Had to work late tonight, but here's today's update, just wrapping up a few loose ends:
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Chapter 85
BACK FROM BEYOND
It was like being born.
Awareness was stabbed into him like the thick blade of a spear. He was torn from the darkness, screaming, and cast into a light so blinding that he thought it would burn his senses from his skull. He tried to run, tried to protect himself, but it was as if his body wasn’t even there; he could feel nothing but the pulsing agony that suffused his consciousness.
“Hold him,” a voice came from everywhere.
If he thought that the first moments were pain, they were nothing to what he now felt. It was as if a part of him was being hacked away, like raw skin being flayed from his living hide. He screamed again, and this time the sound was real, his own voice echoing around him.
“By the gods, what are you doing to him?” Another voice, familiar.
He could hear the first voice now, but muted, a low chant coming from nearby. It was the source of his suffering, he knew. He tried to strike out, to stop it, but while he was starting to gain an awareness of his body, he was unable to move, helpless against the continuing attack. All he could do was howl, but that gave him no relief.
And then, after an eternity, it stopped.
He laid there for a time before full consciousness returned. A voice drew him back. “Drink.” Something cool touched his lips, and then a soft trickle as wonderful as the finest draught poured down his throat. He coughed, but was able to keep most of it down.
He tried to open his eyes, but a sharp brilliance stabbed painfully into them. “The light,” he whispered, his voice as frail as a reed.
“Shade the lamp,” Varo said.
The intensity of the light faded somewhat, and he blinked. It was so dark that he almost couldn’t see, but his eyes still watered. Varo was there, and Talen, and Shaylara. He shook his head, trying to clear it.
“You’re dead,” he said to the scout.
“Came close, but not quite as close as you,” she said.
He tried to get up, and failed utterly. “How long?” he rasped, as Shay gave him another drink from the waterskin.
“A little more than a full day,” Varo said. “It nears midnight.”
“The demons?”
“Devils, actually. And they were defeated. Through a bit of foresight from one member of my order, I was able to banish the cornugon, and the others were able to handle the narzugon, and those half-fiends that you didn’t hack to pieces.”
“Help me up.”
“You need to rest. Your body has been through a great trauma... two, actually.”
Dar looked at Varo suspiciously. “What do you mean?”
“I cured you of your lycanthropy. Ordinarily, it might have been a helpful condition to possess, given the enhanced durability and speed it grants, but I doubt you had enough control to avoid a forced change during the full moon, and all we need is for you to turn into a rat in the midst of... when we need you.”
Dar frowned. There had been something in the cleric’s voice that had rung a tiny alarm bell in the back of his thoughts. Dar glanced over at Talen, who looked distracted. “Where’s Allera?”
The captain looked, of all things, uncertain.
“Tell him,” Varo said.
“Tell me what?” Dar asked.
Talen cleared his throat. “We only made it through the night by a narrow margin. By displaying the bodies of the fiends, Marshal Tiros was able to persuade a contingent of the palace guards that they’d been deceived. We spent most of the night and following day meeting with members of the nobility, the mercantile associations, the church, and the Guild of Sorcery. Even now, the marshal is engaged in a delicate balancing act, trying to keep the situation from devolving into chaos.”
“Get to the point,” Dar said sharply.
The captain looked utterly exhausted, but he nodded and continued. “It wasn’t until midday the next day that they found him, at one of the rendezvous locations. Jaros, the bard... he’d been crucified. They drove spikes through his hands and feet, right into the wall...”
Shay put a hand on Talen’s shoulder. “They left a message,” she said to Dar. “Written in blood.”
“Who?” Dar said, but his eyes showed that he already knew the answer.
“The cult of Orcus,” Varo said. “They have taken her. They have taken Allera with them, presumably back to Rappan Athuk.”
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
