, and determination," he answered. "No outside forces strictly required, really. Most people don't even believe in gods at all."

It was Bevier's turn to be offended now, hardly a surprise given his devoutness and the borderline blasphemy he'd just heard. "That's crazy. Without the gods, where would the world have come from?"

"I don't have time to explain -" several more words and titles that didn't translate, "- to you, and they were mostly well supported theories anyway. Doesn't matter at this point." Anthony rubbed his face tiredly. "It's been a long night and all this is probably pointless to you guys anyways beyond an academic interest, and if I'm understanding everything you were talking about tonight, time is short. Where do we go from here- and in my case, where do I fit in?"

"He's right," Vanion says. "We still have the issue of Bhelliom to finish discussing."

"It's out of the question," Sephrenia said flatly. "There is no earthly trouble that justifies the potential consequences of Bhelliom falling into the hands of Azash. Wherever it lay, it should stay, and the deeper the better."

"Sephrenia, this is Ehlana's life we're talking about!" Sparhawk protested. "And yours, and Vanion's as well!"

"Nobody lives forever, Sparhawk," Sephrenia replied. "Annias and Lycheas are temporary problems; Vanion and I are temporary beings, and regardless of your feelings or your hereditary duty, so too is Ehlana. The world won't miss any of us all that much. Bhelliom, and Azash for that matter, are entirely different. If we were to fail and the stone fell into Azash's clutches, we doom the world forever. It's not worth the risk."

"I'll break open Hell to save Ehlana, Sephrenia," Sparhawk stated resolutely. "So help me God, I will. I'm the Queen's Champion, and I will not bend on that."

"At times I feel like I'm talking to a child," Sephrenia complained. "Vanion, can't you think of a way to make him grow up and see reason?"

"I was sort of considering going along," Vanion admitted with a rueful laugh. "Sparhawk might let me hold his cloak while he kicks in the gate. I don't think anyone's assaulted Hell lately."

"Maybe there's no need?" Anthony suggested. "I have an array of... well, considerable healing spells, at least by the standards of home. I'm not sure how they compare to what you have here, though."

"I thought you said you had no magic of any kind, healing or otherwise, in your home," Berit said almost accusingly.

"We don't, although the field of surgery and medicine is pretty impressive. Antibiotics, wound repair, disease curing, a lot of techniques at the disposal of doctors would seem magical to people even a hundred years ago."

"What kinds of spells?" Sephrenia asked. "Healing magic here is very limited; many believe it was intentionally made so because easy healing magics take away the consequence and importance of mortals and mortality."

Anthony scratched his chin through his white beard. "Well... basic healing of injuries, broken bones, removal of diseases and granting resistance to further diseases for a time, blessing an area to enhance the healing of those who rest or are treated within it, the ability to remove and burn away toxins and poisons, delay or outright prevent the departure of the spirit from the body regardless of what might otherwise kill a person. Heal wounds to the mind and soothe troubled spirits. Brew elixirs to heal wounds, remove curses, even reverse scars. Mind you, not all of these I can do immediately, but with practice, I should be able to do them within a matter of weeks."

"Aldreas said there was no force in the world but Bhelliom that could heal Ehlana," Sparhawk pointed out.

Anthony smiled weakly. "Well... in all fairness, I wasn't here yet when he said it," he countered.

"Then Bhelliom doesn't need to be unearthed," Sephrenia said with relief.

"We might not get a choice in the matter," Sparhawk disagreed. "One of the things Aldreas emphasized was that the time has come for Bhelliom to see the light of day, and no force on earth could prevent it. SOMEONE is going to find it, and if not us, it could very well be a Zemoch who finds it and carries it back to Otha."

"Or if it rises from the earth on its own," Tynian added moodily. "Could it do that, Sephrenia?"

Sephrenia looked like she'd bitten into a rotten lemon. "Probably, yes," she admitted.

"Then whether Bhelliom is used to heal Ehlana or not, we NEED to locate it." Sparhawk paused briefly, remembering something. "Sephrenia, after we landed outside the city walls, something was lurking in the fog around the outer wall of the city. I think it was watching us for a little while, and I don't think it was human."

"The thing with the glowing face?" Anthony interjected.

Sparhawk nodded; Sephrenia frowned. "The Damork?" she asked.

"I can't say for sure," Sparhawk replied, "but I don't think so. It felt different. The Damork isn't the only creature subject to Azash, is it?"

"No. The Damork is the most powerful, but it's stupid. The other creatures don't have its power, but they're more clever. In many ways, they can be even more dangerous."

Vanion sighed heavily. "Alright, Sephrenia. I think you'd better give me Tanis' sword now."

"My dear one-" she began to protest, her face anguished.

"We've already had this argument once tonight," he told her. "Let's not go through it again."

Sparhawk found his attention drawn back to Anthony, who watched closely as Sephrenia and Vanion began to chant in unison in the Styric tongue. Then, Sephrenia handed over the sword, and Vanion's face grew a little grayer.

"Where do we start?" Sparhawk asked, looking at Ulath. "Where was King Sarak when his crown was lost?"

"No one really knows," the big Genidian knight replied. "He left Emsat when Otha invaded Lamorkand. He took a few retainers and left orders for the rest of the army to follow him to the battlefield at Lake Rendera."

"Did anyone report seeing him there?" Kalten asked.

"Not that I've heard. The Thalesian army was severely decimated, though. It's possible that Sarak did get there before the battle started, but that none of the survivors ever saw him."

"I expect that's the place to start then," Sparhawk said.

"Sparhawk," Ulath objected, "that battlefield is immense. All the Knights of the Church could spend the rest of their lives digging there and never find the crown."

"There's an alternative," Tynian said, scratching his chin.

"And what is that, friend Tynian?" Bevier asked him.

"I have some skill at necromancy," Tynian told him. "I don't like it much, but I know how it's done. If we can find where the Thalesians are buried, I can ask them if any of them saw King Sarak on the field and if any know where he might be buried. It's exhausting, but given the stakes..."

"I'll help take some of the strain for you," Sephrenia reassured him. "I don't practice necromancy myself, but I know the proper spells."

Kurik rose to his feet. "I'd better get the things we'll need together," he said. "Come along Berit. You too, Talen."

Sephrenia looked troubled. "... Sparhawk, you're going to have to leave him -" she nodded at Anthony, "- behind."

Sparhawk raised an eyebrow. "Little mother?" he asked questioningly.

"There'll be ten of us," she explained. "We'll be taking Flute and Talen along with us. We'll be seeking the aid of some of the Younger Gods of Styricum, and they like symmetry. We were ten when we began this search, so now we have to be the same ten every step of the way. Sudden changes disturb the Younger Gods."

Anthony looked appalled. "Lady Sephrenia, as an outsider I admit that I don't know anything about your younger gods. I do know that war and violence don't remotely care if the one person in the way is a child or not, but the adults in the room DAMN well ought to. Leave the children behind."

Sephrenia favored Anthony with a wan smile. "After a long enough period of time, everyone else is a child. Which of the children in this room should I spare and which should I risk?"

"Start with sparing the ones who aren't old enough to shave, marry, or know enough to look out for themselves for a start."

Sephrenia shook her head. "It's a noble sentiment, but with the state of political intrigue and power consolidation in play, with Zemoch beginning to stir, with Bhelliom ready for resurgence in the world, there are no safe places in Elenia. They come with us."

Anthony scowled for a minute, then stood up. "Sparhawk, I need to practice my magic to improve what I can - and I need materials to craft tools I and others can use. Since you've forbidden me from using magic, and the only reprieve you've given me so far on that restriction is to use the Tongues spell as needed, I can do neither until you say otherwise." Anthony gestured helplessly. "Will you untie my hands on this?"

Sparhawk grimaced slightly, and nodded. "As long as Sephrenia watches you, you may."

"And when the lot of you depart and leave me behind?" Anthony pressed.

"I'll get back to you on that."