7
There was a construct of sorts aboard the Dark Cloud, a featureless, glassy person-like blank that shone in the light of the rising dawn. It looked like water or smooth, polished crystal and moved like a sleepwalker, clattering down the twisted steel gangplank and over to Miche.
Proved useful (if eerie), helping the elf to get his badly injured heart-sister onto that waiting airship. He did not trust the thing to get her settled and stable, though. That took creation of a life bond, and the sort of link that not even death could revoke.
Very gently taking hold of Marget’s torso and head with mage-hand, he allowed the glass construct to raise and carry her muscular legs. Working together, they climbed the gangplank, then followed a scribble of dim, narrow passages that Cloud opened up ahead of them. Came at last to a small cabin containing a bunk, an extruded chair (very strange) and the sort of healing supplies that a skilled setter of bones or a hedge-witch might stock.
Marget was unconscious, but in terrible pain, even so. She had torn out her own transformed arm by pinning it down with an armored boot, and then wrenching herself violently, bloodily upright. Had next kicked that ripped-away serpent straight at the witch’s vile face. All to help him, and his captured small god. All his fault.
Firelord hovered inside of her, still, holding back the last heartbeat and rattling breath. Battling darkness to keep her alive. Miche could do nothing less.
Crossing the medical cabin, he set Meg down on the bunk’s thin mattress and pulled up a sheet. Meanwhile, Nameless darted from cloak hood to shoulder, then onto the dusty pillow, brushing it clean with his long, fluffy tail. Next, settled alertly by Marget’s head. One paw upraised, the marten barked softly, exuding musk and an aura of promise. She would be watched and well cared for… and Miche very much needed to take a close look at the cliff outside. Had to comb it for evidence of the hag and (hopefully) find Marget’s arm.
The very last elf touched his heart-sister’s face, willing his own strength and life-force into her pain ravaged body.
“Live, warrior,” he urged her, as Erron and Miche, both. “I do not deserve your sacrifice. I wasn’t worth it.”
The glassy person-form wandered over then, chiming a little with each shuffled step. It held a carved wooden box in one hand, the tarnished brass lock already sprung.
“I thank you,” said the elf, automatically, although the construct seemed not to hear and did not respond with sign, gesture or word. It was prodded along by the Cloud, possibly… or maybe by one of the ship’s teeming ghosts.
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As the glass simulacrum looked on (loomed, rather) Miche took and opened that old wooden box. Inside it he found seven jarred and carefully labeled potions. The sort that drove away pain or brought quiet and merciful death… and one very powerful toxin. That jar he took against future need, slipping it into his weapons pocket. The rest, he buried in unending day-brew.
“Again, thank you,” said Miche. “But nobody dies here, this day. My life for hers, if anything.”
In his mind, the airship responded. Just a faint and papery whisper, saying,
‘She shall be watched and attended to, Captain, by all aboard ship. They have had their differences in the past, but eternity freshens perspective.’ Then, ‘You are an exile,’ it stated.
Miche lowered his head, scarcely noticing when that hovering construct transformed itself into a swarm of glittering motes and then drifted out of the cabin.
“I think so, yes,” he admitted. “Though… I do not know why. It is difficult, because I have very few memories as ‘Miche’ or… or as this ‘Val’. And, because I was given the life and the past of Lord Erron of Skyvale, at the last shrine that we… I… awakened. Over two-thousand years and a terrible death versus just a few months isn’t much of a fight, Cloud. Yet, I sense that he does not wish to take over. He is a good person. A friend, and I am most glad of his presence.”
‘Much as all those who linger add up to me,’ mused the dark, haunted airship. Then, abruptly changing the subject, ‘This world is dying. It was cursed by the actions and power of one who is trapped here, himself.’
Miche nodded. He’d been lightly stroking Meg’s forehead with one hand, still humming the song that takes away pain, in order to summon more fey-lights. Carefully shifted her coarse, braided mane so that nothing was bunched up or trapped underneath to pinch her. Some of those metal hair-clasps were sharp. Stopped humming a while to say,
“The Fallen One. He seeks after my life and my god’s. Perhaps because he can use our deaths to power a means of escape for himself… maybe because he’s just a murderous warg-son. No idea. But I hate him, Cloud, with all the fury and scorn that two hunted elves can muster. With your help, I mean to kill him and waken the rest of the shrines. Willing to pay whatever price you exact. Just… not Marget. She lives, Cloud. No matter what else, Marget lives.”
‘She lives,’ agreed the dark airship. ‘Though she may not thank you for saving her life, maimed thus. As to the rest: upload a map, point out these “shrines”, and I shall take us there, Captain.’
Done. Sealed. If there was a transfer… if somehow Miche was linked to this vessel, now and in time yet to come… the elf did not sense it. Just nodded once more, saying (as Erron),
“Quarter-speed, Cloud. Your manna is low, and I had rather have altitude than swift flight. I will scout one more time for the warrior’s arm. Burn the hag’s corpse, or the thing that has eaten her, if either remains to be found.”
He bent down, then, to kiss Marget’s forehead, disturbing a flutter of fey-lights. They scattered like glimmering dust, swirled for a moment, then settled again. A few tried to see to his own minor scrapes, but he sent them away, back to Meg. The elf rose from her bedside at that, murmuring,
“You may not thank me… and I will take your best punch without faltering, warrior… but I thank you. For everything. For helping me hold back the shadows. For helping this child to survive. You shall live.”
And so it went. But as for the pilot…