Yamara

I was so caught up in my own memories and thoughts that it was not until well after the midday that I realized we had not seen any other traffic along the road. A wide and well used road, the only direct route from Palungol to Trollhome, and we were the only people upon it? Something was amiss.

"Where are the people?" I asked after taking an unsatisfying drink from my waterskin.

"I've not seen anyone since we were attacked," Evart answered, making me feel even more ill at ease. "They know we are coming, perhaps they fear us."

"Damn well better," I muttered, slipping back into a darkly introspective mood.

That night at camp Evart's bow brought down a mountain lion. Far from an ideal dinner, cats are usually rather greasy and stringy. I did not notice, eating with nearly as much gusto as I had the night before. After dinner Evart and I sat silently around the fire. My arm ached near the wound as the alien blood tried to fight past the healing powers of the potion I had imbibed. My heart thudded dully in my chest and my head throbbed with each pulse.

"I lied," I said quietly, desperate for something to take my mind off of the condition my body was in. Evart looked up at me, a questioning look on his face. He clearly was not going to offer any conversation until he knew what I had in mind. I chalked up a point for him in my mental book of respect.

"Brina was not really my sister. She more then a sister and a friend," I admitted after starting and stopping several times. "And I killed her."

Evart nodded and listened, relaxing a little. I think he feared I was going to bring up last night, which clearly had left him uncomfortable. I ignored him this time though, instead focusing on myself and forcing myself to relive those final moments in my head again. Not Brina's memory this time, but my own. My own that I had lied and deceived myself with time and again. I stripped off those lies and forced myself to see it again as it happened.

"James had a wounded shoulder and he grabbed her up to use her as a shield. His dagger was at her throat and his sword on the floor. He lied to her and demanded I leave, but I could not. My pride would not let me leave. I... I had to know that he couldn't use her against me." I stopped for a moment. This desire for a cathartic release was eating away at me. I blamed it on the poison.

"I wanted Brina to come with me, of course, but we had grown so close it scared me. And then when James started pulling us apart, I guess I went a little crazy. I didn't know what to do. I thought I knew when I saw him holding her like that. The person I had learned to be growing up in a pit of thieves, assassins, murderers, and smugglers knew the answer to my problems. And that person took over."

I took a deep breath and ignored the tears falling down my cheeks. "I said to her, 'I can't let him use you against me.'. Then I shoved my sword into her stomach and through her, into him. She knew what was going to happen, she knew and she tried to escape. She broke his nose with the back of her head and tried to slip away from his dagger."

"But not in time?" Evart asked, finishing the story I let hang as I sorted myself out and renewed my strength for the telling of the story.

"No, not in time," I echoed. "I drove my dagger into James' throat and knelt next to Brina. She could not talk, her mouth was full of blood. The machine that I had been collapsed and I understood what had happened. Brina had gotten inside of me, Evart. She had changed me. No matter how bad I want to stop hurting, no matter how bad I want to go back and be that cold bitch who cared about nothing and no one except myself, I can't."

I stared at him for a long moment, daring him to say something. Begging him to say something. I was confused and sick of it and with it. My head was thick with emotion and infection.

"I can't give you absolution, Yamara," Evart finally said. "Closure only you can find, and I think this quest will give it to you. Either that or it will kill you, and then you will not care anymore. I feel pity for you only in that you found the one thing worth any sacrifice for only after it was too late to do anything with it."

"This is love?" I spat out. "I used to be certain of my every move. I used to be able to trust myself. If I came across who I am now a few years ago, I would have done myself a favor and put me out of my misery!"

Evart smiled mischievously. "I am glad I did not know you a few years ago, you sound like you were truly a dangerous person. The type of person who would cut my throat at the drop of a hat."

I stared at him thickly for a moment before I realized what he was talking about. When I had first met him I thought he might have been a spy waiting for me to show up. My dagger had cut cleanly through his throat, dooming him has it not been for his magical S.E.T. pendant that carried a one use only healing charge of magic in it. I had one as well, but continued to forget about it when it might come in handy. I considered using it now to fight off this poison that coursed through my body. I stayed my hand though, remembering how my healing potion I had drank only stayed the poison when it should have healed it.

"You are either a fool to think that you can enjoy a full life needing only yourself or sadly misled," Evart continued after he saw the recognition in my eyes. His words were harsh, but his tone soft enough to make me consider them.

"In Gneiss it would be no thing to find love among women or among men. In Elendar things are different, that sort of thing is discouraged because such a union produces no children, and we can always use all the children we can get; they are the future of the nation. Nevertheless, it is a freer kingdom then many around and none would have openly opposed such a union."

I chuckled. "I have known men and women a plenty in my time, Evart, that does not bother me and never has."

"I see," Evart said thoughtfully.

"Do you?" I asked darkly. It was a rhetorical question that needed no answer. He seemed to understand as much for he let me be for the time being.

I stayed there as the night deepened, hugging my knees to my chest and thinking about what had happened. Or what was happening to me. Finally, the hour to late for me to judge it in my condition, I finally fell asleep. Evart carefully rearranged my body on the ground and covered me with a cloak.

I awoke in the morning when Evart gently nudged my shoulder. I came up quickly, reaching for him with my hands twisted into claws. He stumbled away before I could get a hold of him and I stopped myself, wondering what I was doing. I shook my head and mumbled an apology, explaining that he had startled me.

"How are you feeling today?" He asked me, somewhat leery still.

I took stock of my condition mentally. I seemed to be okay, though I was very thirsty. I felt a little chilled and knew that I still had a fever. My mind seemed sharper then it had been, and for that I was thankful.

"A little better, I think," I said, then glanced down at my arm. The redness had advanced a little, pushing up my arm another inch or so. At this rate it might reach my shoulder by the time we reached Castle Palungol.

A gut wrenching spasm passed through my stomach then. Hurrying, I stumbled to my feet and over behind some trees and a scratchy bush. I fumbled with the laces on my breeches and only just managed to lower them in time before the sickness hit me. Foul liquids came gushing out of me, smelling as though something had been decaying within me for days. The smell added to my discomfort and made me sick. I heaved, adding stomach bile and dark blood to the mess on the ground. My eyes widened in fear as I saw the mixture. What was happening to me?

I stumbled back into the camp later, fiercely thirsty but no longer having any stomach pains. Evart looked at me with concern in his eyes. I shrugged and lied, "Mountain lion does not agree with my stomach."

"That or I'm a bad cook," Evart said, smiling.

I offered him a ghost of a smile and proceeded to help him break our camp. Twice more that day I had to make sudden rushes into concealment in order to relieve myself, and both times I grew more and more concerned. I had suffered no internal injury, nor did I feel any pain, but it appeared as though I was bleeding internally quite heavily. To offset the fluid loss I drank water rapidly, refilling my waterskins at every spring or mountain stream we could find.

My strength returned with each passing hour, and the dull haze in my head receded to a distant fog. The ache in my arm never abated, and at times my heart beat so loudly in my chest I thought Evart could hear it.

Dinner that night consisted of two rabbits and a squirrel that Evart brought down throughout the day. We cooked our own meat, since we had separate critters to roast. Mine had only been lightly scorched on the outside before I could stand the wait no more and had to try it. The coney tasted far better then it had in the past.

Evart glanced over at me at one point and nearly dropped his rabbit into the fire. "Yamara!" He said, shocked at my behavior.

I looked at him, wondering what was bothering him. He reached over slowly and I had to momentarily fight the urge to snap at his finger with my teeth. He touched my cheek and pulled his finger back, showing it to me. It was covered in blood. I looked down at the rabbit in my hands and saw that it was only marginally cooked on the outside, the deeper, tastier pieces of meat were still raw. My own eyes grew wide at this and I dropped it from me.

"What's happening to me, Evart?" I asked, my voice faltering.

"It must be the poison, Brina's blood, that is in you. It must be trying to turn you into what she is."

I nodded, scared. My mind had lost my appetite, but my stomach urged me to reach for the uncooked rabbit and scarf it down. I washed my mouth out with some unsatisfying water and sat silently near the fire, thinking.

The next day was much the same as that one, with slightly fewer frequent stops for me to leave a foul stain upon the ground. Apparently my stomach preferred meat raw over cooked. Otherwise the day was silent and uneventful. I was lost in thought going over the same thoughts in my head and discovering nothing new about them. Evart, whatever he was thinking, kept mostly to himself. I caught him looking at me from time to time with concern in his eyes. It was almost flattering, except it infuriated me to think that anybody felt that I could not take care of myself. Then I remembered a few times already during which I had not been able to take care of myself but he had stepped in to help. I wanted to thank him for his kindness and I wanted to butcher him for seeing such weakness in me.

The next morning brought us upon a rocky overlook of Castle Palungol. The citadel stood with its back to a cliff and a deep lake along half of the front of it. The main gate led to a road that ran to the northwest and the southeast. The southeastern direction twisted through some hills to come up to where we were at. The other direction led off through the mountains and hills to other, smaller towns and eventually out of Mardurin. Still no signs of people greeted us. Even Castle Palungol seemed barren and empty. We were far enough away that it would have been nearly impossible to see anyone within the castle itself, however.

"We will reach the town tonight, a few hours before dusk. Do you have any idea how you want to do this?" Evart informed and asked me as we stood overlooking the walled city.

"It's funny," I said distantly. "For months I have longed for this moment, and for over a year I have dreamed of a resolution to this."

"Nervous? Afraid?" Evart asked me filling the silence I had dropped into.

I shook my head and smirked coldly. "Numb, my friend. I am numb. I think the unstoppable fire that drove me to come here has doomed me. I think I died that same day I killed Brina. Only now my body has finally found a way to catch up."

I pulled the reigns on my horse and headed down the road towards the city. Evart hurried to catch up to me. "Just right through the front gate then?" He asked me.

I nodded. "Might as well, she's known we were coming for days at the least. He is her Master, so neither guile nor stealth will help us."

Evart nodded his head, slowly at first, then with a final resolution. "Right. Then let us see this to its end."

I pulled my horse to a stop and turned to face my riding companion. "I called you my friend earlier, Evart. That is an odd thing to me. I have never really had a friend before, but I meant it. Circumstances have made me a different woman then I used to be, whether weaker or stronger or better or worse I do not yet know. I do not wish any harm to come to you. I want you to leave me to this now. Turn around and go back. Go to Elendar and tell the King what you will about this, you might even find a pretentious and obnoxious gnome along the way named Fizzulthorp who is waiting for news."

He smiled grimly and just shook his head. "You call me a friend yet you ask me to not behave like one, Yamara you disappoint me."

"Death awaits us you fool!" I spat at him, growing angry. "We are surrounded by hostile armies within this land! We ride into the lair of unholy evil! Sometimes at night I have to fight with myself to keep from crawling over to where you sleep and ripping your eyeballs out with my fingers so I can feast on your brains, it is one of my nightmares that at some point my control will slip and I will do one of the many horrors that I fear I am now capable of!"

"Yamara, rail against me as you will, I promise you this; I shall not leave your side while my heart still beats and my lungs yet draw breath. My sword is yours to help you in this quest." Evart had never looked so serious or so handsome as he did sitting on his horse staring at me. In spite of his not-so-attractive features, he looked valiant and heroic. Truly the stuff of legends.

I sighed. "What about your vows to Elendar?"

He chuckled. "Which Elendar do you speak of? My vows are to the people that make up Elendar, not the lands upon which it sits. I promised my service to King Avercrombie and he in turn is pledged to protect the people. You are one of those people, Yamara. Whether you acknowledge it or not, without people who live and think and feel as you do, Elendar is nothing but a dying tract of land. Thus, in a sense, I have now sworn to protect you twice."

I shook my head. To many things were on my mind to follow his logic. I just shrugged and faced ahead again. Finally, after a few long moments of silence between us I prodded my horse into action and headed down the road anew. "Then let us ride."

Chapter 11

It came as no great surprise to us when we saw at least two score of orcs waiting for us at the gate. We saw them as soon as we came around the final bend in the road. With barely a glance at one another we continued onwards, showing no fear or concern. I had not worn the hood of my cloak up in several days now, and after a brief moment of thought decided to leave it down. There was no subterfuge left in me.

At the gate they moved to surround us, giving us a wide berth but leaving no route to escape. We were fully committed at that point. The gates opened, all without a word being spoken, and the orcs started forward, us moving along with them out of necessity.

We moved down the main thoroughfare of the small city, past a tavern that doubled as an inn, a general store, not one but two smithies, and a few large buildings that could only be barracks. Off in the distance down side roads we could see other buildings that surely performed functions not dissimilar from those found in any town; a tanners booth, housing for peasants and wealthier folk, carpenters and the like, stuff of such common nature. Were it not for the orcs surrounding us and the native inhabitants being a mixture of human and non-human races generally considered evil, I would have sworn we could have been in any town. It did not have the look of vile and infamy associated with Mardurin. In fact, the town actually looked quite clean.

A smaller wall with a smaller gate soon was before us. Only 8 feet high, this wall could be jumped over by a trained leaper. It would do well to stall the advance of a large group, however, while archers and pike wielders behind it picked them off. The gate opened and we were led through. Once inside we stopped and saw the manor house in which James and Brina now called their home. My breath suddenly left me. It took me a for moments of careful concentration to relax and breathe evenly again without showing any signs of distress.

A man emerged from behind the gate, pale even in the waning afternoon light. He bowed to us and said, "The Master has been waiting for your arrival. Please dismount and follow me."

Evart looked to me and I nodded. I swallowed down the lump in my throat and swung my leg over the horse. A remarkably well behaved orc came forward and took the reigns. Another one did the same for Evart. The orcs stayed behind as we followed the servant into the manor.

The doors opened of their own accord before us, leading us further and further into the house. It did not seem as large from the outside as it appeared to be on the inside. A turn to the right brought us to a large set of double doors, and from there into an anteroom. Another set of doors and we were introduced into the throne room of Baron Palungol. James sat in a royal chair upon a raised dais.

His skin was so pale it seemed nearly made of ivory. His expression was frozen as well, but it was frozen into an amused look. His eyes seemed possessed of an inner fire, though they did not burn with a sinister red light as Brina's did.

With Brina in mind I looked about, wondering where she was. We appeared to be alone in the room with James and his servant. Doing a double take I realized that the servant that had led us through the palace was gone. That left only James and us. I suspected some of the statues were more then just statues as well, but had no way of knowing.

"Welcome, Yamara, to my new home," James said with a dangerous grin. His voice had changed some. It sounded drier then it had before; it had a raspy quality to it now.

"It sounds as though my dagger did not cut deep enough," I responded, anger beginning to build up within me. The wound in my arm suddenly grew warm, making me glance down at it in surprise. It seemed the same as always, hidden beneath the poorly mended sleeve of my blouse.

Evart watched the exchange quietly, poised and ready for whatever happened. He recognized James easily, but was startled at the change in his look and demeanor.

James sneered at me. "A clever move you made, long history now. I should thank you though, for giving me the chance at this rebirth, with Brina forever at my side."

I felt the blood drain from my face at that. What had been growing anger turned into white hot rage instantly. "Where is she you bastard?" I growled at him, stepping forward menacingly.

James chuckled, his voice hissing and further irritating me. "Brina, we have guests you might be interested in."

I followed James outstretched arm and saw shadows move like smoke in the dimly lit room. The moved beside him and, as I watched, they shaped themselves into a human form. Then the shadows disappeared and in their place stood a woman wearing a hooded cloak. My breath caught in my throat as I saw the twin red glimmerings beneath the cowl. She reached up, her hands nearly bronze in color with sharp and cruel looking fingernails extending nearly an inch from her fingers, and laid the hood back from her head.

"Brina!" I gasped. She looked at me and underwent a range of emotions, from the appearance of her face. She was happy for a portion of a second, then enraged, then confused, then sad, then finally she fixed me with a cold hate filled stare.