Second Return
Twentieth Day of the Fourth Month 293 AC
Jorel Fairwind lay down on the slap of dark stone, his head making an odd clinking sound as it lay over the arcane symbol etched in gold. He squeezed his mother's hand in reassurance. "I'm right as rain, mom," he proclaimed, though he was glad that he had no breath to hitch, no heartbeat to go faster, giving away the sham.
He was afraid, too. No matter how much his head knew that Wisdom Lya was the cleverest sorceress around, that he was safe in her care and that of her daughters, fear still coiled somewhere in his stomach, or where his stomach might have been were he to have one somewhere inside his hollow porcelain form. He remembered it being filled with a good meal, or what being toasty was like on a cold rainy night. He remembered the soft touch of his mother's lips on his cheek as she kissed him goodnight, and these he wanted... but he remembered other things, too: the cold darkness that hungered for light even as it hated it. Only Kyla had kept him from it, from turning into something like
Him.
"It'll be alright," her voice came to him upon a soft conjured breeze.
"Whatever comes, we'll face it..."
"Together," he finished, his spirits buoyed. He looked in turn to his sister, his mother and his father, drawing strength from each of them, from knowing he could just say he did not want to go through with it even now and they would all understand, no matter how much it costed, no matter what he was of might be they loved him still.
"I'm ready," he called, hope and fear balanced on a knife's edge in his voice. Strange incantations rang up above him as a familiar grey mist rose up to swallow him.
***
He was alone and without form. Something called to him
, a whisper that skittered like insects over his skin:
"Come play, come see... such fun we'll have..." The old fear rose up to down him and this time there would be nothing to grasp, no light in the darkness.
I'll always be with you, a false friend's promise turned poisonous taunt. He was angry, he was going to...
The boy felt small and weak, a hunted thing without a way out, and yet he was not the same child he had been those three years past, for he had traveled far and seen much. He had slept under a wizard's roof and supped with dragons, he counted a weaver of dreams his friend and many a time he had listened to her speak of all the horrors she had helped vanquish, of all the power that was gathered in the Deep, and all the many kinds of mages who called the Tower home. Had they all been deceived into some sick game of
His? Was he ever so patient and so wise?
Jorel doubted, and like a crack in a dark wall the doubt spread and grew with every reason held as an effigy against terror until it had melted away like the morning mist. The twisted childlike figure he had been sure he could sense and hear once more revealed itself to be nothing but a dusty mirror reflecting only his own image.
"There is no peril more enduring to the mage thsn the one found within," he remembered Wisdom Teana saying, and the words had the ring of truth to them and yet the boy was discontent. It seemed a sad thing that he would ever have to watch for pitfalls he dug himself, his only reward the chance to make another step. Surely something better could be made of this? That was the sort of thought his sister might come up with... Kyla! That's what she would do.
Resolved to his task, Jorel stepped towards the mirror, if one without feet could be said to step, and reached out to touch it.
"Are you there?" he called, uncertainly. He saw his sister, but not as she was now, her skin was less pale, her hair gleaming bright gold. So she might be if he had not dragged her into death's shadow, if he had not clung to her...
Why would she want him, really? What good was he? Maybe he should just stay here... just rest... The thought came unwound like knitting pulled apart at the seams.
Distantly through the enveloping mist he could hear the voice of memory:
"Why did he have to die? Didn't he think of mama?" Kyla's angry voice at their younger bother's funeral, like crimson sparks in the dark. Their father had chided her for it, but here was truth to it of a sort. It was not the dead who sorrowed, who mourned, but the living.
Just as fear had done despair gave way as soon as he has seen its true face.
Was something testing him?
Jorel didn't care, he had family to get to, he had a life to live.
He felt his chest rise and fall with breath for the first time in years, his heart beat. "I'm back..."
For a long
long time there was naught but hugs and cries of joy.
OOC: Sorry this took so long. I accidentally lost my draft about half-way though.
There are also perfectly nice creatures like Baella.
