Amuzad approached the stricken spirit slowly, cautiously. One hand held his staff, the other was raised, open, to show the earth spirit he meant no harm. It snarled and whimpered but made no move towards Amuzad.
When he reached its side, he stretched out with his hand and gently rested it upon the tortured flesh. “Easy,” he said quietly. “All will be well.”
He stood there, not moving, hand upon the spirit for some time, long enough that Ishkinil began to wonder if he had fallen into a sleep. At last he stirred, and drew back his hand, giving a brief shape of his head. “It is bad,” he announced.
“Is there anything you can do?” Ishkinil asked.
Amuzad’s face was all grim lines. “Yes. For it to work I am going to need your skills and talents.”
“Mine belong to a different realm, a different domain of power.”
“And it is that which I will require. As it is, the Heart of Arkech Usor is beyond saving. The corruption has gone too deep. The land will die.”
“The land is not in Enkurgil’s purview,” Ishkinil stated.
“But I am,” Amuzad told her. “The only hope for the Heart is for me to take its sickness, its corruption into myself, to leach it of the poison the pervades it. It will live but I shall die.”
A noble sacrifice. A life given freely. There was power to be had in such an act, far more than for a sacrifice made unwittingly, forced for the benefit of others. Few, though, were willing to make it; most wish only power for their own benefit.
“What would you have me do?”
“Death I do not fear,” Amuzad said. “It is but part of the endless cycle, from birth to death. I am but a speck compared to the vastness of the life of the Heart, yet without it that cycle is broken.”
“There needs to be balance,” Ishkinil agreed. “Too many have forgotten that, seek to subvert it.”
“Which is where you come in.” Amuzad pointed out. “What need for a Handmaiden of Death is death is not being denied?”
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“Few understand that.”
“It is so. No, death is not my fear. My fear is that this corruption, this poison shall afflict me as it has other, to drive me mad, and in so doing I shall undo what needs to be done, do damage the spirit and the land further. If it shall come to that, then I would need your services, to prevent it. You I shall need to release me of my tortured flesh.”
“It is not my way to simply end a life thus, but these are circumstances of an unusual bent. I shall stand by your side, to do what needs doing should it so come to pass.”
“Thank you,” he replied. “Not once have you asked of yourself, of how you would return to the real world, to your body. When I am ended, so to shall my link which sustains us here and you shall be returned.”
Ishkinil nodded. “I had no concerns over that.”
“We shall commence.” Amuzad took his staff and planted it in the ground. With his free hand, he rested it again upon the body of the earth spirit. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
A change came over the earth spirit, slow at first, the flesh around where Amuzad touched beginning to knit, to lose the corrupted nature. Yet even as it did, Ishkinil could see the reverse happening to Amuzad, for corruption seeped up his hand, climbing ever up. The earth spirit quite its whimpering and the madness in its eyes began to fade away. Its antlers, once chipped and stained, became as new again, strong and white. And around them, the tainted corruption began to fade, the trees recovering, leaves growing full once more.
Sweat was upon Amuzad’s brow, and his teeth were locked tight from the strain. The corruption climbed up his neck, veins darkening beneath his skin. Up his jaw it climbed, across his face, to his eyes. They snapped open and in them Ishkinil could see great pain yet not a sound he made, merely a rictus grimace. His knuckles showed white so hard did he clench his staff and his body trembled.
Up rose the Heart of Arkech Usor, taller yet, and it stretched out, new growth rippling across it. Flowers opened and blossomed, and around it gathered vivid golden butterflies and bright bees. The darkness that had been all pervasive about faded as light once more transfused the glade and the scent of corruption departed.
The earth spirit looked down upon them, its eyes now pools of deep wisdom and endless ages. A crown of flowers bloomed upon its brow, golden and white, and entwined about its antlers.
It set an earthy hand upon Amuzad’s head, though its expression was one alien and ancient, impossible for Ishkinil to read. Amuzad managed a trembling, pained smile before he collapsed, at the feet of the earth spirit.
The Heart of Arkech Usor bent down and took up Amuzad into its arms, cradling it in an earthy bed of flowers and vines, before it spoke, in a voice as deep as the earth, as ancient as the stars, both the whisper of a breeze and the roar of the storm. “Go now, child of He Who Waits. This one belongs to me now, and for always.”
Ishkinil could say not a word for even as the earth spirit spoke, all faded away before her, the hidden realm dissipating back into the real world, leaving Amuzad behind.