and so it begins - white harbor

[shonnie53]

The night was cool and dark, the moon and stars hidden behind a veil of thick, low clouds. Xandy walked along the shore, listening to thunder and sigh of waves crashing against the beach, and then being sucked back out to sea again. It was soothing.

The village was growing into a proper town, now. The Hall was finished, and the stables were well underway. A treasury had been established to house the Harbor’s valuables, and the Lord Captain of the Guard’s office stood next to her new home. The Coliseum was still a bit of a ride, but most of the contestants and spectators wouldn’t mind. With the carnage and the noise, it might work out better that the arena was a little removed from the Town proper, anyway.

Xandy made her way into the jungle, her faithful companion trailing behind her. They walked in silence, each enjoying the other’s company. Sometimes it was enough just to be alone together, and to hear and smell the night breeze.

Before she realized it, Xandy stood before the weather stone façade of the Shrine. She smiled, half to herself. Xandy stepped just inside the threshold, knelt, and said a quick blessing. When she came back outside, Cutie was watching her intently. The dragon’s eyes shone bright green in the faint light from the candles inside. Even though several weeks had passed since that fateful night, Cutie was still unsettled.

So was Xandy, truth be told…. She sighed heavily and held out her hand. The dragon lowered her head and let Xandy stroke her broad jaw muscles. It seemed like an age had passed since that night….so much had happened…in such little time….

Memories flooded over her….
************


Xandy held a hand up before her, and the creatures of the swamp parted. Snakes and alligators turned and slowly slank away into the green slime coated lagoons around her. Even the twisted, reaching vines seem to move out of her path, either out of fear, or respect.

The dragon she’d found as a hatchling, abandoned in the mountains near Wind followed behind her, faithful as ever. Cutie wasn’t a cub anymore, though, and her massive red head hung bowed, still fifteen feet over Xandy’s head. The dragon was quiet, subdued. They had been companions for more years than Xandy could imagine. It was only fitting that Cutie serve as Xandy’s only companion, her only witness; she was all Xandy had left.

Finally, the last twisted saplings of the jungle thinned, and the ground began to rise. The shoreline here was broken, jagged like the lines of a freshly shattered clay jug. Rocks, old and weathered, poked through the long, thick heather and grass. The smell of salt was fresh on the suddenly cool breeze, and the clouds overhead parted to reveal a quarter moon low in western sky.

As Xandy made her way up through the grass and boulders, a sound that had been tickling the back of her neck became stronger, more pronounced. It sounded like distant thunder before a spring pour on the open plains west of Vesper, but more regular…more rhythmic.

Cutie stopped, and a low growl began in her throat. Xandy turned and beckoned to her, but the dragon was rooted. She stood, head high, and eyes shining bright metallic green and orange in the moonlight. That gaze followed Xandy as she continued to climb. Xandy took a deep, slow breath as she stepped over the crest of the ridge line.

She was alone now.
***********

The man known by some as Necromancer stumbled against the trunk of a large mahogany tree. The jungle was thick with overgrowth and dark, crawling things. He felt a burning along his left side where the Poison Elemental’s touch had grazed him. The incantations he’d managed to cast were holding the corruption at bay, for now, but this elemental was unusually strong….and unusually cunning.

Necromancer whirled, and dove to his left just in time to dodge an energy bolt that seemed to materialize mere feet from him. The dark green mist of the elemental rose slowly and coalesced before him, and Necromancer ran. He cast several paralysis nets behind him, and hoped it would slow the creature down.

This fight wasn’t going well. Necromancer had vanquished many of these infernal beasts in the bowels of Shame. The thing should be dead by now. Instead, his spells seemed to twist and slide around the elemental rather than latching on. It was as if the monster had been somehow shielded from his particular magic. That would require someone with intimate knowledge of his thoughts and mind, and that sent a chill down Necromancer’s back.

Okay, Necromancer thought to himself, If it has intimate knowledge of me, then what do I do? I act like someone else…

Necromancer grinned silently to himself. He stopped in his tracks. All of his experience, all of his intelligence told him that the safest thing, the smartest thing to do was to keep moving; make a hard target for the elemental to hit. That would buy him time, keep him alive for as long as possible. His grin widened.

The green mist hanging low over the swamp swirled, and seemed to draw itself up, and stand. The elemental turned, and there was a brief flicker of recognition in its ethereal face. It stood, motionless and wary, twenty feet away, the green ripples of hits vaporous body shimmering in the moonlight.

Necromancer, The elemental whispered in an eerily disembodied voice.

Necromancer did his best to ignore the chills that ran through his veins.

“Some men call me Necromancer,” He said, his grin turning dark, “I prefer Emperor Necromancer.”

The elemental and the Emperor started moving towards each other as one.

*********

Xandy stood on the stony outcrop, looking down at the dark, frothy waters of the Southern Sea. The shrine of Honor wasn’t far away, just a few leagues to the west and north. She had spent many painful, empty nights, kneeling there in silence, the flickering of the candles left by the monks her only companions. The candles, and Cutie.

Now, she had only darkness….and sorrow.

She felt it now, gnawing at her. A cold, familiar pain that she thought had been smothered long ago. But, like so many buried things, it rose again in time and plagued her anew. Where there had been laughter, love, and song….now there was an emptiness and silence that threatened to deafen her to all else.

Xandy closed her eyes and lifted her face to the cool, fresh breeze. There was something calming and peaceful about the breeze and the rhythmic hum of the breakers below her. The waves pounded the bones of some forgotten range of once great mountains that had fallen into the sea ages and ages ago. Some said great cities had fallen with the peaks into those waters, and that there were whole nations buried beneath the waves of the southern seas.

In that brief, perfect moment, Xandy smiled. There was joy left in her heart, though it was short lived. The sorrow crashed back in around her, and the smile flickered, then was gone.

The sorrow she felt wasn’t for herself. There was no self-pity left in her these days. Instead, it was an ever-present ache for the friends that were gone. She was sorry for the smiles and the winks that she would only ever be able to see again on the backs of her eyelids; the laughs that would never again fill the Cat’s Lair. She was sorry for those who had fallen because of her.

Xandy dropped her gaze to the waves again, and smiled softly to herself. That was all done now, though. She was finished with it. She had found her path out…her absolution.

********

The elemental’s face was focused and intense as it closed on the Emperor. Necromancer kept his eyes locked on the creature’s face, trying desperately to find some hint, some sign of familiarity there. He had to know who had sent this denizen of darkness against him….. just in case he survived.

When the two were a mere four feet apart, the elemental stopped, staring into the Emperor’s face. In that brief hesitation, the Emperor drew a deep breath, said a silent prayer to the Fates, and closed his eyes.

Surrender was definitely NOT like him.

The elemental’s face went slack with shock, and then a slow smile spread across it, and the creature tensed all along its body. Suddenly, it struck, faster than a silver serpent. The elemental’s hands shot out, and the fingers thinned, elongated, and pierced the Emperor’s body.

The Emperor arched his back, his entire body spasming uncontrollably. The elemental flared, bright green, as power flooded through it and into Necromancer. The threads of power connecting the elemental to Necromancer drew the elemental closer and closer to him. The pain was searing, and burned through every fiber of his being. The Emperor’s jaws clenched tight with pain. He refused to cry out.

The poison elemental bent, staring directly into the Emperor’s eyes. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. His prey was within his grasp, and it couldn’t escape. The Emperor grinned.

“Even a single candle,” The Emperor grated through his teeth, “Can light the darkness.”

With a roar, the Emperor thrust his hands deep into the elemental’s body. The pain threatened to drown his soul, and Necromancer fought to stay conscious. The Emperor stilled his mind, and formed the image of a sing flame dancing in the darkness. He fed all of his pain, all of his ambitions, all of his fears, everything that was within him into that flame. He watched it grow higher and higher, until it threatened to catch his mind ablaze with its intensity.

His eyes were glowing a bright, incandescent white when he opened them again, and the elemental froze in fear and shock. The Emperor grinned and opened his hands within the elemental’s body.

With an intensely calm voice, the Emperor said, “Kal Vas Flam!”

And he released the power of the blaze within his soul. The elemental shook as if jolted by thunder, and a swirling mass of flame began between the Emperor’s hands. The fire quickly grew, spreading along each vaporous filament of the elemental’s body. The creature’s ethereal face stretched back in a silent shriek of agony, then the twisted shell of flame that was its body exploded.

The Emperor was thrown back through the air, and he landed with a sickening thud in the swampy muck of the jungle. His hands were burned all the way up to his elbows, the flesh peeled away from the bones, his skin blackened and crumbling. The incantations keeping the elemental’s poisons at bay had been shredded, and the Emperor lay twitching, dying.

Slowly, painfully, he pulled himself to his feet. If he was going to die, then he would do it on his terms. He ground his teeth and forced his feet to obey him, and the Emperor staggered his way towards the edge of the jungle. He smelled salt on the air, faint, but it was there. And he meant to see the sea again before he died.
*********

Xandy spread her arms and arched her back. She took one last deep breath, savoring the thick smell of dried heather and the sea. She opened her eyes, and found herself staring at the Hunter as he stalked the stars. She smiled.

It was time.

Then, just as she was ready to cast herself into the stones a thousand feet below, her dragon bellowed. Xandy froze. That was Cutie’s alarm call. There was trouble somewhere around, and it must be big trouble for Cutie the break through the empathic ties that funneled Xandy’s emotions through to her.

Cutie bellowed again, louder this time.

Xandy didn’t hesitate. She pivoted from the precipice, lifted her skirts, and ran. Cutie had been her friend, her companion, and her family for longer than Xandy could remember.

They were all each other had left.

*******

The Emperor stumbled out of the jungle, his veins hot and throbbing with the toxins from the elemental. For a brief, agonizing moment, Necromancer thought he had felt the touch of the hand that was guiding that creature. And then it had been gone.

The Emperor coughed, and ignored the foul, coppery taste of the blood he spit out. Just up the ridge now, and there would be the sea. And, if he made it long enough, he might see the sun rise. The Emperor stumbled, staggered, and his foot caught on a stone. He flailed his arms as he fell, but they wouldn’t listen properly.

Unable to break his fall, the Emperor’s left arm was caught between him and a rough boulder. There was a sickening crack as he went down, and bright shards of pain stabbed up into the Emperor’s shoulder. He tried to push himself up, but couldn’t, and collapsed back to the heather and grass.

After several moments, the Emperor managed to roll himself onto this back so that he could at least see the moon and the stars. His vision was watery, and the moon was far too dark for its full face. The Emperor coughed again, and moaned in agony, his eyes clenching closed.

When he finally forced them open again, the Emperor found himself staring up into the face of a dragon. The creature’s massive red head was low, and it was softly sniffing him. The creature’s eyes gleamed a metallic purple in the moonlight, and it seemed to be considering what to do with him. Finally, the creature arched its neck, and let out a thunderous roar.

The Emperor sighed. He would have liked to live to see the sunrise again.

**********

Xandy slid to a halt, and knelt next to the bloodied, twisted form in the grass at Cutie’s feet. The man was near death, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps that bubbled. There was a pink froth in his nose, and both arms, one broken, seemed to have nearly been burned off his body.

Xandy stretched out her fingers, and wove threads of power over the man as she whispered the ancient words. She felt the old power within her stir, and come to life. This man was nearing the gate into the underworld, and she worried that she would not be able to pull him back if he crossed. Sometimes, wounds as grave as these, scarred the soul so that not even the power o a Shrine could heal them.

Xandy’s hands and fingers flashed, and sweat began to bead on her forehead. She winced as some of the pain washed back along the bond between them, and she nearly blacked out. Xandy staggered against Cutie’s outstretched wing, and coughed, tears streaming down her face.

She had felt a mere drop in the ocean of pain and suffering this man was adrift in, and it had nearly incapacitated her. How he was still alive was beyond her understanding.

The man’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked at her intensely.

“I need you,” He whispered in a hoarse, thin voice, and then he collapsed back into unconsciousness.

Xandy sprung to his side, her fingers working again. As her spells began to settle over him, the damage to his hands and arms seemed to recede like a tide rolling slowly, an inch at the time, out of a harbor. His breath slowed, and it no longer bubbled in his lungs.

Cutie collapsed, and rolled onto her side, exhausted. The dragon had given every ounce of strength it could through its bond with Xandy, and without it, the man probably would have died.

Xandy herself collapsed back against a moss covered boulder, her hair matted with sweat against a forehead that was clammy instead of cool. The healing along the man’s arms had stopped, but that was okay. The fact that it was visible at all was all the sign she needed to know that the worst was over. The man wasn’t out of danger yet, but his odds were much better now.

Just then, the sun broke over the eastern horizon, bathing Xandy’s face in warm, red-orange light. She smiled and leaned her head back, her eyes slipping closed. She had been so focused on saving this man’s life, she hadn’t even noticed the dawn approaching.

As the exhaustion of the spells she had woven slowly seeped into her bones and dragged Xandy into a deep slumber, she took a deep, calming breath, and smiled again. She felt something she hadn’t felt for quite some time stirring within her again……. Hope……

***********

[Jupiter]

The Great Lady of White Harbor has a depth about her that makes the ocean like a puddle.

[Courtney Love]

nice work!