Avishraa Reloaded

The slightly expanded group trudged onward through the swamps. It was a thoroughly unpleasant journey, as they became particularly deep and murky in these parts. Zadireth noted that stopping to rest too long was probably a poor idea with so little distance between themselves and their recent battle, but since there were very few spots dry enough to actually lie down on, it was probably just as well.

Were it not for the fact that - or so Zadireth claimed - there was a sanctuary hidden in this part of the swamp, Demarath might have been tempted to suggest going a different way. He found it quite hard enough to slog through the thick mud overlain by water, but he at least was uninjured. Ferleth's badly-healed injuries left her struggling painfully; their attempts at tourniquetting Ilirith's leg was not preventing a slow but steady seeping of blood, an increasingly severe limp, and probably unwholesome muck getting in the wound; and even Zadireth, when breathing heavily, could not quite hide faint gasps of pain in response to his damaged ribs.

The bronze led the way some distance ahead, slowly wending his way through the pools and puddles of stagnant water. Although now nominally in the group, Ferleth had thus far absolutely refused either to nap while the others were nearby or to accept food from any of them, and seemed to have adopted a position that kept her at a reasonable distance from them while able to keep an eye on them. So it was that Demarath had only Ilirith for company - not that he objected greatly.

Once again, he found himself wondering about Zadireth's motives. He recalled that, back in the ruins of Kar Oram, Ilirith had expressed some doubt as to whether this Citadel actually existed, and the sense of misdirection from earlier caused him to wonder if that was indeed the case, or if Zadireth was hiding something else. Though clearly, whatever he was doing, it wasn't just for fun.

He caught Ilirith looking at him with tired eyes. She murmured, “He doesn't strike me as the most straightforward individual either.”

Of course, she must have seen something of what he'd been thinking. It made one wonder what she might see of what Zadireth was thinking.

Something about the way she said it spawned an orthogonal thought in Demarath's mind - a miserable little 'I'd like this excursion to be over now, please,' as though he were at all in a position bad enough to complain about. His leg was fine. His ribs weren't broken. But the fact everyone's mood was at something of a nadir, that Ferleth resisted all attempts to help her, resurfaced his grumpiness from several vigils ago.

While he couldn't hide the emotion from Ilirith, nor wanted to, he could at least make sure it didn't reflect in his actions.

“Worst case, what do you think will happen at the end of our journey?” he asked. If it ends. It was starting to feel a little eternal.

“It depends,” Ilirith murmured gloomily, “on what you call the end of the journey. The worst worst case is that it ends early: we die. Or get captured. That's not going to change at least until we get into the mountains; we're in the process of traveling halfway across a continent filled with people who'd rather we didn't exist plus any number of more natural dangers.”

It was a fairly matter-of-fact statement; but, then again, Ilirith was - or at least had been - an assassin, hadn't she? She was probably used to having to operate in hostile surroundings.

“But should we get there?” she continued. “…I wondered if perhaps this Citadel was a fantasy of some kind. I've tried to read Zadireth to learn more about it, but he's-” She paused, sounding uncomfortable. “-he's… not easy to read. But he has a kind of… purpose to him. A destination he wants to reach. So I think the Citadel exists; but we have no way of telling whether it's what he says it is or if we'd want to stay there. And if it's not, we'd have to decide where else to go.”

Demarath pondered what she'd said. That death and capture were options went without saying, but it was oddly soothing that she'd said it, regardless - maybe because it reminded him that they were all aware of that threat, that it wasn't likely to take any of them easily.

The rest puzzled him in the best way, a welcome mental distraction. The Citadel, a hallucination in a mad man's mind? The idea should have incensed him after all the effort they'd been through already, but he found that it amused him instead, like a punchline to a joke.

But there was a much more interesting conversation to be had on a meta level. “What makes him hard to read?” he asked, realising he was increasingly curious about how the different magics worked.

Ilirith looked ahead into the distance - in Zadireth's direction, though not really at him - as she tried to arrange the words in her head. She had found that telepathic experiences didn't always map well to linguistic constructs.

“Think of it as… like looking into water…” she began uncertainly. “Yes. Looking at the mind is a bit like looking into water. The thoughts and feelings are like the things that exist in the water - the fewer and bigger they are, and more measured their pace, and the more similar their direction, the easier it is to see what's happening. A person concentrating deeply is like that.

“Ferleth is like… like that-” she poked her muzzle toward the cloudy water they were wading through, full of its own clouds of mud stirred up by their feet. “Turbulent. Crowded. Directionless. Her head is full of thoughts that she doesn't want to think, so they keep getting pushed around by rage and sadness. Specifics can be hard to see, but you can see the generalities, the currents in it twisting in on themselves.

“But Zadireth…” She paused for more word-arrangement. “The things in the water are of all sizes, and there's very many of them. And they're all moving in complicated patterns. That's not so difficult; the Matriarch's mind was like that. But for him there are also many layers, more layers the deeper I look, and they all interlock, things passing from one to the next…” She trailed off, not sure how to explain it better. She wished she had a bit more energy to devote to it. “At any rate, it make things hard to follow - I can see things, but it's hard to tell what they mean. And I'm not sure how he does it; I've never seen any mind like it.”

From the way Ilirith described it, it sounded to Demarath that Zadireth's mind must be very busy indeed. He tried to picture something like it - thinking all the time, without pause, barely processing input enough to interact with the world, but managing just by the breadth of a blade of grass to pass as connected with the world. Whorls and eddies of thoughts, some running in parallel.

It gave him a bit of a headache even imagining it. It didn't sound healthy at all.

On the other hand, neither did Ferleth.

“How do we help Ferleth?” he asked, only superficially seeming to change the subject - he was still thinking about Zadireth as well. It was part of the overall conversation of minds.

Ilirith twisted her head in a sort of resigned shrug. “I have to admit that I haven't the faintest idea,” she replied. She resisted the urge to look back over her shoulder, which she suspected Ferleth would not have taken kindly. “I think she's been mistreated and betrayed for a very long time. I don't think she even understands what kindness is. She gets more aggressive with us the more kindly we speak, if you noticed - she thinks it's some attempt at tricking her. She probably needs a safe space of her own for a while, or something someone can't take from her… but I don't know where she'll get that on a journey like this.”

She sighed. A safe space would be a nice thing for any of them to have. She hoped that this sanctuary Zadireth'd said was ahead would provide at least some respite. Nights in these parts were not often cold, but the mists around them seemed clammier than they had any right to.

“Maybe others with this mind-magic know how to fix problems like hers directly, but it's not something I ever learned how to do.” Her voice turned slightly cynical. “My talents were directed elsewhere.”

The insinuation surprised Demarath - using magic to directly change someone's attitudes and thoughts? He blinked a little, trying to imagine it. Would that be like helping to heal a wound, where the body chose how to grow and it was just the necessary energy for it that was shared, or would it be more like alchemy, where one thought was forcibly changed to another?

Both?

It was also just a hypothetical for Ilirith, so he doubted she knew more, but he asked anyway: “So you think someone with mind magic could… change someone's mind? Or more just heal a mental pain?”

Ilirith shivered a little, and tried to huddle into her cloak, but it had been made to aid concealment, not for warmth. Besides which, it was getting damp. “I know I can change someone's mind, she replied wearily, “because I've done it a few times, in small ways. But doing it on that scale, without damaging someone… it wouldn't be easy.”

When would this damn swamp end? Or at least when could they stop and sleep for a bit? It was getting hard to think.

“And pain… you can take away pain for a bit. Muffle it, temporarily. That's easy. But reducing it permanently, I think - I think that'd involve messing with memories. Making them less sharp. Might be easier than doing it the other way.”

Oh. Right.

Intellectually, Demarath knew that his reaction should not have been dread - if she wanted to manipulate him in that manner, she would just do it rather than reveal that she could. The immediate worry that she already had was still hard to shake. That he recognised it as a stupid prejudice didn't dampen it.

But again, he could at least moderate how he acted on the feeling, and in doing so erode it away. Besides, taking away pain was a good thing, so he tried to anchor on that.

“So,” he mused. “All we can do is… be a little more gruff in our conversation with Ferleth, without actually doing her harm? Shoving a fish at her and saying 'eat', rather than saying 'would you like a fish?', that sort of thing?”

Even in her current state, the sudden turn of his thoughts was easy to notice. She supposed that she should have expected it sooner or later. That he wanted to trust her softened the blow a bit, but still…

She said nothing about it, though there was something in her demeanor that signaled to Demarath that she'd noticed. “Maybe. I don't know that she'd accept food from us unless she was starving. Those men mentioned that they'd been giving her meekleaf. I don't know how familiar you are with it, but it's easier to administer if it's in food or drink. I think that's how they gave it to her, and I think she knows that and doesn't want it to happen again.”

There was a loud splash and some spluttered cursing behind them. It appeared that Ferleth had tried to snap up a fish and gotten only a mouthful of murky water. “…which is a shame,” Ilirith continued, “because I don't think she has experiencing in catching her own food.”

It almost made him chuckle. It really did seem that way. It wasn't amusement born of condescension, though - after all, he'd been in much the same situation before Ilirith had taught him the ropes, so it only strengthened his strange sense of kinship with the fellow energist.

“…I've got an idea,” he said, and started to make his way over to Ferleth. Fortunately, he was lucid enough not to be too quiet about it, lest she think he was sneaking up to her.

Ilirith watched after him, concerned, but remained in place. Seeing two people coming toward her might be more than Ferleth would allow. Further ahead, Zadireth paused and watched to see what was happening.

Demarath could see, as he approached more closely, that Ferleth was not holding up well at all. Her eyes were rimmed with exhaustion and she had the look of someone who was remaining upright only through sheer willpower. The silver girl's head snapped up unsteadily to look at him as he approached, and, well outside of normal conversational range, she snapped, “What d'you want?”

“I want to teach you how to fish,” Demarath said, appearing remarkably not-startled given Ferleth's air. Her worn down state might have helped give an impression that he could, if she randomly chose to assault him, defend himself. He smiled mildly. “I only recently learnt it, myself.”

Ferleth appeared to have a certain amount of difficulty with this statement; she blinked at him, at first with suspicion and then with increasing amounts of puzzlement. On the bright side, this gave Demarath a rare view of her face not marked by anger or bitterness.

An offer to teach her how to do something? Why? Was it something that required multiple people? Would she become dependent on him for food? She remembered, vaguely, the smith's husbands going out to fish alone all the time, so surely-

“I… I don't understand,” she mumbled. “Why would you want to do that?”

Demarath blinked slowly for a moment, a stand-in for a slow, gradually understanding nod. Yes, that would be confusing to someone who only understood the language of exploitation. “Well, you won't accept food from us and you're doing a frankly terrible job at catching fish yourself,” he observed, presenting it as though that were an answer. “Seems only fair.”

Ferleth's pride was not wounded, because she had very little of it left to wound. But she had the feeling that she had encountered a new behavior, and although her vocabulary did not include a word for 'smartass' she decided that she was mildly unfond of it. Oh, it was honesty, of a sort; but it didn't answer her question. The idea that fairness came into it was absurd, not that she had much concept of that, either.

Her expression recrystallized into one of suspicion, though far less sure of itself than the previous one. “If you want to go through the trouble,” she replied, “Then fine. But I don't think you'll get anything out of it.”

“I fully intend to get out of it that you won't starve,” Demarath commented and offered encouragement: “So let's prove you wrong.”

His attention moved to the bog. It was a rather trickier place to hunt for anything than the clear lake that Ilirith had first taught him how to fish in, but not impossible. The tricky part was finding the fish. Most of the rest was an iteration of the original lesson, which he started to mirror for Ferleth, in at least mild disregard for how grumpy she was or wasn't about it.

In hindsight, it was lucky that most of the marsh was too shallow to require swimming. Though takma swimming did not make extensive use of the arms, being able to use them was a convenient option; but Ferleth's poorly-healed arm might have complicated matters.

Demarath had gotten enough experience with fishing by now, though, to recognize that Ferleth's mental state might prove to be a serious problem. Dropping her empathic shielding was no issue - she seemed to have trouble maintaining it anyway, and she seemed to display no great embarrassment at exposing herself in that fashion - controlling her empathic output was something else. The falling of her shield unmasked the emotional equivalent of a klaxon going off, with hunger's wail underlaid by shrieks of rage and pain and sorrow. Ilirith and Zadireth, who had both sat down on a nearby dry hummock to watch, actively winced at the feeling of it.

Demarath advised Ferleth to focus on the hunger, as he had; given how long it'd been since she'd eaten anything substantial, that wasn't as hard as it might otherwise have been, but simplifying her emotional profile proved to be remarkably difficult, and nearby fish seemed reluctant to approach her. After a frustrating stretch of remaining absolutely still and struggling with not to get angrier, she abruptly snarled and started thrashing at the water in frustration.

“This is ridiculous!” she raged. “How am I supposed to catch anything this way?”

Demarath frowned a little. “Mostly with patience. I realise that's not easy when you're hungry.” It was redundant information, really - he had demonstrated that fishes could be caught that way in plain view of Ferleth and, while she was not a mentalist, it was hard to frame the whole thing as some sort of elaborate trickery. Not that she didn't believe in elaborate trickery, but it was hard to connect 'trying to placate fish with psychic masquerades' to some kind of ill effect. At most he was trying to waste her time. There were quicker ways to kill her, even given the fact that she wouldn't make it easy for anyone.

A soft sound, half frustration, half resignation. “If you watch me catch another fish and I give it to you directly, would you consider eating that? Get some energy back?” By body language he was expecting a 'no'.

She didn't understand. Nobody in her life, so far as she could recall, had done anything for her without some ulterior motive, or something that had turned out to be one, but if there was one here, she couldn't see it. In other circumstances, she might still have refused just on the grounds of general suspicion.

But she was hungry, and tired, and weakening, and, frankly, desperate. And thinking of the future was not her strong suit, but possibly - even at the risk of some kind of betrayal - taking the chance of betrayal in the present was worth the chance to be alive to deliver horrible retribution afterward.

With a weary slump of posture and a sigh, she murmured. “Fine, yes. Don't wanna make a habit of it, but yes.”

Demarath brightened and almost instantly submerged. Long minutes of quiet followed, during which nothing distracted Ferleth from the jumbled thoughts that were constantly assaulting her consciousness. It was almost enough to interrupt the hunt. But instead, Demarath resurfaced, a fish's tail slapping vigorously at his face as it tried in vain to escape his grip. The muck dripped off his antennae; he did not, by any measure, look attractive. The fish, on the other hand, did. Stunning it by whacking it firmly against a rock, Demarath wore a satisfied expression and held the fish out to Ferleth.

Ferleth limped hesitantly closer, coming just close enough to take the fish, and did so, reaching out and grapsing it slowly as if expecting it to explode if handled too incautiously. She kept her gaze locked on Demarath the whole time, possibly in the event that he intended a last-minute attack.

When she had the fish and no betrayal was forthcoming, she snapped up the fish with a swift motion. Watching her eat was a mildly unpleasant experience, especially since the damage to her muzzle and teeth caused her to make faint, involuntary slurping noises in the process, but at least it was over quickly.

If Demarath had expected actual thanks, he would be disappointed. Ferleth eyed him uncertainly, as if aware that some response might be appropriate but not knowing what it was. She settled on a vague nod of acknowledgement, which was probably as close as she would get; but at least her hostility, at least toward him personally, had cooled to something like puzzled suspicion.

Demarath had, in fact, not expected thanks. The fact that she was eating the fish was enough of one - a physiological manifestation of appreciation, far more sincere than anything she could have spoken. He waited for her to finish the food, then asked: “Do you want to continue trying to learn fishing once you've digested this fish?” It was, evidently, her choice if and when to continue.

Ferleth considered this uncertainly, but before she could respond, Zadireth spoke, as quietly and inoffensively as he could manage, though the look Ferleth shot him was venomous nonetheless. “We really shouldn't stay out here if we can help it,” he said. “We're not very far from the refuge, and we're in the open; any attention we draw to ourselves, however unlikely, we might draw to it. One of the lower chambers is connected to the outside so that water and fish are let in, so if you want to practice fishing, you can do it there and be out of sight.”

Ferleth snapped, “So where is this refuge?” Zadireth pointed through the mist. Barely visible, but not really all that far away, was a kind of island amidst the swamp, a kind of high, rocky hillock whose lower extremities were covered in gnarled trees. Ferleth looked at it, then gave a kind of assenting snort.

The revelation perplexed Demarath. Surely if there had been a refuge, Zadireth could have said something sooner? It was odd that it would come up only as they were within sight of it. It made him wonder whether they passed other refuges already and Zadireth had kept them unmentioned simply to expedite their journey.

Regardless, it promised rest. They could all use some - especially Ilirith. His attention moved back to her with some concern. It should be no problem for her to make it to the refuge. Maybe there would be an opportunity to clean and dress the wound.

Ilirith was, indeed, not looking all that well. She seemed to be just about able to keep herself from stumbling, but she was not walking steadily, whether from mere exhaustion or from some illness that had managed to take hold.

They continued on for another half a rest, and the hillock became clearer. By itself, its aspect was gloomy and uninviting, but here in the middle of the swamp, rising above the squelching muck, it looked heavenly. Takmar were not averse to getting wet, but there was a great difference between good clean water and this stuff, and in such a situation, being able to get dry had its attractions, refuge or no refuge.

Ilirith's head jerked up, a little unsteadily. “We're being watched,” she murmured. “Or… perceived? I felt something on my mind.”

“Yes,” Zadireth replied, wheezing a bit. “There's a few people here to keep an eye on things. Kurass is a mentalist, like you. She's in charge of the refuge, more or less.” He glanced around to get his bearings. “That little indent up there, behind the trees, is where the entrance is.”

Up they went onto dry land - or at least drier land, since it had rained here not all that long ago - and winding their way between trees and upthrust rocks, the view from above or from nearly any other direction soon hidden by obstacles. At last, they came up against the side of the hillock, where something like a shallow ravine had cut steeply down through its side and left exposed rock.

At first glance, there was nothing there; but as they approached, Demarath could see a narrow horizontal slot in the rock, with only darkness visible behind.

This close, in the back of their heads, was the tingling sense of additional Chosen nearby.

Before they could say anything, there was a faint blurring in the rock next to the slot, and then a section of it opened outward, as if it were a door. A male's burgundy-colored head poked out from behind it. “Back again?” he said, eyeing Zadireth and his collection of refugees. “I assume there was trouble?”

“Oh, yes,” Zadireth replied with a kind of weary cheerfulness. “Food, rest, and medical attention needed all around, I think. …Demarath, Ilirith, Ferleth,” he added, as he began herding them inside, “this is Shemyl. He's the mostly the one who keeps this establishment from falling apart, literally as well as metaphorically, and - as you have seen - also a passable doorman.”

Ferleth continued to stand just outside the 'doorway', staring at it in clear unease. Possibly she was not yet mentally prepared to meet yet other new people at this particular time, nor go into their dwelling.

With the refuge open, a sense of release touched Demarath's pent up emotions. He did not cry, although he took distant note that he could have, and some hours ago perhaps circumstances would have been right for it - but now instead it shifted his full attention to Ilirith, an almost paternal concern blossoming vividly in his skull. He had the good sense to keep it mostly to himself, though she would no doubt be aware of it, but he moved closer to her, ready to offer his help if she said anything about it at all.

It was just as well. This close, Demarath could see that Ilirith was trembling with the effort of keeping herself upright. Shemyl appeared to notice this as well, though he too did not say anything about it. “All right, medical attention first,” he replied, ushering them through the doorway. He raised his voice. “Shoss! They'll need you to have a look at them!”

One by one, they went up a narrow, curving hallway; Ferleth reluctantly followed at the end of the line when it became clear that she would be left sitting outside otherwise, but she flinched visibly when Shemyl caused the “door” to swing shut again and become one with the rock face.

The hall, and indeed most of the rest of the refuge, had a look of having been scooped out rather than cut, and it seemed that Shemyl or someone with similar powers had made it. Though the walls were not squared off, they were smooth, and the floors perfectly flat. The hall was fairly dark, but at the end of it was a large room - some kind of common room, it appeared, with a wide table and sitting mats - where, hanging from the high ceiling, were tiny, brilliant blue-white lights on silklike threads. Passages led away from the chamber in various directions.

Two other takmar, both Chosen, were there. One was a bright red male; the other was a woman, pale blue speckled with yellow, and, surprisingly, rather older than everyone else present. Zadireth had mentioned once that Chosen aged more slowly than other takmar, so he did not know how to hazard a guess at her age, but she looked older than his mother.

The male red male spoke up. “So? Who needs attention first?”

Zadireth gestured at Ilirith. “Ilirith there has a wound in the leg. She's lost a fair bit of blood and we haven't had much luck keeping the wound clean-”

“-and I'm not feeling very well, at that,” Ilirith murmured, swaying slightly. “I don't want to take away from other priorities, but-”

The male shook his head. “You first, I think.” He turned back to Zadireth, who continued, “I've managed to crack some ribs, I think. The other girl, Ferleth, wasn't recently wounded but could probably benefit from examination. Demarath there seems to be the healthiest of us at the moment.”

“In that case,” the female said, “he can help me help Ilirith to this room over here.” She looked at him. “You take one side, I'll take the other.” Ilirith looked like she wanted to object, but either out of prudence or exhaustion, remained silent.

It was the most natural chore in the world to Demarath's instincts, carefully manoeuvring himself into a supportive posture. He said nothing, instead using the dim light to assess Ilirith from up close as much as he dared, not wanting to be invasive about it, then split his attention between her and the building's layout as he helped the woman bring Ilirith to the other room.