Burning Out

[Rayse Valentino]

Closed to Karuka.

Home. The place you belong. It was something Rayse hadn't had in a long time. The chilly morning air was his daily reminder of where he was born back in Knife's Edge, Salvar. The long, cold winters. The chill of snow under his palm, the taste of a beer so icy that it halfway froze him as it ran down his throat. With these sensations lost to him, he felt like he was always in a foreign place. He had a warmth that wouldn't go away, a dazing sensation of heat that followed him wherever he went. No matter what he did, he couldn't just relax and lose himself like he did back in Salvar. He couldn't let go of his worries, his fears, and ultimately he lost sight of his goals in this world.

Back in Salvar, Rayse had three things that he always wanted: Wealth, power, and control. To live his life to the fullest. To ascend to a higher level of existence. To take orders from no one. For the longest time, he only had control.

His determination lead him down a variety of dark paths, and he had no regrets. Then, he found wealth. Not just money, but the true wealth of the security of his lifestyle. He could go anywhere, do anything, and not worry about how to pay for it, or if he had to agree to any stipulations. Finally, he found power. Strength of mind, body, and spirit to move through those that would stand in his way. With all his goals met, there was only one thing to do: Push all three to the limit- become the wealthiest, have the most power, exert the most control. In his pursuit of what could be infinity, he lost what he had started with. Control. The power that brought him new opportunities also brought him consequences.

He didn’t remember how long ago he’d first noticed, but something odd was happening. His body was slowly turning into pure fire. Sometimes his limbs would pass through objects he would try to move, other times he felt his very balance start slipping in the wind. Dying was always a possibility in his line of dangerous work, but he never imagined he could simply fade away. Done in by some sort of magical sickness. After finally gaining all the tools needed to become something great, he was on the verge of losing everything.

So, he sought a cure. Journeying through some of the most desolate regions of Althanas, he searched for his own salvation. It was a daunting task, not only for how little he had to go on, but for the effect it was having on his conscience. What meaning was there to his existence? If he took his wealth beyond the clouds and secured for himself the most exclusive lifestyle of all mankind, what would be left? A feeling of unfettered despair came creeping in, invading his thoughts. When he lived in Knife's Edge, he simply tried to survive, hoping for a better life someday. What could he do now? Eventually, he managed to find a lead.

In the heat-drenched land of Fallien, the sun's glow warmed the yellow sands, the breeze gently pushed the rolling dunes along on their voyages. The unbearable heat prevented any life from flourishing in this wasteland. Rayse was no stranger to harsh lands, if anything it felt like Salvar's frozen tundras. He had first stopped by the grand city of Irrakam, seeking information about runes and his particular situation. All of the news was bittersweet, with most of them thinking Rayse was a doomed man. He did receive one useful reference. A well-known runic sage claimed to have remedied his particular malady.

He found himself in the village of Kesta, just off the Attireyi River, with Irrakam visible in the distance. A border town between the northern deserts and the southern fields of glass, it also boasted some of the most venerable runic scholars in all of Fallien. The trade town was filled with merchants and travelers, often a refuge for those who could not get enough access for Irrakam proper. Tan-colored stone houses with rounded tops littered the uneven sandy paths. Rayse was taking slow steps, looking down with each one, as if he had no trust in his own balance. He entered The Synthesis Shop, a rune-crafting establishment. Being away from Irrakam, some of the more unregulated runes could be found here.

Many crystals leaned against the stone walls on many shelves, reflecting and refracting the light to make the whole place come alive. It was almost brighter inside than it was outside. Also, it seemed to be empty. Rayse took a few steps inside, letting his eyes wander about the room, until he noticed a shuffling sound coming from behind the main counter. He walked up to it.

"Hey, is anyone here?"

[Rayse Valentino]

There came no reply, only the faint sound of shuffling under the counter. Rayse looked around, noticing a shelf with what looked like whetstones to his right. On his left were scrolls, and he briefly wondered if one of them contained the solution to his problems. Further behind the counter was a large white curtain that obscured everything behind it. Growing impatient, he peered over the counter but quickly pulled back when a small, bright wisp flew up from below. It looked like a large firefly, and he could barely make out a small pair of insect-like wings. It floated in the air in front of him and spun around, as if warding him away.

"What the... ?"

The curtains shifted and a more familiar being stepped out, a Fallienese woman with long white hair tied in a weave down her back. Her dark skin gave an eerie cast to her pale blue eyes, and though she walked straight, she used a cane to support her old frame. She wore a long white dress, and had a noticeable rune marking on her left hand. Her right palm was covered in bandages.

"Met my fairy, have we?" she said with no trace of a Fallienese accent. There was no trace of Fallien accent in her voice. "I don't recall having a meeting today. What are you doing here, stranger?"

"Meeting?" Rayse wondered.

"In case you haven't noticed, this is no ordinary rune shop. If you would like, I can direct you to one that can meet your needs."

Rayse shook his head, a twinge of frustration evident in his brow, "No, I was told to come here. I have a problem that only you can solve."

"My my," she laughed. "I'm far too old for that, dear." Rayse slammed his fist on the table, and the shopkeeper's smile turned into a suspicious frown.

"Look!" Rayse pulled up his right sleeve and revealed his rune of fire. "How do I get rid of this?!"

"What's this... ?" Rayse explained how he mistook runic ink for tattoo ink, and applied it to his upper arm with a design that he found with the ink. He told of the toll it had on his body. "I see. That is unfortunate."

“How do I get rid of this?� Rayse repeated, the words barely escaping from his clenched teeth.

The shopkeeper sighed, "There's nothing I can do, dear."

"What?!" Rayse yelled, causing the fairy to fly up to the ceiling and swirl around in the air. "Was I lied to? I was told that you helped someone who applied a rune the wrong way!"

"Hmm, I suppose I did." Something snapped within Rayse. His growing rage manifested into flames, erupting from his body like a volcano. The fire grew from his body like a candle, but the event was short-lived. The shopkeeper lifted her right hand and the rune on it started to glow, causing Rayse to lose his balance and fall backwards onto the floor. He felt something holding him down, as if his body suddenly weighed tenfold. The stone floor creaked under him, his vision blurred. "I have little patience for men like you, dear. This is not a hospital, and I am not a healer. Whether or not you perish is entirely up to you." Rayse's rage continued to boil, and he struggled to lift his body, raising his head a few inches before it crashed back down onto the ground. "However, it may be possible to live. Your body has fused with the element of fire, and left untreated you will lose the very foundation of your being. You can not undo this process, but you can stall it."

The effect of her Rune of Force subsided, and with heavy breaths Rayse picked himself back up, his flames retreating back into his body. "What... what do you mean?"

"Between this land and the Zaileya, in the desert there is an ancient ruin. The land there is perilous, and few who venture out ever return. In it, there is a special material that is used to make 'Rune Vulniss.' This is a special rune-dampening agent that will affect your body as well as the rune. If you bring me the herb that produces the primary reagent, I can create it." She gave him an esoteric description of the herb, from which the only comprehensible detail he could gather was that it was bright purple in color.

"That will stop... this?"

"There are no guarantees. Whether or not it works is up to you."

[Karuka]

Fallien. Wild, wrathful, unforgiving Fallien. To walk these sands prepared was to flirt with death. To walk them unprepared was to invite it. The desert gleamed red and gold beneath the merciless heat of the midday sun, not unlike the girl who walked through Kesta's streets.

The first time Karuka had visited the harsh, xenophobic nation, luck alone had paired her with experienced traveler Storm Veritas. Without him taking her on, she would have walked into the wilderness - the beautiful expanse of treacherous sand that screamed its fearsome rage but only whispered its meager bounty. She would never have walked out.

Fallien, unlike any other environment the young woman had ever known, would not always provide. Even brutal Berevar offered food and shelter to those canny enough to survive it.

Having recently laid Hex Ghoul Seth Dahlios to his final rest, Karuka was back in Fallien to learn about a different creature she was responsible for - the ball of ruddy down and golden pinfeathers that sat contentedly on her left shoulder. Taodoine's egg had originated in Fallien, and the redhead knew that a raptor needed more than food and love to become a fully-fledged phoenix. She needed the desert to teach her how to care for its iconic bird. For that, she needed a way to sleep out in the barren wilds without having to worry about what might be coming. The heat of day alone would not shield her from some of the desert's creatures.

Voices sounded from within the shop she needed, a man whose anger was born more from desperation than anything else and an old woman who had no tolerance for youthful brashness.

Karuka pushed open the door when the conversation lulled, into the cool offered by the clay walls and their accompanying shade. She was greeted by the baleful glare of the woman and a fairy whizzing down to shoo her off. Instead, she held out a hand to give the tiny fae a place to stand. "Cen chaoi a bhuil tu, bhean bheag de na siochana?"

The creature turned to the shopkeep with a perplexed shrug, perching on the amber palm. That wasn't a standard greeting, but it was polite. The girl nodded her head respectfully to the elderly woman. "Seanmhathair." She ended with a slight nod of acknowledgment to the man.

Thin lips pursed a little, but the old woman nodded and accepted it. "I've told this one what he needs. What about you, girl?"

"I need a rune of protection," Karuka explained in her mild, rolling accent. "I'm headed into the desert at sunset, for quite a while perhaps. I'd rather not have to worry about a karuku-tal or worse coming for me in my sleep."

"You'd have done better in Irrakam," the white-haired crone told her, scanning vaguely over her wares. "That isn't the sort of thing I sell."

Pomegranate lips twisted into a slight frown. "Hm. Irrakam isn't on my way. Guess I'll just have to listen carefully."

"If you're looking for phoenixes, he's going your way." Eyes blue as ice indicated the shop's other inhabitant.

Karuka looked at the man again - hair and eyes the color of coal, skin the beaten tan of the native peoples of northern Salvar. A man with fire roiling just beneath his surface. "Seanmathair, I've seen men with what he's got. My tribe calls it Doiteain as Cothromaicht - a fire user without center, and so consumed by his own flames. It takes 'em all in the end, and near anyone foolish enough to try helping them. Surely you're not suggesting that I walk with a Cothromaicht?"

The old woman smiled, though it was not a friendly expression. "If you can't handle the dark flame, how can you expect to raise up the bright one, child? And can you, leanbh de danaan coigriche, walk away knowing that the desert will kill this man if he goes alone?"

Sharp blue eyes narrowed at the crone, but Karuka's glare was met only by a smug smirk. Child of foreign gods. How had she known that? That exact phrase... how had the old witch known?

[Rayse Valentino]

Rayse was embittered at the prospect of being imposed upon someone else, like an orphaned cat. He looked at the newcomer, but his eyes drifted over to meet the blue gaze of the golden bird. He felt a peculiar affinity with it, his body responding to the sensation with flames running freely up and down his frame. Karuka was still fixated on the shopkeeper and her cryptic words with jaw set, fists clenched, and body taut as a bowstring.

The shopkeeper merely smiled. "My memory is not what it used to be, but I will prepare a map of the area while you two sort this out."

"Hoigh!" Karuka yelled, but the old woman ignored her and disappeared behind the curtains. She was left in the room with the doomed man, on whom she now grudgingly focused her attention.

Rayse brushed off some of the dust on his clothes from the earlier incident. "I needed a guide anyway, so how about it?"

Karuka frowned. "I could guide you faster and surer than any map, any compass, any native, any where. But I just got free of one damned man. I don’t need to follow it up with another.�

Rayse brought a hand up to his forehead and tapped it. "I can pay very well."

Karuka scoffed. “All the riches in the world will do you no good out in the sands. Your money is of no value to me.�

The contractor shook his head, his hands shaking with the effort it took to contain his rage, "Look, I don't know what this Cothro-whatever thing is, but it's not me." He showed her the tattoo on his shoulder. "It's a mis-placed Fallien rune."

Karuka tilted her head. "Fallien rune?" The Elder Futhark, the runes of her people, unlocked the potential of the user. They didn’t work for those who had no talent; the ability had to be present, the faith had to be strong. Fallinese runes worked on a different principle, one with the magic bound into them rather than pulled from the caster.

This man claimed the latter, claimed the power had been accidentally thrust upon him. But he felt like the former, like someone being eaten from within by powers he could not control. She did not understand. "Give me your hand." Rayse opened his mouth to say something but Karuka stopped him cold with a hard look into his eyes.

Rayse grit his teeth and held out his hand, which Karuka interlinked with one of hers. The pale blue at the edges of her irises flooded inward, nearly drowning out the blazing sky blue that normally colored her eyes. Images flashed before her in a confusing barrage, each new flicker of a vision hitting her like a sledgehammer between the eyes. Screams and burning, wailing, weeping, and roiling hatred. Smoke and ash. A human heart on fire.

She pulled away from him with a grunt, putting a hand to her forehead in a futile attempt to drive back the agony her visions brought and leaning heavily on her spear. “You might have done something to bring this on yourself, or bring it faster. But you are a Cothromaicht.�

"What the f-" Rayse stopped himself. It occurred that she was espousing a concept that was unfamiliar to him. Maybe there was more to his condition than he originally thought, but how much did this woman know? "What is that?"

Karuka straightened up, a bit more alert than before. "It is imbalance, both in life and in magic. Even without the magic, you... you would have been consumed by flames anyway." The vision was vague, but still she felt that this was a man destined for ruin.

Rayse had enough of this cryptic bullshit, of people he just met passing judgement on him. "Listen you b-" Rayse was interrupted by the feeling of weightlessness in his right leg. He lost his balance and tumbled downward on one knee, his other leg nothing but a fiery stub. After a moment, it reappeared and he got back up, shoulders held stiffly and jaw locked in shame.

Karuka looked at him without shock or pity. “Faster and faster now, isn’t it? Worse and worse, almost by the minute? At first it was just a little, so subtle you thought that you must have just not reached far enough for a thing you were trying to hold, or that you must have stepped in a little hole you didn’t see. Now you’re held together by not much more than a little bit of luck. When the flames spread from body to head, you'll be dead."

The little bird on her shoulder had also observed Rayse partially bursting into flames. With a glint in his eye he jumped into the air before Karuka could stop him, flapping little unfledged wings and extending his little talons to land on the dark man’s shoulder. Flames that randomly grew from Rayse's body licked at the legendary bird, but he fluffed and shook, playing in them like an ordinary bird would play in the bathwater.

Rayse was more surprised than anything; the fact that it liked fire fit only one description of a bird he knew. "This is a phoenix..."

With the Cothromaicht’s attention directed out of anger and towards wonder, Karuka drove the second knuckles of the first two fingers of her right hand hard into his sternum and twisted. When he turned, rage starting to boil in him in response to the pain, her eyes locked with his again, nearly more gold than blue. The gaze held him fast, silencing his voice and stilling his momentum. Her glare grabbed the rage in his blood and put it to rest like a mother might do to a temperamental toddler.

Rayse felt his flames die down, his body returning to a state he hadn't seen in weeks. "What the?! You... what did you do? I feel almost... "

Karuka took her bird back, giving him a stern look and returning him to her own shoulder. “I reminded your body where its center is. This is temporary; you’ve a tenday, maybe a fortnight left. Unless you find the herb you seek and it works, and unless you can find the center of your soul, there is little more that I can do for you.�

Rayse bit his lip, now realizing that she could do more than guide him, she could make him feel normal. Whatever she had done hadn’t seemed so hard; maybe she could keep doing it. Keep him going. The only thing holding him back now was his pride. His entire life, he avoided entering into someone's debt. In Knife's Edge, a debt was a disease that was seldom cured. But he had no choice.

"I'm Rayse," he said. "I n, n, need your help. Please." Karuka looked unconvinced. Just a moment ago he looked like he was going to hit her. "Maybe you're right. Maybe the road I was heading down only lead to ruin, but it was the only one I've ever walked. You are the only one who can help me now. I am at your mercy." He lowered his head in a bow.

Karuka looked at the dark hair that faced her; the man’s pride was a king’s pride, the pride of a man who never had to kneel or ask when he could simply buy, command or threaten. But he had shown her his anger and she had not flinched, had offered her his wealth and she had spurned it, and she was not his to command. Fear and desperation were the only things bringing this humility… but perhaps if he could learn humility, he could learn balance. Perhaps his fate could be averted. Could she save this man?

The shuffling of the shopkeeper's return made her decide. “I’ll walk with you.� Rayse lifted his head as she continued to speak, his expressionless face hiding the satisfaction of a gambit paid off. But below that, although he would never admit it, relief washed over his body like a panacea. “Meet me at the eastern gate at dusk. Bring as much water as you can comfortably carry, a broad cloak, a weapon, and some food. Wear clothing that breathes and a head covering. Anything you do not absolutely need, leave behind.� She looked at the older woman. “If he dies, it’s on his hands, not mine. The desert has no mercy.�

The redhead turned and left the shop, with the old woman smiling slyly at her back.

[Karuka]

The last rays of the dying sun painted dunes and sky vivid orange. Rayse, clad in a bright blue outfit of the fabric and style favored by the desert travelers, walked away from the burning light and toward the small hovels that marked the border between civilization and sand. It wasn't much of a gate, really.

His guide was waiting for him, recognizable despite the wrapping around her head by the phoenix on her shoulder and the spear in her hand. She was wearing a tan outfit similar to his, and looked him over when he reached her, pulling down the mask designed to keep sand out of her nose and mouth. “Karuka O’Sheean, by the way. The wee bit is Taodoine. You probably want to know who you’re traveling with, and I wasn't about to give my name around the shop's faerie.” A wry grin pulled at the corners of her mouth, either in a jest she’d pulled off very badly or in a sour truth she was privy to but not sharing. She tilted her chin and stepped decisively into the rapidly cooling wilds.

Rayse kept pace with the dark-skinned redhead, shifting his travel bag to sit more comfortably on his shoulder. In it were a couple days' worth of rations, a few canteens of water, and a couple canteens of something far more special. Cigarettes lined his pockets - an absolute essential if he was going to endure anything else. Karuka was burdened by more water than he was - a trio of bulging water skins were slung across her back, but she still walked quickly, purposefully. He could respect that. “You said something about imbalance causing my condition.” He stuck a cigarette in his mouth, watching her carefully in the bright light of the waning moon. The woman's shoulders had relaxed almost immediately after the murmur of town was out of their earshot, and her sudden comfort had not escaped the contractor's observance. “What do you mean?”

Karuka bit her lip, mulling over her response. How could she explain what a Doiteain as Cothromaicht was when she didn't even know whether or how he understood magic? The matter seemed so simple to her, but it was simple because it was layered in teachings she’d received from the time she was still learning how to walk. This was something she knew like she knew she had to breathe air. What would a bird say to a fish, if it had to describe how to breathe? What would the fish, that had to breathe water, say to the bird?

“Were you raised in a magical tradition?” She could find out just how basically she had to begin. Maybe she would at least have a foundation to work with.

“Many Salvarans have innate magical abilities,” Rayse told the woman, trying to give her context with his answer. “The wizards in Knife’s Edge kept the place habitable even in the cruelest of winters, for example, and many of the wizards at Beinost come from my country. But for the most part, magic is seen as witchcraft, particularly where I grew up.”

“Feared and misunderstood. That explains you, then. If this is truly something imbued upon you, rather than something that unlocked power already within you, it was probably the worst of the elements for you.” Since he had a little knowledge, at least this would be more like explaining to a lungfish why air was better to breathe than water.

Rayse's jaw set briefly, and he forcefully bit back the harsh demand that nearly shot its way out of his lips. He needed to keep her on his side; she was traveling with him voluntarily and thus could leave at any time, taking all chances of his survival with her. “What's that?”

“There are something like fifty elements of magic. The most familiar to the average person are fire, water, earth and air. They make a lot of sense, these elements, because we can touch them, smell them, taste them, interact with them. They are part of the same world we are. We don’t have to be sensitive to the others - life, death, time, dream, spirit, light, dark, and so on - to understand these basic four. What’s important is that some people experience some elements more strongly than they do others.”

Karuka pulled her head covering back, freeing her dark red hair to dance in the little drifts of wind. “Each element grants certain traits when it’s in balance and has consequences when it’s out of balance. Those who identify with air, for example, are brilliantly smart and remarkably far-seeing, in balance. There are things they just understand that come to them on the wind. They're also incredibly generous and compassionate. Out of balance, they have the same understandings and insights, but they're flighty; they can’t pay attention to anything long enough to make use of their gift. So they get frustrated. Water grants patience and cleansing abilities, and those who identify with it are some of the best healers in the world. They are absolutely insurmountable, because water always finds its path. Out of balance, they are whiny, moody, and miserable.”

She paused for a breath of the sweet air, but before Rayse could ask what any of this had to do with him, she continued speaking. “Earth, when it’s in balance, grants stability and sensitivity. To those who can listen, it speaks volumes. Earth is one of the elements I identify with most strongly. I can hear the desert scream in all its wild fury. ‘Dare cross me!’ It challenges. ‘I will eat you and leave your bones for the vultures.’ It is untamed, full of rage. It howls, it sings. But it also whispers.”

A lightning quick movement pulled a small dagger from her belt and flung it into the sand not far ahead of them, and when she pulled it up, there was the corpse of a little lizard that Taodoine was only too eager to suck down into his greedy gullet. “There is life here. It’s too loud for the sands to be utterly barren. In my native tongue, this sort of hearing is called Tenalach.”

His guide could hear the desert tell her about vermin under the sand in the dark. That was unusual and slightly disgusting. It was still of no use to Rayse. “What about fire, and why is it the worst thing for me?”

Blue eyes glowed white under the pale desert moon, looking into the bottomless black pits that scrutinized her. “In balance, fire brings light and warmth to the dark and cold, carving out a space for people where there is none. Fire is alive, passionate. It drives forward, it explores, it consumes because it wants to see everything. Out of balance, fire must have, and in having, it destroys. Its greed is never sated, not until it burns itself out. Doiteain as Cothromaicht is the extreme of that, where the fire in the user’s soul comes to claim his body. You've spent your life ambitious to the point of forsaking anything else, haven’t you? Wanting more, wanting better. Never able, not for a moment, to think that there might be other important things in the world.”

“Like what?” Rayse blinked at the smirk on Karuka's face. “Whatever. Let’s just go get the whole curse lifted.”

The redhead frowned, sand crunching beneath her bare feet as she stopped. “Curse? It's a gift! Not the part where you’re literally burning away into nothing, but the fire itself. Fire can be the most destructive of the four common elements, yes. But it’s also the most life-affirming of them. Give me your hand.”

The contractor bit his lower lip, holding up his hand for a second, then pulling it back away. It was only after a moment of apprehensive hesitation that he finally extended his arm, complying with her request. She took his hand in both of hers, gently probing, manipulating, coaxing something out that she’d only put to rest hours before. This time it glowed softly, little flickering flames that didn't threaten to pull his hand out of existence. They still drew the little phoenix to nuzzle him while his master rolled up her sleeve, took a clean dagger, and opened up a cut on her forearm. Blood welled up, but the redhead showed no pain, merely wiping off her weapon, returning it to its sheath, and then putting Rayse’s barely-calloused hand over the wound.

The reek of burning blood filled the air between them and the woman hissed through her teeth; this part sent burning jolts up her arm and down into her fingers. When she released him, though, and clenched his hand into a fist to quell the flames, there was neither cut nor burn on her skin. “Don’t ya see? There is so much you can do, if you can find your balance and keep yourself from burning away.”

[Rayse Valentino]

Rayse feigned an interest in her explanation. The topic made Karuka beam with excitement, like sharing a favorite hobby. The contractor was not as thrilled, as magic was still the tool of criminals in his land. Those with power always abused those without, no exceptions. For him, it felt like a crutch, as if he was too weak to accomplish his goals without it. His fears were justified when it began to attack him, his very pride chasing the power out.

She's naive.

It wasn't long before the town disappeared over the horizon. Rayse peered back every few minutes to check, and finally sighed when the last vestiges of civilization were out of sight. Hilly sand dunes stretched out in every direction, a faint beaten path their only guide into the wilderness. Rayse had the map out and stared at it, noting a few landmarks they were likely to see, mostly ruins and... spots merely marked with Fallinese text he did not understand.

Karuka watched Rayse, noting the desperate probing of his eyes on the map and the frustrated twitches of his lips when he came across symbols on it that held no more meaning to him than the pattern of raindrops on cobblestone.

"Can you read this?" he asked, holding the parchment out to her.

"Not even a little," she answered flippantly, throwing a glance at him over her shoulder.

Rayse stopped in his tracks, eyes peering suspiciously at the tall woman from above his mask. "Wait, you're not from around here?"

"I'm not even from Althanas." She turned around and gave him a cheeky grin. "But I was part of this desert once. I know where I'm going. Stop worrying. If I was sure to only lead you to death, I’d have never agreed to take you. And stop drinking your water so fast. It’s more than a day’s walk to the next good source, so you don’t want to run out before we even stop for the day.� She had yet to touch more than a few sips of her own water.

Rayse put away his canteen, but backtracked to the first thing she’d said. "What do you mean, not from Althanas?"

She shrugged, her tone calm and light, but a little wistful and sad. "Sometimes, when the stars and the moon and the leylines turn just so to reflect each other just right, the boundaries between worlds come unraveled. I was in the right place at the wrong time, and went from a large cave on another world to a tiny one in Alerar. I tried going home once, but the way was shut, and I’ve not heard of any other ways to return."

"I see." He had a hard time believing that. Trust was a rare commodity for Rayse, but nothing in her tone seemed to indicate any deceit. He decided not to press her on the subject.

As Rayse looked at the map again, Karuka piped up, "there’s some writing on the back, here. It looks the same as the writing you see in Corone."

He turned the map around and looked, and indeed there was some writing there, much more recent-looking than the markings on the front.

He read them out loud. "When the sands turn black, move toward the golden spire."

Karuka shifted slightly, digging her toes into the coarse sand beneath her feet. "That probably means some sort of man-made landmark on the flats. We're heading east toward the Zaileya Mountains, passing by a small oasis and then moving south once we reach the black sands onto the glass flats. I doubt we’ll so much as see that spire; the map and writing are old, it’ probably not meant for us. It should be far south of where we’re going. We’re headed northeast to a little area that gets just a wee bit more rain than most of Fallien. If there’s such an herb as can cure Doiteain as Cothromaicht, that’s where it’ll be. We’re too far out yet for me to feel it very clearly."

"Okay," said Rayse. The explanation sounded convincing enough. "What about the rest of it?" He showed her the back of the map, which had more instructions on it.

"Looks like writing, but I could be wrong."

Rayse stared at her, dumbfounded. "You can't read Tradespeak?"

"Learning to read blots on paper wasn’t much necessary where I came from. I can read the world around me. I know it’s been years since these sands saw so much as a drop of water, in the forests I can tell you what sort of creature passed and left tracks within a week, I can find food and shelter anywhere. These...markings. They’ve never needed to mean anything to me."

She dug into her satchel, pulling out a small bag and digging into it for a few small clay tablets. “I did learn to read these as a child, but now they don’t mean mu-� She glanced at them and paled slightly, eyes widening and traveling slowly over the shapes etched into them. “When did you start to speak again…?� The question was whispered, not addressed to Rayse.

“Speaking?�

Karuka blinked, closing her hand around her runes and putting them back into her pouch. “You’re not convinced of the truly important things I told you earlier; I’ll not drop this on you as well, yet.� She smiled cheerfully, then turned back around, leading him further into the desert. With her back to him, though, she frowned.

Ken, the flame. Eoh, the wanderer. Mann and Geofu, runes of connection and interdependence. Obviously they were speaking of herself and the man who walked a few steps behind her, saying that they needed each other. Saying that to each one, the presence of the other was a gift, something precious. But Tir and Nied… those runes spoke of hardship and trouble, pain and suffering. There would be trials out on the sands, trials greater than either of them were expecting. But they spoke. The last time the runes had spoken to her, she was following Damon Kaosi into Ragnorak. Ragnorak was where the gods died; without their connection to the divine, the runes had no way of speaking. Was everything she had endured over the past several years nothing but a figment of her own despair and fear?

Night descended, the pale glow of dusk replaced by the moonlight reflecting off the sands. It was bright enough to see where they were going in the cloudless sky. Karuka pulled her cloak tightly around her, against the winds that froze her up at every gust. She still walked quickly and without complaint, bare feet pulling her resolutely toward some destination drawn on a map in her soul. Rayse, on the other hand, felt the same as he had during the day. A hazy, warm feeling filled his body, as if he was not part of this world himself. Her punch had stabilized his physical form, but he was still very much afflicted by the curse. He envied her the feeling of cold; to the Salvaran native, it would have been a bracing, welcome sensation.

Incidentally, the bird on Karuka's shoulders seemed only barely phased by the chill of the desert night, fluffed up with his head tucked beneath a wing, peacefully asleep.

"The phoenix... where did you get it?"

“Taodoine?� Karuka gave the fledgling a kiss when he looked at her in response to his name, then smiled at Rayse. “The last time I was here, I traveled from Kithdir to Irrakam with a man named Storm Veritas. We had a little bit of a tiff,� rather, he had come on too strong and she had yelled at him. “And I left. Irrakam at night isn’t very kind to a teenage girl, and I got into a little trouble. I lost my staff for a bit, and damn near got myself killed… but he found me again. Saved my life, then brought me back to somewhere safe and warm. Taodoine’s egg rolled into my hands during the fight; he was something the thugs were planning to trade. He didn’t hatch until I accidentally dropped him in the fire a couple of years later. Sent up a mighty flare, he did, and you should have seen Seth jump.� She giggled.

“Seth?�

“Dahlios. He’s dead now; I buried him myself. But we traveled together for a while, and he was pretty well my brother by the end of it.� A touch of a smile graced her lips. “I hope he’s found his peace at last.�

The names sounded familiar to Rayse, but the details were lost on him. One thing was for sure: Karuka was anything but ordinary. He grew silent, the conversation leaving a sour taste in his mouth. Maybe it was his growing exhaustion, but he felt like his sense of control was slipping further away. He gave the map a last lingering look, and then folded it up and put it away.

[Karuka]

Each step over the rough, gritty sand took the duo farther and farther from anywhere that humans could possibly exist and deeper into an expanse of merciless aridity where dehydration might just have been the most pleasant way to die. Here the sands were dead; neither serpent nor scorpion crawled in the ripples on the dunes. With only moonlight to light their way and limited time in which to reach an unknown destination, Rayse and Karuka had fallen into silence, each tending to their own thoughts.

For the off-worlder who walked a few paces ahead of the Salvaran, those thoughts drifted to Raiaera, where she had watched a battle of the dead unfurl, and it had been a losing battle for the living. She had seen such atrocities that she knew it had to have been Ragnarok - the end of days. The mark on her forehead that had bound her to the gods of her father had vanished in that battle. Her runes had stopped whispering secrets from the gods of her mother, though for months afterward she had desperately sought their advice.

Were the gods being reborn? Or was the return of her divining abilities simply a part of who she was - a descendant of Sheehan the seer, the granddaughter of her granddaughter, and thus privileged and burdened with clairvoyance? She hadn’t so much as glanced at the pouch since before she had turned nineteen; now she was twenty-one. Would they have started talking to her again when she’d been caught up in Salvar’s ongoing civil war? Or while she traveled with the Hex Ghoul?

She had learned so much about how to survive with just relentless determination, carefully-honed sensitivity to the wild world around her, and her skill with her weapons. But how could she have grown if she had not forsaken everything she had known in blind despair? Would she still be able to feel the life-that-was beneath her feet, feel the fire shimmering in the heat of the Fallinese air even when she didn’t need to call it forward? Would she ever hear the ocean sing again, calling her to use it as part of her defenses?

Or would she never again be able to reach out and feel the world surging in her blood, working at her side like a sibling? Would she be forever able to hear what Althanas was saying, to feel its sorrow, its anger, its fear and its joy, without being able to tell it of her own? Was that limited to the bog of Fiorair and the jungle of Luthmor, to which her soul had been forcibly tied?

She was still caillte, lost… but she had thought herself daonnan caillte, lost forever. Maybe she wasn’t. If she could save Rayse, could she find herself as well?

The moon rose high while they traveled, then sank until it hovered just above the horizon. The stars turned overhead, almost bright enough to walk by on their own with the perfectly clear skies and shining sands. At long last, soft pinks and purples painted the edge of the sky, subtle harbingers of the coming inferno. When dawn broke in earnest, it did not do so timidly, as it might have over a more charitable land. Instead the sun burst over the horizon in glorious orange and gold, announcing to any and all that the king had returned to rule with his fist of fire.

Karuka came to a stop shortly after daybreak, probing the sands intently with both her feet and her eyes. Though Rayse couldn’t see any of her facial expression except for the set of her eyebrows and the narrowness of her squint, the way she leaned forward on the balls of her feet and the tightness between her shoulders might as well have screamed her unease to him.

“Is something wrong?”

Karuka nodded. “These sands have more life to them than where we’ve been. That means danger more often than it means anything good. Stay close and quiet; we might be able to get another few miles before it’s too hot to travel.”

She moved forward again, feet light on the ground, and Rayse gazed at her back. He was looking right through her, through the desert, his eyes open but seeing nothing. Wisps of flame rose from his frame, dancing in the sun, calling out for him to join them. The stabilizing effect of Karuka’s punch was fading, but he was not noticing. Empty thoughts entered and left his mind, leaving him in a trance.

Before the sun had even fully risen, the two wayward travelers came across an actual, rare sign of life. Ahead of them was a large, bright purple flower. Plant life was generally a sign of water, but for Rayse, it might signify something far more precious indeed.

He was out here looking for an herb. A simple plant fated to cure him, to make him normal again. The exact location was never mentioned, simply a route to follow. It could be anywhere along the route, not necessarily at the end of it. How many plants were out here in these conditions? Something rare, something that stood out, was this it? With half-closed eyes, he felt himself drawn to his cure, his salvation.

Karuka’s steps drew her away from the beautiful blossom, but Rayse disregarded her avoidance. She was looking across the sands for danger, and perhaps she either hadn’t seen the flower or hadn’t considered it important. He hastened to it, reaching like a drowning man would reach for a hand.

Karuka felt that Rayse had stopped following her, and whirled around to see what he was doing, grasping for him though he was more than a dozen yards away. “Don’t!”

Her shouted warning came too late; the contractor’s hand closed on the plant… and a maw closed around his body.

A great worm burst from the ground with a bellow that shook the earth, sending sand cascading in every direction. Like a self-defense mechanism, Rayse’s body turned to flames, the monster’s bite only closing down on fire before descending back into the sand. Panic burned within Rayse, the curse within him reacting to his need to escape and the helplessness he felt while his body quickly reformed. He erupted into flames, burning with fear and fury. He opened his mouth to say something, but the words were stuck in his throat. The monster came back up to the surface, its jaw ready for another attempt.

The woman was already racing across the rapidly-heating sands beneath him, mask down and spear, Consequence, at the ready, for what good it could do. The creature was far wider than he was tall, and the part of it that extended above the sand was easily taller than two men standing on each other’s shoulders. More of it burst from the ground, until it stood as tall as a mature poplar tree.

With Rayse sprawled on the ground, as likely dead as alive, Karuka could have chosen to run away, to leave him to suffer the consequences of his own foolishness. She had warned him of the danger and she owed him no loyalty.

Of course, those thoughts came to her mind exactly as easily as snow came to Irrakam: not at all. She was forward momentum, a creature with purpose. She had left her phoenix and her bag behind, there was no reclaiming them until the worm was dealt with.

“HOIGH!” Her shout pierced through the dying rumble’s of the beast’s scream, grabbing its attention and turning it toward her. She stopped, holding out her arms and bracing herself for a battle of wills with the worm. She could calm it and put it back to sleep.

The great head turned toward her, and despite the heat already rising around her, Karuka’s blood went cold.

This was a Kresh’Ramli - an apex predator in this part of Fallien, luring in its prey with the promise of water, then granting them eternal freedom from thirst. And it had no eyes to lock with hers.

[Karuka]

Rayse groaned, starting to rise from the sand. He was dazed and startled, but otherwise unharmed.

The Kresh’Ramli’s head swayed back and forth as it honed in on its new target and prepared to strike.

Karuka stood her ground, gathering as much air as her lungs could hold. Then she let out a roar. It was a primal sound, carried from the pit of her belly and torn out of her throat. It was a sound too big for its vessel, one that echoed through Fallien… a sound not meant for Fallien.

A bigger, wilder roar answered hers as the streamlined tan head lunged forward. A great blue cat pounced from the sand behind the worm, digging its claws into the leathery flesh and wrestling the desert creature away from the redhead. The long, segmented body writhed, digging itself up from its ancient resting place to fight back against the long claws that ripped into its hard skin and the sharp fangs that stabbed through the carapace on its back.

Though the cat was ten feet tall at the shoulder, and twice that in body length, it couldn’t wrap itself all the way around its prey, and the Kresh’Ramli was easily four times longer than it. Back and forth they fought, the two titans, their mighty muscles and thrashings shaking the earth around them. They growled and roared, shrieked and howled, bit and clawed.

Rayse momentarily roused from his muddled state, the scene before him coming into focus. Is that… a giant cat? He concentrated hard, trying desperately to recall Karuka's message of balance, and his body remained whole. Where did it come from?

More or less whole, he looked at the worm, Karuka, the cat, and then back at himself. He pulled down his mask and head covering, allowing the sun’s rays to hit him in all their glory. His fists balled up, he felt the desert giving him strength. Here, there was nothing stopping his roaring fury.

With the worm distracted, Karuka moved forward again; her old friend couldn’t stay long, and he didn’t have enough time to dispatch this vicious desert threat on his own. Once he was gone, if the worm wasn’t dealt with, she and Rayse would be dead.

The cat slammed into the sand in front of her, and with foolishness born of necessity, she launched onto his back, clinging to his dark rosettes and letting him bear her up when he got his feet back under him. It only took a moment, but that was all the worm needed to strike again, grasping the cat’s foreleg with enough force to rip flesh and fur from the muscle beneath it.

An ear-shattering yowl pierced the air, and Karuka was nearly thrown while the great cat fought to free itself by any means necessary. Instead of sensibly jumping down, she dug in her fingers and bare toes, launching up the cat’s back and dropping onto the worm’s head, plunging Consequence into a weak point on its armor. The spear discharged a painful jolt of electricity into the soft flesh, letting the smell of ozone and burned flesh mingle with the oily tang of annelid blood and the sweet jungle musk from the cat.

The worm reared back, trying to fling the little stinging morsel off of it, but she dropped flat, gripping hard to the wrinkles in its cold leathery skin. When the head came back around, she ripped her spear free and scrabbled forward until she reached the merciless maw. It snapped instinctively, trying to swallow her down, only to bite down on a painful sting that didn’t let it open or close any further.

Karuka’s eyes met the Liviol Guardian’s, and she made a request of him with a tilt of her head. She was bracing the creature’s mouth open, pushing with her arms and legs to keep everything aligned right. The cat gripped the worm’s neck again, wrenching it down and towards Rayse, who stood where he had fallen, an instinctive inferno ready to let loose at the proper moment.

The contractor’s eyes grew dark, flames swirling around him like a tornado. What little control he had, he concentrated it into his right fist. He demanded the flames to move, to obey his will. The ring on his finger glowed, the same way it had in the mines of Kachuck when his powers had coalesced to incinerate some dark elves who were attacking him. He lifted his head and peered into the abyss that was the worm’s maw.

A great gout of flame rushed from him and into the Kresh’Ramli’s open mouth, missing Karuka by such a small margin that her sleeve started to smolder. The worm stiffened, then bucked and thrashed, fighting against the flames that consumed it from within. The redhead and her spear went flying one way, the cat went another way, and flames erupted from the creature like a dragon’s breath, its low-pitch gurgle followed by a painfully loud shriek. Its insides were charred, but it was a creature of extreme heat. It yet lived, but it was in crippling agony and its focus had shifted from luring and devouring prey to escaping at any cost. It burrowed into the ground, tunneling deep and far to get away from its tiny assailants.

A grumpy growl questioned Karuka, who looked at the cat and nodded, thanking him and sending him home.

With the worm gone all of the adrenaline surging through her body crashed, letting her feel every muscle twinge and twitch from getting whipped around and thrown by a several-ton monster. Of course, Rayse was still on fire. I should probably take care of that.

Despite the victory, Rayse’s face remained stoic, the flames around his body whirling around him. He felt like a stiff breeze would completely disperse him. He looked at his hands, which were half transparent, his focus no longer able to keep him in one piece.

In a brief moment of clarity, he shouted for help. “Karuka! Do that thing you did before! Now!”

“Calm down,” the half-feral woman told him, curling up her hand and launching it forward into his sternum. Her hand passed right through him, and she recoiled automatically, pulling back as her skin began to blister.

Rayse’s eyes widened, his mouth agape and his body shaking. “No…”

Karuka bit her lip. Fear and anger wouldn’t help him, and he was clawing at those old, comfortable emotions for lack of any other way to deal with his situation. If she couldn’t change his state of mind, one way or another, he would probably succumb to Doiteain as Cothromaicht where he stood.

With no other real options in front of her, she grabbed his jaw, then leaned in and pressed her lips roughly to his. She couldn’t call it a good kiss; it was too bitter and stiff. What it did was shock him enough that she could drive her fist into the spot on his chest that worked to turn off the flames.

“Malchadan,” she swore when he was stable, flexing her burned hand and wincing when the localized pain shot up her arm. “What part of ‘this area is more dangerous’ was unclear? Kresh’Ramli are rare creatures, and to be so big, that one must have been nigh on a thousand years old. I’m aware of the plants and animals we come across. I can feel them. If I’m not touching it, don’t touch it. If your herb exists, we’ll find it, unless we die first.”

She turned, walking to her bird and belongings, where she knelt and dug through her satchel. It only took her a moment to pull out a vial of some sort of salve and apply it to the painful boils sustained while trying to help her traveling companion. She let out a hiss as the liviol balm worked its way through her injuries, starting its healing work. When that was done, she spat some of the grit from her mouth and pulled on her boots; already the sands were too hot to walk on barefooted.

“C’mon,” she muttered, standing up and adjusting her belongings on her shoulders. “We need another few miles between us and that thing before we make camp. Kresh’Ramli are solitary save for when they mate, but the worm needs food to recover from its injuries. When it comes back - and it will - it'll be far less easy to drive off.”

Rayse felt the flames dissipate from his body in the minute after the punch, disconnecting him from the desert. He was whole again, but in still in a momentary state of shock. He pressed a hand to his mouth, staring at Karuka, who was already on the move. She was quick to forgive him, and even after his blunder and her outburst she did not abandon him. All this time, he had thought only of himself. With curiosity now more than suspicion, he started thinking of her.

[Rayse Valentino]

With the heat bearing down on them, the prospect of rest was all they could think about. Karuka in particular looked like she was starting to wilt, and while Rayse was sleepy, his body didn't carry the stress from the battle. He kept his hood down and felt refreshed by the heat, but he knew the danger that such a feeling posed. The bitter chill of night kept his power in check, so stopping soon would be the safest thing to do.

What Rayse thought was a mirage slowly came into view, a color he never expected to see out here: Green. The ground was more level and solid, beaten paths coalescing to one point. Palm trees, bushes, and tall grass rose up near a clear pool of water, wide enough to swim in. Rayse started drooling, but wiped his mouth and kept up with Karuka's steps.

She frowned, looking around suspiciously. “This isn’t natural. We won’t reach a real oasis until near dawn tomorrow. But I don’t see anyone around.” Despite her misgivings, she moved forward, into the thorny scrub grass. “It’s new, too. The trees aren’t even a year old, and things start growing here at the slightest hint of moisture.” Still, the more shade they had to rest under, the more comfortably they could sleep. Rayse recalled the map he put away, and there was indeed nothing marked in this area. He wondered what else the map didn’t know.

She took one last look around when she reached the clear little pool, eyes probing the horizon and body tense. Still there was nothing, no hint of danger, so she crouched down and pulled down her hood, scooping up water and liberally dousing her face and head. Mildly refreshed, she swished a handful of the cool liquid around her mouth, then spat it out into the grass.

“Let’s get a fire going and start boiling this. You could drink it and be fine today, but a week down the line you’d be bleeding out your eyeballs.” There were rumors of a few tribes who could make oases. They never lasted long, so even one so old as half a year was impressive… but it seemed the creator had more stamina than skill.

"I was wondering," Rayse said, tilting his head while helping her gather dry grass and scrub, "how do you know you're from another world? You could've just been dumped here from some far off land. Most of the land across the ocean is uncharted. Or you could be from some isolated tribe somewhere... " Rayse felt a familiar twinge from the last comment, but ignored it. Something about Karuka's appearance and mannerisms reminded him... no, he wouldn't think about it.

“Isolated, yes. Althanian, no. I’m a Tenalach, remember? From the moment I arrived, I knew it was a different world. It sounded different underfoot, as it were. Oh, of course different places sound different, even on the same world, but while Dheathain shouts its magnificence and Fallien howls its fury and Salvar grumbles beneath the snows, they all say that they’re part of the same place, and it’s not the place I’m from. I do think that there’s been exchanges between the worlds, back and forth. The Dheath speak a form of Gaelige and in Fallien it’s a form of Sanskrit - my mother’s and father’s languages, respectively. There are even tales there of some of the creatures here.”

“Do you think you’ll ever get back home?” he asked, since it seemed she had stopped.

Karuka looked down at the firepit they had made, then lit it with a flick of a tiny device she had with her. “I don’t think I will ever return. And I wouldn’t call it home. My stepfather threw me from my clann after my mother died, and my father left us when I stood not so much taller than your knee. I had nowhere, nothing, and no one there; I was always a child of foreign gods. I have nowhere and no one here, still, but I’ve got enough to call my own… and I have this wee bit trying to destroy my fire.” She grabbed Taodoine before he could nestle too comfortably into the flames, ruffling his quills playfully.

"I see," Rayse said solemnly. Despite her confidence, she still did not know her place in the world. He was a Salvaran, but lived in a big city where being too friendly got you sidelong glances. The few times he left the country, the environment was hostile to travelers. Only recently did he start seeing the world, and it made him question who he was.

She looked at him with those brilliant blue eyes, scrutinizing him while she carefully set a pot of water on the fire to start replenishing their supply. “What of you? What took you from hearth and home and out into this wild world? You’re from Knife’s Edge, right? Or nearby; you sound it. These deserts may as well be a different world to you.”

“I never thought I would leave the city,” he said. “I wanted to rise through the ranks and become my own boss. Before the war broke out, I was almost there…” He looked up at the sky and reached out toward the sun, blocking it from his view with his hand. “After I left, I found my own independence, but it didn’t bring me the kind of joy I expected. Whether I’m in the city or this desert, it’s all the same to me.”

She set up their shelters while he spoke, pinning the cloak hoods to the ground and propping up the bases so that they formed a shelter from the sun and the wind. “If you’re looking for something to happen or something to fall into place or someone to walk into your life to find joy, you will never find it, Rayse.” He joined her beneath the shade, sitting in the cool he couldn’t feel, and she gently tapped his chest with a single finger. “Joy comes from here first, and not from things going right.”

[Karuka]

Karuka laid down and fell asleep quickly beneath the lean-to, but Rayse stayed up and stared off into the distance, letting hours go by in his fugue. Oddly enough, it was the sleeper who sensed something was amiss, as she slowly roused herself and looked off toward the horizon, focusing sharply on something moving under the noontime sun. Rayse's eyes followed and saw a growing cloud of sand.

He looked at her. "Is that... a sandstorm?"

"No," she replied, shoving Taodoine unceremoniously into her satchel and placing the whole bundle safely beneath a rock. "It's people on horseback. Moving fast."

It was too late to gather their belongings and flee. The people were upon them, their brown horses circling the encampment. They wore thick turbans and the white robes of a tribe unfamiliar to Karuka, their faces completely covered by dark veils. Despite that, their postures spoke of wrath and barely-restrained violence.

Karuka threw her spear to the ground, holding her hands up and turning a slow half-circle. Her eyes focused on the horses first, rather than the men. The beasts snorted and shuffled, responding to a communication far older and more instinctive than magic. It was only when one of the men spoke that she focused in on him. His language was rapid, angry and bubbling, and her face compressed as she dredged the deepest depths of her memory for some sliver of understanding.

She responded to him after a second, speaking slowly and haltingly in a tongue she hadn’t used often since she was a young girl. Her hand pointed to the western horizon, at the sun, then toward the east. Her tone was calm and conciliatory; she did not wish to fight these men.

Whatever words had passed between them were not good enough to persuade the mounted men to forgive their trespass, however, and the speaker drew a blade forged of some dark metal. Karuka sighed and threw down her hands, kicking her weapon up and catching it. As if on cue, every horse reared and bucked, throwing their riders and running off.

Within moments, all of their weapons were drawn. Most had scimitars, but there were a couple of machetes in the mix as well.

Rayse was unconcerned. “No problem, just summon that big cat or use that magic you keep talking about.”

“I can’t,” said Karuka conclusively, brandishing her spear. After blinking once, Rayse bent down and retrieved the knife strapped to his right ankle. “Don’t use the fire. It’s too hot out and you’re too unstable.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Rayse grinned.

The raiders closed in for the attack, and the contractor sprung into action. He headed toward a tall man wielding a machete, avoided his attack, and spun around and drove his knife into his opponent’s back. With a groan, the raider tried clutching at his back, but couldn’t reach and fell the ground. Rayse retrieved the machete and ran at another, trying to keep them from attacking all at once.

His next adversary swung his sword at Rayse, but the contractor avoided it with a sharp side step. Rayse swung his machete with one hand, powering the chop with the momentum of his dodge. After a brief scream, the raider gurgled and collapsed, his brother's weapon buried deep in his neck.

Rayse pulled the machete out, and pointed it at the others with blood dripping from its blade. “The rest of you better fuck right off!” His words fell on deaf ears, possibly because the raiders didn’t understand Tradespeak, but mostly due to the nearly half-dozen of them attacking his guide. “Goddess-damned…”

Twirling Consequence around, the redhead deflected the blades that thrust toward her and flashed around her, weaving a tight circle of defense. Her eyes stared blankly ahead, as though she wasn’t watching what was happening, but she darted and danced through the mesh of sharp steel, blocking slashes and spinning from stabs, reacting to attacks even before they happened. Not acclimated to the shimmering heat of the desert sun or cursed with a body made half of fire, beads of sweat gathered on her skin and raced down her face.

She took almost a minute to find the rhythm and pace of the battle, who would dart in and dash out in what order, how they would do so. They weren’t as fast and skilled as she was individually, but if she allowed the fight to last long, they had the advantage of numbers. Theoretically she had Rayse, and he was fighting this battle, but he wasn’t the type to take on her fights - and she wasn’t the type to ask for help.

Consequence stabbed out hard when it found an opening, catching one of the blades by the flat and spitting a painful shock into a man’s hand. He cried out in startled agony, dropping his weapon, but instead of stabbing him through, Karuka stepped forward and rammed her forehead into his nose, dropping him to the ground. His neighbor, surprised by the primality of her attack, recoiled briefly, then stepped forward, only to catch a vicious backhand across the face. Karuka’s spiked plynt bracelet drove into the soft tissues of his cheek, ripping painful new scars. With blood in his eyes and sand in his wounds, he withdrew to let his tribesmen deal with the girl.

Though her breath came hard and heavy, Karuka turned to the remaining three, twirling her spear and looking through them with her blank, far-seeing glare.

Another raider attacked Rayse, this one a bit faster than the rest. The contractor deflected the blows with his machete, half of his attention focused on Karuka. After fighting a giant worm monster, he thought she would be able to handle this, but despite dispatching two of her opponents, her movements looked sluggish and strained. Not only that, but she moved in a very deliberate fashion, her strikes taking care not to kill the men. Rayse grit his teeth and looked at his attacker. He planted his foot into the ground and threw his machete at the raider. The veiled man dodged the sword, but Rayse followed it up by spinning backwards on his heel and kicking the man in the side with the full force of his body. The raider had the wind knocked out of him and tumbled down, gripping his side.

Rayse ran towards Karuka, who couldn’t deal with the third raider running up behind her due to an attack from two opponents at once. The contractor jumped into the air and dropkicked the that raider in the face, sending him flying into the thorny shrubs that lined the oasis.

Another raider took the blunt end of the woman’s staff in the ribs and went flying back. With only two opponents, Karuka risked putting on one final burst of speed, taxing her already-strained body just a little further. A blur of red wood, blue metal, and tan fabric whirled in on the two remaining nomads, prodding defenses and slapping wrists and shins until the weapons fell from their hands.

The remaining raiders, disarmed, injured and disadvantaged, picked up their injured and ran off after their horses, spouting Fallinese curses as they ran. Rayse was about to chase after them with malice in his eyes, but Karuka held him back with a hand on his shoulder.

[Rayse Valentino]

“What?!” Rayse practically exploded, shrugging the woman off. “They just tried to kill us!” Karuka looked sadly upon the two men Rayse had killed, and he calmed down. “Fine. Have it your way.” He walked over to his knife, still deep in one of the raider’s spines, and pulled it out. Thick globs of blood dripped from the blade, and he wiped it off on the fallen man’s robes.

“Water out here is far more precious than anything else. I couldn’t tell them clearly that we would be gone by sunset and didn’t want to keep the oasis.” She sighed and pulled off her head covering, wiping the sweat from her face and revealing a livid purple bruise on her forehead. “None of this was necessary.” She wobbled a little, then shook her head. “I need to cool off.”

Taking a deep breath, Karuka headed towards the water, beginning to disrobe as if Rayse wasn’t even there. While normally he would be all over such an action, he decided not to stick around.

He grabbed his traveling bag and reached into it, pulling out a fresh cigarette. Almost instinctively, he conjured a flame on his thumb to light it, but instead walked over to the fire pit and lit it off one of the burning embers. He walked around some bushes, giving her some privacy to bathe. Thoughts about how she fought pervaded his mind, how she spared their enemies’ lives. He sat down with his back against a tree, and took a drag off the cigarette while fishing in his bag for a canteen he filled with a special liquid.

Turning the lid, he opened the container and let the smell of imported Salvaran whiskey assault his senses. He let the aroma waft into his sinuses, and then took a deep swig, some of it dripping along the edge of his lips. He wiped his mouth, the raiders’ bodies still in view of him, their blood pooling into the sands.

“I have booze,” he said. “Want some?”

“Yes,” Karuka said without hesitation. Rayse calculated her position in his head, closed up the lid, and told her to catch it. He tossed the canteen into the air, expecting it to land on her.

A small trail of smoke rose from his lips, and he couldn’t tell whether it was from the cigarette or his power going out of control again. He tried to ignore the feeling by talking.

“When I was little, I was sent away as well. I wasn’t technically on my own, but I might as well have been.” He started fishing in his shirt for something. “I was really young when I took my first life, and it wasn’t about self-defense. Someone took something that was mine, and I wanted it back. That was all.” He pulled out the locket that was hidden under his shirt. “I figured after that, there was no going back. That was who I am now.” He didn’t open the locket, instead putting it back into its place. “Those men were probably on their way to rob some village, or attack a rival tribe. What value are their lives to you? When someone attacks you with intent to kill, they should accept the consequences.”

“This is their watering hole. One of their tribeswomen made it to give them a stable source of water. Water is life, Rayse. Life for us, for the men who attacked us, for their livestock, for their mothers and wives and children. We are unknown to them, and taking something that was theirs. Of course they wanted it back. They may’ve even seen it as self defense.” Karuka unscrewed the canteen’s lid, drinking deeply of the burning, heady liquid, then closed it up and tossed it back to shore. “What good did killing them do, anyway?”

“How would you know what their intent was? Their history?”

“I know. The same way I knew they were coming. The same way way I know which way to walk. My sight works a bit differently than yours does. I can see into the future, if that future is strong enough.”

Rayse paused for a moment. “Is that why you said I would have been consumed by flames anyway, back at the shop?”

“Aye.”

“So then, do I get cured?”

“Clairvoyance doesn’t work like that. The future is not one set path, but a road woven out of choices. Just like if you take a northern road from Knife’s Edge, you’ll get to Berevar eventually, and if you take a southern road, you’ll get to Alerar. Small choices can have big impacts on the future, larger choices may not change much.” She joined him under his tree, hair dripping and clothes damp. “You killed once and thought that defined you. It doesn’t have to. Man or monster, it’s your choice. It’s not an easy choice to change, but I’ve seen it done before. Giving up and dying or pushing for a cure, that’s your choice as well.” She took another drink from his canteen, then handed it back. “C’mon and help me get the bodies out of camp. We’ll lay them out nicely for their clansmen to deal with.”

Karuka put a hand on Rayse’s cheek when the bodies were respectfully placed where their relatives could find them, compassion and concern vying for prominence in her eyes. “You should go cool off too, then get what sleep you can.” As high-stress as this environment was and as little time as they had, would they be able to save him?

As the sky turned to red, Rayse thought about what she said.

For all her talk about chance and choice, she's just as alone as I am. Is that truly a way to be happy, or is she deluding herself?

[Karuka]

As dusk turned to darkness, the two continued eastward toward what looked like a dark void that spread across the desert. As advertised, the sand was completely black, and were it not for the light of the stars, they would have felt as though they were heading into oblivion. Rayse briefly considered ignoring the warning and taking the direct path to the ruins, but Karuka started heading south. Whatever was there, her tenalach sense gave her warning to avoid it.

The coarse desert sands soon gave way to the finer grains and thickly-spread glass shards of the Nirrakal. The winds hissed across the colorful expanse, kicking up dust that threatened to shred lungs or eyes if a traveler didn’t take care.

Rayse took a drag on his ever-present cigarette, then looked at the woman who walked a few paces ahead of him. His shoes provided ample protection from the occasional sharply-sheared glass shard, her bare feet gave no such service. Even so, she had declined to don her boots, merely picking her way across the glass with a little more care than he had to.

Something she had said earlier, just ahead of the fight, still bothered him. For all her talk… “What do you mean, you can’t use magic?”

Karuka sighed, shifting her shoulders a little bit and looking up at the quarter moon. “I’m caillte. Lost. As you’ve been learning, cothromaicht, magic is unforgiving to the unbalanced. Maybe I'’ll find enough balance again, one day. But I don’t believe so.”

“Why not?”

The redhead bent down, grabbing a fragment of desert glass and turning it in her fingers. “I learned a lot about magic during my childhood. Th’ natural type that comes from people like you, or the type that people study and learn. I learned runic magic. My mother taught me as hers had taught her, and hers had taught her, and so forth. Reading and casting. They call to us. But… just as it’s dangerous to be unbalanced with your type of magic, it’s dangerous to be unbalanced with mine.”

“How did you become unbalanced?”

Karu spun the glass shard thoughtfully. “I don’t know about Fallinese runes, but Celtic runes draw their power from the gods we worship. When they still responded after I came here, I didn’t question. I knew the gods could reach through the veil of one world and into the realm of another. There was nothing to doubt. But when you go to th’ end of all days... “

She sighed and threw aside the shard she’d picked up. It clattered against its brethren for a moment, then was silent. “My faith broke, and I wasn’t able to hear the runes. Nor would they listen to me. The gods were dead, the bond was broken.”

Rayse pursed his lips. “You…” He scowled, knowing all too well the way he was lectured his entire life by people who didn’t know any better. He wanted to yell at her, to tell her off for tricking him into thinking she could help him, but he stopped himself. If she left him behind, he would be in much more trouble than if the reverse were true. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“If I lost my legs, I would still know how to walk. I still know what I know about magic and about balance. Even if I can’t reach out and grasp it anymore.”

Rayse thought it was a bit of an extreme example. “Will you ever get it back? Your… balance?”

Karuka shrugged broadly, looking away from him and to the unforgiving landscape ahead of them. “I don’t know. Coming to this world has challenged much of what I believed… but maybe someday.”

They skirted the glass flats for a few hours, using the brutal landscape to shield against some of the dangers of the Fallieni night and avoid even more treacherous terrain. Toward moon set, the ground became fragmented, the flats giving way to ridges and sudden cliffs. Moonlight failed on the broken ground, but Karuka tied a silver bell to her spear and guided them by the light it cast. A wind was starting to pick up, causing the shards to jingle over each other.

Karuka stopped and looked north, her eyes narrowing and her shoulders tensing. “A sandstorm is coming. Fast.”

Rayse was tired of his disbelief and merely accepted the proclamation. “So what do we do?” He looked around, but navigating the darkness wasn’t one of his strong suits.

Karuka pointed, drawing his eyes to a deeper patch of black in the inky night. “There are caves. The storm comes from the north, so if we can find one that faces mostly south, we’ll be sheltered. That is, if we’re lucky enough to find it unoccupied.”

Rayse frowned. It was absolutely desolate out here; even Karuka’s little phoenix had unhappily choked down some dried meat for lack of anything fresh to feed him. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

“Because life finds a way, even when you’d think it impossible.”

[Karuka]

By the time the weary travelers reached the caves, the storm was already whipping at them, sending shards of glass flying like thousands of airborne daggers. Each of them sported over a dozen tiny wounds before Karuka tucked them into a long, low cave. Formed from limestone long before the once-lush land had shriveled into barren desert, it boasted deep, ominous pockets of shadow and a concerning array of cracks on the ceiling.

“I don’t like this,” Karuka murmured, trying to gently brush the glass from her clothing and pull sharp shards from her cheeks and hands. “Let’s not wander too deep.”

Rayse shook his head. Danger outside, danger inside, there was just no winning here. He looked over to Taodoine, who was poking his head out of Karuka’s bag with some apprehension. Was that thing a tenalach too? Or maybe it didn’t like glass storms. But they were out of the storm, and nothing had fazed it thus far. That’s when he imagined for a moment that it wasn’t fear which burned inside the phoenix.

Karuka looked at her pet, who flapped his little wings and cheeped at her. She gathered the little orange ball of fluff into her hands, holding him under her chin and closing her eyes. Her toes gripped the still-warm stone beneath her feet, latching on and sending awareness rippling through the ancient limestone.

“Hey.” Rayse’s voice, sharp and hard as obsidian, cut into her concentration. “We’re not here to-” he checked himself, with obvious effort. “What are you doing?”

“Listening.” The redhead didn’t open her eyes.

“How? There’s nothing to hear over the storm.”

“Tenalach. I’m feeling for anything else alive through the earth with my feet. It’s just easiest to call it listening.” Her blue eyes opened, probing the deeper darkness beyond the murky silver light provided by the tiny, jingling bell. "I... don't know if there's another way out. If there is, I can't feel it clearly. But there is something big living deeper in this cave. Better not to risk provoking it." She rubbed Taodoine's head, still peering anxiously.

“How long’s it been since you last rested?” Her question assaulted him from seemingly nowhere. “Not since I’ve known you, at the very least. Try to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

The two stayed relatively close to the doorway, Rayse fitfully attempting to sleep and Karuka sitting in tense, watchful silence. After a couple of hours, a deafening CRACK shook the limestone caverns, and the following tremor sent them to their knees. Karuka grabbed Rayse’s arm, throwing them both roughly onto sharp rocks and chunks of glass deeper inside the cave. A rolling plume of dust washed over them from the entrance, and after a fit of coughing, they made their way back to it.

A mountain of rubble filled the former mouth of the cave, entombing the adventurers.

Rayse momentarily reached for the cigarettes in his pocket, but decided against it. “Could we move this?”

“Maybe,” Karuka replied. “But it would take a long time. Far longer than we have provisions for.” She cast a wary eye at her companion. Between the worm and the fight with the nomads, he had sped up the rate he was burning. Even if they found the plant, they'd never make it back to Kesta in time to save his life.

If the plant will tell me how to use it, maybe I can save him. If I can't, maybe I can at least stabilize him for long enough to get him back.

“Is there another way?” Rayse's mouth twitched, subconsciously trying to adjust a roll of tobacco that wasn't there.

Karuka shook her spear gently, jingling the bell and renewing the dim circle of light. “...There might be,” she admitted. “And without a way out up here, it’s certainly better to go looking for it and pray we don't anger whatever else is in here.” She bit her lip, clenching her weapon in her grasp. “But there’s no promise of anything, not clearly. It’s very possible we’ll both die without ever seeing the sun again.”

A woozy complaint from her satchel brought her gaze back down. “Or all three of us.” She sucked in a deep, dusty breath. “Right. No point huddling here. Let’s see what’s back there.” Despite her urgent words, she bent to pull her boots from her bag. There would be too many jagged rocks in their path for even her tough feet to withstand.

To their surprise, the cave eventually opened up to an expansive cavern. A crude pattern of rocks spiraled down the face of an underground cliff, plunging ever deeper beneath the ruthless Falieni desert. The thought of going further from the sky, the fresh air, and the sun agitated Karuka, but they pressed on. There wasn’t any other choice. When they reached the bottom of the cliff, they were on a flat bed of rocks, and darkness shrouded every direction.

“Which way now?” Rayse asked innocently enough. Out of the sun and heat, his body felt more stable, and some of his tension melted away.

“I don’t know.” Karuka's brows furrowed and her spear raised futilely, trying to expand their light, but the tiny, dim little bell did nothing to cut through the ominous gloom. “What I’d not give for a proper torch. I can’t hear a damned thing with these shoes on. But…”

Karuka’s hand went to her neck, where a pair of necklaces hung beneath the light cotton garb she wore. The one closest to her throat was a pretty jade charm held on a simple string. The other was a simple piece of lodestone held by a jute cord. It was highly polished and shaped like a crude spear tip, though its edges couldn’t cut through soft butter, much less flesh. It had passed through the O’Sheean line, mother to daughter, for five generations.

She hadn’t tried using it in years. But if the runes were speaking again… Could the pendulum also be working? She tore it from her neck as the light died to nothing once more, concentrating as hard as she could. Which way? Which way to destiny?

[Rayse Valentino]

The darkness hung, black and unbroken, for nearly a minute before a silver jingle cast its delicate light once more. The necklace was pulling visibly forward and to the right, drawn by forces neither Rayse nor Karuka could see. A real smile blossomed on the caillte’s face for the first time since she’d met the cothromaicht.

“It’s working. This way.� She headed off, a little bit of a spring in her step. But her hand grabbed the spear more like it was a weapon than a weak torch; there was every chance that the way out was the way to danger. Rayse assumed that this was some sort of magical device that would lead them outside, and followed alongside her.

While they traveled deeper into the cave, Karuka could feel the walls around growing and contracting, sharp stalactites poking out of the ceiling. The floor was becoming more rounded and lumpy, lending more evidence to the desert’s origins as a lush, verdant greenland. In this endless desert cellar, Rayse felt more at peace than ever. So what if he was facing inevitable doom? Worrying about it was not going to change anything.

Every now and then, Karuka would abruptly stop and sharply turn her head toward a perceived threat. He followed her glance but did not see nor hear anything out of the ordinary. He thought it was her strange ability at first, but her reactions seemed to be more in line with some sort of imminent danger. Curious, he slowed down until he was trailing a few feet behind her. Her posture was tight, her steps rapid. She didn’t seem all that sure about her predicament.

Rayse asked the question that was nagging him. “That necklace thing, it’s leading us out of here, right?�

Karuka expected this type of misconception, but hoped that her companion would avoid vocalizing it. “No. Maybe? Even… even when I was sure this was working, it wasn’t always useful for leading out of trouble. More like… leading into it. This thing… it does its best to make sure you’re where you’re supposed to be. Whether or not that place is where you want to be… It’s not like we had any other ideas which way to go. It was something to try.�

“Wait… so it’s just a dowsing rod for fate?�

“That’s....actually a good way to describe it. It’s worked for my family for generations. If you’ve got another idea, I’ve nothing aside from this.�

Rayse didn’t like the notion of fate leading him around by the hand. “Do you believe in destiny, Karuka?�

The woman’s mouth pulled to the side. “I... “ she trailed off, fighting to find her beliefs and then put them into words. “That’s not an easy question, Rayse. Sometimes the world seems so random that I can’t make any sense of destiny. And then, sometimes I get such clear visions of the future that fate’s the only explanation I have. I’ve stopped a boatload of people from dying, following this. I also followed it to an end of the world that the gods themselves had to reach through and stop and reset the universe. I also followed it in circles for three days once before just giving up and going north. And that’s just with the pendulum. I could tell you hundreds of stories, but in the end, the answer to your question would boil down to ‘I don’t know.’� She looked at him. “What do you believe in?�

“Well... “ Rayse stopped, the lack of footsteps prompting Karuka to stop and turn around as well. “Take your necklace for instance. I assume it’s leading us to something. But what if we decided to just stand here? It would still point there no matter how long we waited, right? Maybe that means it doesn’t work, but it could mean that destiny is waiting for us. And it will continue to wait even if we sit here and starve to death.� He scratched his head, trying to find the right words. “I believe there is a certain element of force in the world. It pushes down on you; compels you to move one way or the other. You’ve objectified it in that necklace. But for some people, they can break from this prison and become Fateless. Your visions are just possibilities; just something to give you choices. That’s what I believe in: choice. Get powerful enough, and the force of the world stops affecting you.�

He walked over to Karuka, and put his hand under the lodestone attached to the necklace. He lifted it, absorbing the compelling force so that Karuka could not feel the tug anymore. “Am I opposing fate right now? I feel its pull, but you no longer do. Its guidance for you has ended.� He lifted his hand and met hers, their eyes meeting for a moment as she let go of the necklace. “If fate is leading us to disaster, then we should be ready for it. How about you get some rest and I explore the area? I’m starting to get a handle on things down here.�

[Karuka]

Karuka laid on the cold stone floor, with only her oilskin cloak to keep her warm and soften the ground where she rested. Taodoine nestled into her neck, a spiky little ball of heat. What few feathers he had coming in promised he’d be soft eventually, but for the moment it was like snuggling with a hedgehog.

She’d taken back her pendulum from Rayse, trading it for her glowing bell. That way, without torches or control over his powers, he had a way to see. If he got himself lost, she’d find him when she woke. While she didn’t have another source of light and couldn’t see in the darkness, between what the ground whispered below and her ability to see auras, she wasn’t helpless in the desert’s lightless depths. Hopefully he wouldn’t get lost, though. Every moment she had to search for him and they weren’t seeking an exit was a moment he couldn’t really afford.

Her fingers ran over the smoothness of her heirloom necklace. It had guided the steps of Sheehan, then Astrid, then Brigid, then Faylinn. On Faylinn’s deathbed, the pendulum had passed to her firstborn child and only daughter, who had yet to turn sixteen. Karuka. A leanbh de danaan coigriche. Her father was dedicated to foreign gods, and though she barely remembered him - she hadn’t seen his face since she was five - she was never allowed to forget that she was only half Irish, sullied by gods from another land and cultured. Would she have faced the same trials and prejudices in India?

In her hands, the pendulum had stopped working. Was that because she wasn’t completely Irish, or because she’d lost faith? It was working now, wasn’t it? Just as the runes were. But what if the runes lied? What if the pendulum was broken? What if fate had spurned her?

Fateless.

Rayse was so convinced that he could not only break the bonds of destiny, but bend it around him to shape the fates of everyone else. He didn’t understand the power of time, the steady pull of the threads. Perhaps doubting was his dharma. But something about that confidence was very reassuring in her moment of weakness. Perhaps her initial judgment of him had only seen his facade. Who was this man, beneath the anger and bitterness?

He’d looked her in the eye, taken her hand, and more or less told her that either it would be okay, or it wouldn’t, but it would be on his terms - and hers, if she would step up. She wasn’t sure that was how fate worked. But she wasn’t sure of anything anymore. The moment she thought she’d learned how the world worked, it changed.

Heavy thoughts in her head, she slipped into sleep.

[Rayse Valentino]

Another tunnel, huh? Rayse stepped through the narrow opening, treading carefully to avoid the sharp protrusions from the cavern walls. He moved through, the sound of his footsteps bouncing from surface to surface, giving him a mental map beyond the thin light of the bell. Between steps his breath kept him company, slow and steady. He had been walking for an hour and didn’t expect anything down here, but things were rarely that simple. Even the arid wasteland he came from contained life, even if it was sparse. The tunnel ended shortly, marked by how far the sound of his steps traveled uninterrupted. He looked back, a strange feeling pointing him toward a particular direction. Despite his distance from her, he still felt Karuka's presence. It was a strange feeling to know she was there despite having no immediate evidence, but he was compelled to trust it. He only noticed once he had developed some distance from her, but there was a warmth in her direction that did not feel like heat. It felt more like a recollection.

When he first heard a sound that wasn’t generated by him, he stood still and listened. Twice a minute, there was a drip of water hitting the ground somewhere. As he followed it, he heard skittering along the ground intermittently, just long enough for him to notice but not enough to pinpoint. Eventually, he reached a point where there were now two traces of heat in opposite directions. A warm-blooded creature as large as a human, perhaps? He could not investigate without losing track of Karuka, and despite feeling better than ever, he ran the risk of getting lost.

Maybe it was the cold and darkness that kept his body stable, maybe if he stayed he could last as long as he wanted. But what kind of life would that be? Living in a cave and eating scorpions? He spent so long thinking little of death, he never truly considered what the rest of his life could be like. Every step he took was a small one, culminating in the next plan or quenching the closest desire. Even now, what was he doing? Trying to fix some sort of magical sickness so that he could return to Corone to run an inconsequential smuggling operation? There had to be something more he could do. The power he was given, if losing it meant obscurity…

The dripping lead him to an underground stream, where he filled his canteen. They did not have enough food for an extended camping trip, but water would last them a while at least. As he turned to return to Karuka, he felt an immediate warmth that had not been there before. He shined the light in front of him, and caught the outline of a large, four-legged creature. It was wet, likely having hidden its heat in the stream. Its carapace was brown, and its claws looked sharp enough to dig into solid stone. He took a cautious step forward, but the creature produced a low hiss, with long antennae floating in the air.

He got a good enough look at it, however. It looked insectoid in appearance, like a gigantic cricket, but its eyes were completely crusted over. Maybe it was a creature from before the cataclysm turned Fallien into a desert region, preserved in the deep. His immediately instinct was to strike first and run before more of them showed up, but he hesitated this time. I’m the invader here. It’s just… protecting its home.

He backed up, making enough distance so that the creature was no longer under the light, blinding Rayse to its actions. It was not a move he normally made, but maybe it was better than making a commotion. He continued to carefully move around it until its heat signature was in the distance.

Upon his return to Karuka, he found that she was still sleeping. Her body was curled loosely in on itself, as though she were cold, and her unrestrained hair cascaded over her face, her cloak, the stone, and her bird. He walked up close and stood over her like a cat carefully inspecting a new toy, and then knelt down and brushed the hair from her face. His mind was strangely blank during this, his body acting on its own, but after that he took a few steps back and sat down. He thought of rousing her, but decided against it and waited.

[Karuka]

Taodoine woke first, prone to the short naps common to both babies and birds. He looked at Karuka for a second, considering whether he wanted to rouse her to hunt. Instead, he tumbled out of her thick red curls and waddled over to Rayse. Climbing up the warm man’s leg and into his hands, the tiny phoenix wedged against his chest like a spiky little ball. The fire person was a better source of heat than his imprinted mother.

Karuka woke a little while later, not much refreshed from her uncomfortable rest. There was no way for her to tell how long, exactly, she’d been asleep. In the darkness of the underground, time had no meaning. She reached out in the first moment of bleary wakefulness, bolting upright when she didn’t find what she sought.

“He’s here.” Rayse’s voice sounded from a few feet in front of her, dry and hard as a desert wind, but lacking the constant edge. “And full of more crap than a bird his size should be.” He didn’t sound tired, she thought. Simply calmer.

Strange. But at least he made it back safely. I probably shouldn’t have let him go off alone. It was like he’d sensed her a little off balance, pushed her just a bit, and then taken command. That was dangerous; he didn’t know how to survive and could have been killed.

“That’s babies for you.” Karu’s posture relaxed and she dug in her bag for a clean cloth, holding it out to Rayse so he could wipe his hands while she took her pet back. “Incredibly cute, incredibly messy. Did you find anything out there?”

“I believe so.” Rayse stood up, returning light to the sheltered nook, and held out a hand to Karuka. He led her back through the smooth limestone tunnels, pausing at the pool so she could replenish her water supplies and catch some of the small, skittering creatures to satiate her phoenix’s eternal hunger. She held one of them up to the light, where it thrashed its countless legs uncomfortably. A stark contrast to the creatures that made their home above in the sands, this insect lacked poison, sting, or armor. It was pale, needing no defense from the desert sun, and though sensitive to light, it barely had any eyes.

“This place must be absolutely ancient,” she mused. “These creatures don’t know there’s a whole world above.” Her eyes traveled up to the barely-visible ceiling. Solid limestone, it offered no opening to the surface, neither as escape for the trapped travelers or well for the parched landscape. “We’re so deep that not even the toughest roots could find the water. I thought life always found a way,” the odd bug disappeared into Taodoine’s greedy beak, “but perhaps not in that merciless desert.”

She frowned a little, picking her bird back up so they could continue. They were only a few dozen more miles from where they ought to find the flower that might help stabilize Rayse’s condition, but if this was what the desert’s water was like, would they even be lucky enough to find a dried husk? The man’s strongest fate was a cursed one, a curse of his own making, but he still had a chance to turn it around, to build and create, to be a positive force in the world. Did he not deserve that chance?

The smooth limestone slowly gave way to craggier rock, and the sound of Rayse’s footsteps stopped echoing densely around the tunnel and started traveling farther and higher as the cavern opened up. Though Karuka couldn’t sense the same heat that beckoned to the contractor, the stone beneath her feet hummed to her about something old, something powerful. She’d spent more than an hour walking with her dark-haired companion, fairly relaxed and content to let him lead the way by a step or two. Now her posture drew up straighter, more alert, and she pulled alongside him.

He shot her a look, and she shook her head a little bit, not knowing how to describe what she was feeling to someone who didn’t share her senses without having him write it off as some sort of crazy. “There’s…” she paused. Some breath of air had stirred a loose lock of hair against her cheek, and she took a few more strides in that direction. “There’s the smell of fresh air. This way's got an exit of some sort. But there's somethin' else. It smells like…”

Her head tilted and she took a deep breath, trying to pinpoint the other scent that drifted on the faint breeze. “Heat.”

[Karuka]

Taodoine paced back and forth on Karuka’s shoulder, looking anxiously ahead, as if he had knowledge the humans lacked. Though they didn’t immediately press onward, he fluttered his wings so hard in protest that he tumbled off his perch and grasped desperately at Karuka’s sleeve with his sharp little talons. She righted him and led them forward, stepping carefully over stone that was becoming more jagged with every stride.

On and on they walked, barely aware that they were climbing. They paused only when the ground got so treacherous that the redhead was forced to put her boots back on. The little phoenix nipped at her hands, more and more agitated with each step. Smooth tunnels gave way to odd structures, as though the stone melted from time to time. Protrusions they passed were craggy and rough as they came to them, but smooth and sharp as they passed.

Finally, the tunnel ended, dropping abruptly to a floor twice as far down as either Rayse or Karuka was tall. Fire-blasted stalagmites and thin columns crowded the broad cavern that opened up below them, but at the end, for the first time in far too long, an opening gave way to daylight.

One area directly beneath their small cliff differed from the rest of the cave. Scraped from the rock was a broad, shallow bowl, easily big enough to fit two peasant houses into. If they’d been able to see into it, the travelers would have seen great gouges and smooth sides.

Instead they saw the creature that had created it as it rose to meet them: a humongous bird, gold and orange on its breast and belly, red as fire on its back, wing and tail feathers blue as the sky and a violet crest upon its head. Though it stood on the floor, it looked down at them from behind its hooked beak, imperiously disdainful of the tiny interlopers in its lair.

Taodoine screeched at it, flapping and fluttering in a terrified rage. The redheaded Irish woman could hardly keep hold of her pet, his rage was so violent.

The old phoenix looked at the baby for a split second. Then it reached down and snatched him from Karuka’s arms. The little bird’s squawks turned into terrified screams, and his master’s curious, wary expression turned to horror. Both firebirds plunged from sight, and with the same reckless protective instinct that had rushed to help Rayse with the Kresh’Ramli, Karuka started racing forward.

Before she could take two steps, Rayse felt the heat change. Where it had been a powerful guiding force, it spiked into something dangerous. Karuka jumped into the pit after the great phoenix, and Rayse followed, although the logic of it escaped him.

They both landed in the over-sized bowl below, Karuka readying her spear and swearing at the phoenix in a tongue Rayse did not understand. The great bird dropped Taodoine’s broken corpse on the stone, paying the humans no mind. It prodded the little bird with a talon, as though expecting something, and when it didn’t happen it spread its massive wings to entirely engulf the humans’ vision. The air around it shimmered, sending forth a wave of pure heat that roiled through the cavern. A great fire surrounded the bird, its wings flapped with the force of a gale, mixing with the flames so much that it was hard to tell where the bird stopped and the inferno began.

With a war cry that rivaled the greatest armies of Althanas, Karuka bolted toward the massive phoenix, her fury echoing throughout the cavern. Rayse only had a moment to process the scene. To his confusion, he was already moving, feet trailing embers through the dusty air. Something about this felt wrong to him. Why would the phoenix attack a baby of its own kind? If the threat was the humans, it should have attacked them instead. It didn’t matter however, all he wanted was to protect both the young bird and Karuka. Was it because she was his salvation? Because he felt like he owed her?

No, he realized dimly as he caught her by the sleeve and wrenched her around so that his body stood between the raging redhead and the flaming bird. I thought for a long time that I’d decided to trust only myself, act only in my own self-interest.

Karuka tried to shove Rayse away, willfully oblivious to the ever-enlarging conflagration centered on the adult phoenix or to the contractor's intentions in her wrath and desire to avenge the baby bird she’d brought so far. Instead of releasing her, he crushed her against his chest, clamping his right hand down on the top of her head to protect her face from the blast he could feel coming.

Changing my mind is going to kill me. What a time to start caring.

The phoenix flapped its wings once more, washing the cavern in flame. Rayse braced himself and was hit directly by the conflagration, crying out at heat too intense even for him to tolerate. He felt his own flames trying to consume him, but fought them down as much to safeguard the woman in his arms as to keep himself from burning away.

The ordeal lasted only a few seconds, and when it ended, Rayse stumbled back a few steps and fell. The fire he’d held at bay came roaring back, consuming his limbs and body, licking at his head. He could see small burns and blisters on Karuka’s stunned face, but he didn’t feel any such injuries on himself. What he could feel was the absence of a familiar heat, and despite the world spinning wildly around him, Rayse turned his head to look at the phoenixes.

The adult wasn’t paying attention to the two humans it had nearly killed, focused on the little pile of ash left behind by the fledgling. Nothing else remained of Taodoine, not feathers, not bones. It hadn’t been Karuka’s warmth that served as Rayse’s beacon when he roamed from them, he realized dimly, but rather her familiar’s.

The contractor struggled to rise, gaze turning from the phoenix and its victim to the cavern's jagged ceiling. Instead of supporting him, his limbs pooled uselessly on the ground like liquid fire, refusing to reform however hard he willed them to. Turning into chili in a bird’s nest. That’s exactly how I envisioned going out!

Karuka sucked in a breath, feet bracing on the smooth floor. Her eyes darted from Rayse, sprawled helplessly on the floor and starting to lose his form, to Taodoine's ashes and the great phoenix that stood contemplatively over them. Her every instinct told her to unleash hell on the bird that had murdered her pet, but if she didn't help Rayse now, he'd be gone with the next slight breeze. A growl left her throat and she knelt beside the cothromaicht, dropping her spear with a hollow rattle.

"Look't me," she demanded, reaching for the first thing that might focus him on anything other than his panic. "What did you do that for?"

His eyes focused on her face, while she kept a wary eye on the phoenix, which was now gently prodding the little ash pile with its talons as though it expected something. Rayse took in a breath either to answer with honesty or incredulity, but that didn't matter. As soon as Karuka heard more lung than flame in the intake, she slammed her fist into the base of his sternum and twisted brutally. Rayse choked and coughed, agonized shock blossoming on his face before he realized what she was doing.

The fires around his body dissipated, and he took a shaky, relieved breath as his limbs solidified. Once more, he tried to rise, but Karuka planted a hand in the middle of his chest. "Don't get up until that pain numbs to a dull ache." He needed the time to calm down and relax before his body could fully stabilize. She worried that if he stood and found his limbs unable to hold him, he'd panic again and she'd lose him.

The redhead did stand, grief and anger rushing through her like a hurricane. A quick kick shot Consequence back into her hand, and she started stalking toward the phoenix, which still wasn't looking at her. Karuka didn't know how she planned to either demand answers from the creature or bring it down, but it had killed the baby she'd worked so hard to raise and brought so far, and the old beast was going to answer for its actions. She'd barely crossed half the distance when Rayse called out from behind her.

"Wait." He sat up with a grunt, looking intently at Taodoine's ashes. A resurgent, familiar heat cried out to his senses, growing stronger by the second. The dead little pile started glowing, at first only enough for faint red embers to be seen through the black soot. The light grew brighter and hotter with every breath, engulfing the ash in orange, then yellow, and finally the entire mound set itself ablaze. After another moment, a fully-fledged phoenix the size of a common field hawk erupted from the heap, flapping its new wings and looking up at the adult with a mix of awe and fear. The birds called to each other a few times, the adult's melodious voice contrasting sharply with the harsh squawking of the fledgling, then Taodoine took flight, landing back on Karuka's shoulder.

At last, the gigantic bird took notice of the little humans in its nest, approaching to look them over curiously. It maintained eye contact with Karuka on its way over, its will boring into her soul, then it bent to Rayse, grabbing him gently with a claw that could have ripped him apart. It examined him gently and curiously, and when it was satisfied, it turned to Karuka, bending down to touch its beak gently to her forehead.

Her face twisted briefly into a rictus of pain, and she fell to her knees a moment later, when the bird withdrew. Rayse bolted to his feet, but Karuka shook her head, holding her lower right abdomen. She took in a few agonized gasps before speaking.

"She's given us permission to pass safely through her nest. We should go now."

[Rayse Valentino]

Rayse and Karuka sat on a few rocks overlooking the pit they just climbed out of, massaging their sore joints. The jagged rocks that marked the ascent were far more troublesome than they imagined, so they were trying to recover under the pale moonlight of the glass flats. After their ordeal with the phoenix, they were both silent, with Karuka occasionally smiling at Taodoine’s antics.

The trek had been rough on the redhead; she looked pale and drawn, and had been favoring her right side since the elder phoenix had touched her. Despite the night’s chill, beads of sweat dotted her forehead. A quick inspection had shown an angry red brand on the skin of her lower abdomen, but she had declined to treat it. She spent their downtime with her eyes closed when her little fledgling wasn’t demanding her attention. While she wasn’t sure what the great phoenix’s mark meant, she was sure that it had connected her more to the desert. Before, she could hear it sing and scream through her feet. Now she heard it whisper and speak. She could almost make out what it was saying.

It was a far more somber mood considering they were finally free of that cavern. For Rayse, he didn’t feel like there was much of a difference, at least until daybreak. At this point, only the phoenix could set him back into a balanced state. Rayse got up; there was no time to rest for him.

“Where are we?� he asked. He knew Karuka had some sense of the lay of the land, even though they were tossed out in the middle of nowhere.

“Further east of where we were. And north. We’ve left the black sands far behind.�

A faint light spread across Rayse’s eyes. “Does that mean we’re actually close?�

“If we haven’t made it by the coming dawn, we will before the next one.� Karuka frowned a little, pressing a palm into the rippling glass. Something didn’t sound right for plant life, not so close, not in the direction they were headed. She stood slowly, moving Taodoine to her shoulder. “At the very least, you’ll make it that long.�

The use of we gave Rayse some assurance that Karuka was still willing to make the journey, despite being done with her personal quest. If he was going to die anyway, he might as well get this question off his chest.

“Do you feel that you owe me? Is that why you’re still going?�

Karuka’s lips and nose curled. “No. I gave my word, didn’t I? Just because I’ve got the answers I came for doesn’t mean my part in this is done. B’sides, if I left you now, you’d probably die.�

“I know,� Rayse snapped, almost defensively. “It’s just… I want to say thanks. That’s all.�

A hint of a smile touched Karuka’s mouth. “Y’know… I think I might have misjudged you, when we met. If nothing else, it will be worth finding out how badly.�

After a short rest, they reached the desert, with Karuka sighing relief as she was able to remove her boots and take in the world, nearly drowning in her new connection to it. She felt the desert’s cold night breeze on her skin, a breath that still smelled of the merciless heat. It washed away her troubles, and after a moment, she looked a little refreshed.

Rayse didn’t want his last few hours to be spent in silence. “I know a lot of people that try to assign meaning to their actions. They want their lives to mean something, and they want others to know it. So when they mess up, it really gets under their skin, you know? But I’ve always plowed ahead with whatever I was doing. I never equated mistakes with my self-worth.�

He paused for a second. “But lately, it’s been hard. Getting here, I keep thinking what went wrong. When I took the job that lead to the this runic shit, I thought I had no alternative. But really, there were plenty of options. I thought I was cornered, but I wasn’t. When I was a kid, a few things happened to me that felt out of my control. What’s more, it was because the people I was with didn’t believe that I could make the necessary choices on my own. I’ve tried to spend my life proving that wrong. You barely know me, so I’m not expecting you to know if I succeeded or not, but I do sometimes wish there was someone around to tell me.�

Karuka looked at Rayse for a long moment, then uncorked her water skin for a long drink. The water was gritty and a little bitter from its long time in the cave, but she was sure it was safe to drink. “When we first met, I peered into your life, remember? I saw that you’d be consumed by something. This condition that’s even now got you on the brink of life and death was just one option. Ultimately it’s your own ambition, your own drive, that would push you over the edge. That’s like fire in its own way, isn’t it?�

She reached out to touch him, calloused fingers feather-soft on his beaten cheek. “The thing about fire is that it’s got to be fed carefully. Too much, too fast, and it blazes out of control and kills everything around it until it has consumed itself to death. Too little, and it withers and dies. It only brings light and warmth to the dark and cold if it’s both there and safe.�

Her hand withdrew slowly, but was caught by Rayse’s own. “Karuka, I…� What could he say? This could be his last chance to…

But…

He let go of her hand. “Sorry, you were saying?�

Her head tilted slightly, confusion and compassion vying for space in her eyes. What would a man who was so used to making his own will happen hesitate to say? Or was it that same will forcibly biting down words of fear? “I can’t say if you’ve succeeded or not. Just that if you feel out of control, you did somethin’ wrong. I do know that if we can pull you through this alive, there’s so much you could go on to do. Maybe for the worse. But hopefully for the better.�

She offered him a bit of a smile and picked up her pace, though she winced at how the fabric rubbed over her burn. “Whatever the outcome, we’ll not stop trying until this is over.�

[Rayse Valentino]

The sun rose over the golden sands, but Rayse and Karuka still had miles to go to reach the promised oasis. She persuaded him to take some rest. The relentless heat could kill her if they didn’t hunker down in the shade of their little cloak tent, and it only aggravated Rayse’s condition. Though he was anxious to keep moving, to find the herbs that might restore his humanity, he acquiesced. Finding the herbs did him no good if she wasn’t there to make the potion that would cure him.

To soothe her anxious companion, Karuka directed his eyes to a dark patch on the horizon. It might mean water, she explained. It might mean life. It meant hope.

They slept only a few hours each, for reasons of their own. While they were awake during the heat of the day, Karuka dampened rags to wrap around their necks and they talked. Rayse opened up like a dying man delivering his last confession. He told her about his upbringing. He grew up with his single father, his mother dying in childbirth when he was young. He had a vague recollection of her features, and the only possession he knew was hers was the pendant around his neck. His father was a cold man who rarely cracked a smile, and as soon as Rayse was old enough, he was sent off to boarding school and from then only saw him on one occasion: His graduation from military academy. Even then, it felt like a formality. He never knew what fate befell him, but knowing that he was a general in service of the crown, likely he died on the battlefield, otherwise he would have heard of his accomplishments after the war. When Rayse figured this out, he felt… nothing. Not happiness, not sadness, just emptiness. This was a man who was destroyed by the death of his wife and never remarried, cared nothing for legacy, and disappeared. Rayse would never understand him.

She told him about her homeland, a rainy, foggy country that gleamed gloriously green when the sun hit it. She talked about snow, but not the pounding, packed snow from Salvar. Instead, she told of big, fluffy snow drifts that children would race down on small wooden rafts. She talked about her mother and stepfather, and how cruel the man had been. She spoke of the old healing woman from her village, and how she’d learned almost everything she knew from old Saoirse. She spoke of her half brothers, Cael, Artan, and Fiachra. Cael was ten years her junior, and Fiachra had been born just before his father had kicked her out of the village. He’d been sickly out of the womb, and when their mother died after his birth, she hadn’t held out hope for the boy. She spoke also, a little, of her time on Althanas, but she hadn’t told anyone about her family in years.

The calm, quiet, and relative cool kept Rayse’s flames mostly at bay, though toward the evening they started flickering up and down his arms again. Karuka did put a little salve on her burns when the sun started setting. The one on her abdomen had bubbled and blistered, and even though it was an honor to have, she couldn’t afford the pain to slow her pace for another night. He couldn’t afford it.

They struck out again at the first chill breath of night. With each step, Karuka grew less and less certain they would find what they sought. Even without use of magic, she could sense life around her, and she sensed none on the horizon. But she kept her fears to herself. The herb was a precious, life-saving plant. If it just gave and gave of itself to anyone who might find it, it would long since be myth and nothing more. Maybe it had a way to camouflage itself from any diviners, as other plants had poisons or thorns. Maybe… maybe.

Maybe, Karuka thought, stroking a sleeping Taodoine. Or maybe it's all for naught.

The moon had abandoned them by the time they reached a dry lakebed, and the sun wouldn’t cast its first lights for more than an hour, but what the two travelers could see by the dim light of the stars was enough to let their stomachs drop.

“We’re here.” Karuka bit her lip, bending down to examine a dry, brittle husk of reed that crumbled at her touch. “It’s dead. I feared this, but I’d hoped… Rayse, it’s a long time since anything’s grown here.”

Rayse shook his head, stumbling a few steps along the rocky expanse. “Th-this… it can’t…”

“It is. I’m sorry.” Karuka watched Rayse’s back. All of this? All this way? And nothing? Just like that, he was doomed to die? Had he really been damned from the beginning?

Rayse dropped to his knees. Was this his punishment for tempting fate? He grasped at the sand below, letting it run through his fingers as his body shook. Wisps of flames crawled up his arm and flickered into the air. After those thoughts he had in the cavern, he changed his mind. “Damn it!” He struck at the sand, sending it flying around him. “Motherfucking fate toying with me! Cosmic shitheads having a laugh at my expense?! Well laugh it up, assholes!” He bit his lip, his vision blurry from the tears. Was this all he amounted to? Dying in some goddess-forsaken place on the other side of the world? Unknown, unaccomplished? He felt so stupid for how he felt in the cavern. Who could possibly be okay with it ending like this?

“I don’t... I don’t want to die! Not yet! Not ever! I…” He got up and kicked at the sand, taking off his robe and tossing it away from him. His pendant slipped out from under his shirt, pulling down. The only part of him that would remain after he faded away. “Not yet…”

[Karuka]

Karuka hadn’t tried to calm Rayse; she could only imagine his frustration and despair. She’d simply crouched by the pale purple remains of long-dead plants, thinking. Where was the justice in this? Where was the balance? The desert had no mercy, she knew, but she also knew the earth was generous. And she’d felt in her soul that there might have been a way to save this man, or she’d never have agreed to go with him. If she’d seen a futile quest, she’d have simply refused to take it. Rayse was unwise in the ways of nature; he had slowed her down, caused her injury, and taken her far off of her path. He might have been the death of her. A man she’d written off as wicked and self-serving wasn’t worth the risk if there wasn’t a good chance to help him, body and soul.

So why this? Why had she gone so far for a Doitean as Cothromaicht if he was just going to perish at the final step of their journey?

Cothromaicht…

Karuka stood up, walking slowly over the cold sandstone to give her thoughts room to move. “Every element has its afflicted side and its blessed side,” she mused, mostly to herself. Taodoine chirped sleepily at her from under his wing, and she continued. “For earth, it’s Mórshuaitheadh and Tenalach. For water, it’s Bádh and Bronntóir na Beatha. For air, Caoin Gaoithe Ar and Anáil ag Canadh. For fire, it’s Doiteain as Cothromaitch and…” Karuka snapped her fingers. “CroÃ* na Luaith.”

She whirled around to Rayse. “There might be another way t’ save you.”

Rayse shot a side-long glance at her in disbelief, as if she was just trying to make him feel better right before his demise. But he knew she was serious. He wiped his eyes.

“You sure…. took your sweet time telling me…”

“Because it’s the exact opposite of what you want and it’s got more chance of killing you outright than saving you.” Karuka started speaking faster, syllables falling over and nearly merging into each other as her carefully supressed accent fought for dominance, and her hands started moving rapidly along with her words. “You were looking fer this herb t' maybe pull you back from the brink, t' make you all human, t' rid you of th' fire. Th' way I’m suggesting is t' push you through, burn away the rest of you and make you fire. You’d become the element that’s trying to consume you, bond to it as an equal, instead of watching it devour you whole.”

Rayse hesitated. “Would I still be… Alive? Human?”

Karuka waved a hand dismissively. “Being human is your habit, body and mind. You’ll probably still look human, and you’ll still probably have your human desires. You’ll still feel human.” She stopped for a second and sucked in a breath. “And you wouldn’t be dying anymore.”

Rayse took a deep breath, not sure if he was in a daze from his malady or because of how he was feeling. He didn’t care anymore, whatever new existence awaited him was better than this.

“Let’s do it.”

Karuka nodded and planted her feet. Her eyes closed and she took a deep breath, letting the cold air of the desert night bite into her lungs like a knife. On the exhale, she let out all her tension, all her fear, all her pity, all her despair. She let herself be empty so that she could hear the desert speak. The cold sands sang of the coming dawn, the dead oasis murmured sadly about Life-That-Was, but deeper than that, quieter, she could hear a hum of power. It surged beneath her feet and rose powerfully just beyond the next dune.

“Bring yer pack. We’ll need it.” Karuka’s eyes snapped open and she grabbed Rayse by the hand, barely giving him a moment to grab his belongings. He didn’t understand why she couldn’t just do whatever she needed to on the spot, but he didn’t question her aloud. She took off running and pulled him along with her, rushing for the spot she’d heard. They were on a leyline, and it converged with another to make as good a focal point as she could desire. With it, she only needed two things: the memory to correctly complete the ritual, and enough time to set it up and complete it.

If she hadn’t cured Rayse by the time dawn broke, he wouldn’t make it to the next sunrise.

[Rayse Valentino]

The convergence was everything Karuka could have asked for. It spread more than six feet across, and would let her do everything she needed without worrying whether or not she could tap into enough power. First of all, though, she sat Rayse down just outside the spot where the leylines intersected and looked firmly into his obsidian eyes.

“Stay here, stay calm. This will take time to set up, and I don’t want you burning yourself out in that time. Don’t you give up on me.” Gently, she took Taodoine from her shoulder and set him in Rayse’s hands. He stared at the bird in a trance. “He might be able to draw off a bit of the fire, if you can’t keep under control.”

That said, she strode to the center of the convergence, Consequence in hand. Quickly but carefully, she carved a circle into the sand and raised her spear to start writing the runes of moving, binding, and sealing. The spear’s electric head crackled and snapped against the million grains of sand in its path, burning clear, crisp images.

Something about the way she wrote triggered a memory in Rayse. “A square goes next, doesn’t it? Then intersecting lines?”

Karuka looked up, perplexed. “I thought you weren’t from a magical tradition?”

He shook his head. “I saw… someone… do one like that once.”

“That’s a child’s circle, to teach them the basics of focusing magic. No one uses it after the age of ten, unless they’re teaching or they’re in a dire rush. This is a specific type of circle, much more powerful, much more complex. Gods help us both if I mess it up.”

She carved out space at each of the four cardinal directions and wrote her runes in the areas between the space. Every so often the barefooted woman would pause to consider which rune ought to go next, but she knew there was only one certain combination that might save Rayse. Other than a few brief moments of doubt, the magical letters flowed from her hands like water down the mountain.

I’d be a lot more confident about this if I still had magic. But if the runes have broken their long silence, with any luck I can still be a good enough conduit for the magic within them.

Faint hints of pink flickered at the horizon by the time Karuka had finished inscribing her magic circle. In the very center, she carefully drew a three with a looping tail, topping it with a swoop and a diamond. She looked at the sky when she was done, red lips flattening unhappily. She had just minutes left, and she wasn’t sure if she could make the final preparations and finish the ritual in that time.

Swift steps took her back to Rayse, and she knelt by his bag. “I need as many of your cigarettes as I can hold in both hands, and I need whatever remains of the whiskey. Then go stand in the center of the circle.”

The urgency in her tone sped his actions, and he handed over the precious items without complaint. If he died, he wouldn’t need them, and if he didn’t, he’d be alive to miss them. When Karuka had what she needed, she juggled the cigarettes into the crook of her arm and grabbed some kindling as well.

While Rayse made his way to the center of the circle, she set the kindling in the blank spaces at the compass points, lighting little fires, then scattered the cigarettes within the circle. “Fire as it is. Fire and earth. Fire and water…” Her hands uncorked the alcohol, and she poured it slowly over Rayse’s head. It ignited in little bursts when it hit the little flames that ever more rapidly spread across his frame.

Will he lose his form first, or will dawn pass us by first?

Like water over hot coals, smoke rose up from Rayse’s form from the booze. He was a self-generated sauna, and every moment he felt himself being released like sweat; bits of himself fading into the wind. His eyelids drooped down, and he felt an overwhelming urge to close them.

“Focus!” Karuka snapped at him. “Keep t’gether for one more damned minute.” At that point, she froze. Back where she came from, they prepared rituals like this for days, and fire and air came from a fine powder that was then ignited at the culmination. She had nothing like that, nor did she have time.

“Fire and air...fire and air…” She bit her lip, casting her eyes desperately for anything that might do. What she finally saw was the brilliantly fledged Taodoine, red and gold and glorious, sleeping on her satchel. “Fire and air.” She nearly pounced on her pet, grabbing one of the feathers on his back and yanking it out. He screeched, fluttering to the top of the dune, and hissed reproachfully.

Karuka didn’t pay any attention to him. She had her final ingredient, and she wasted no time shoving it into Rayse’s mouth, despite the confusion and disgust in his face. Rayse’s flames had reached his shoulders, his neck, and were licking at his hair and head. He had only moments left. Golden glimmers tickled the tops of the eastern-most dunes; dawn threatened more powerfully by the second.

They were out of time.f

[Karuka]

Karuka took a few deep breaths, steeling herself. The cold night air had dissipated, banished by the Cothromaicht’s curse. All that was left was heat and fear and urgency.

Not now.

Her hands launched forward, gripping the half-incorporeal shoulders before her. Burns and blisters formed instantly; the fires consuming him had no compunctions against consuming her as well. Agony ripped through her hands and tore a growl from her throat, but she didn’t let go.

“Ó... aineolas, dom mar thoradh... ar fÃ*rinne,” she rasped. From ignorance, lead me to truth.
“Ó dor...chadas, dom mar thoradh ar... solais.” From darkness, lead me to light.
“Ó bhás, dom mar... thoradh ar neamh...bhásmhaireachta.” From death, lead me to immortality.
“SÃ*ocháin, sÃ*ocháin, sÃ*ocháin.” Peace, peace, peace.

Karuka clenched her teeth, clinging to Rayse with all her will despite her hands starting to burn away, despite the burns starting to spread down her arms, despite the reek of blazing cotton and melting flesh. Tears stung her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall, focused instead on the horizon.

A breath after her last word, the sun burst into the sky like a great bird released from its cage. The fires still burned at the edges of the circle. The man still burned within it.

Nothing had happened.

Rayse sagged in her hands; they had failed and he knew it. He had no more energy to care for her wounds, no time for anything else but to feel sorry for himself.

“Om.”

The incantation's sealing syllable sent a shiver through the circle and quaked the sands around it. Rayse’s flames exploded, connecting to the fires at the edge of the circle, igniting the remaining whiskey and consuming the cigarettes. A roaring tornado of flame erupted into the sky, sucking tons of sand with it. In the center of the conflagration, Rayse and Karuka stood amidst the molten glass. The former’s eyes rolled back into his head, and the latter watched him. If this worked, the flames would be of creation and healing. If it didn’t, they were going to burn together.

As red and yellow danced around them, Rayse’s blurry vision focused for a few moments. Karuka’s form in front of him appeared wholly incorporeal, and the light around him felt reversed, like he was staring at a negative space painting. Various pictures formed in the flames of places he never saw, people he never met. He saw a floating palace, a ghostly library, and a golden compass. Before he could begin to comprehend what was going on, they were gone.

The flames died down almost as quickly as they had started. Rayse opened his eyes to see an open, sparkling cone of multi-colored glass around and above him. Karuka knelt over him. Not a single burn or scratch marred her flesh, and weary relief tinged her smile. He felt solid, no longer out of control. He felt healthy. He felt strong.

He reached up, heart full of welling emotions and mind free of any thoughts. His hands stroked Karuka’s face and ran through her hair, then pulled her to him.

She did not resist.

[Karuka]

It was a celebration of life and living, of victory, of hope. It was catharsis, it was fear melting away. It was passion and possibility. It might even have been love.

At the end of it, they laid naked and nestled together, watching the dance of light and color above them. Sand had worked its way into areas neither of them cared to mention, but otherwise they were relaxed and content. Sweat dotted the redhead’s skin, but Rayse didn’t even feel warm. Even so, he knew it was only a matter of minutes before she needed to set up shade for the day's rest. He could get up and begin the long trek back to Irrakam, but he would wait until nightfall. She'd stuck by him when her needs had been met, and he wanted to stay with her, after everything.

He felt different. He retained his form effortlessly now, even when he wasn’t thinking about it. They’d more than proven that. His touch couldn’t have been much warmer than a normal man’s, or Karuka would have pulled away. Instead, there she still was at his side, eyes lazily reflecting the sky above their lacy web of glass.

His arm started going numb under the weight of her head - he was still human enough for that! - so he adjusted her, pulling her closer and playing his fingers in the silken strands of red hair.

He brought his free hand up, letting flames rise along his forearm. Unlike before, his body didn't threaten to dissipate. He had control of the fire. As if to emphasize that, Karuka reached out and touched his elbow, trailing her fingertips up his skin. He extinguished the flames just ahead of her, letting her chase them until she reached his knuckles. Without warning, he let his whole arm burn again. The blaze was harmless, almost cool, but she still jumped, yanking her arm away. When she realized it was just a prank, she slapped his chest reproachfully. He chuckled as she settled back in.

"You've a long way to go yet, Rayse. When a Doitean as Cothromaicht starts burning out, he's mostly a danger to himself and any fool what tries to help him. If a CroÃ* na Luaith starts burning out, he's a danger to everyone around him, and the dying is a lot more painful."

Rayse's stomach twisted, sending sour acid up his throat. "You didn't say that before the ritual."

"We barely had the time as it was." Karuka sat up slowly, letting the coarse sand bite into her left thigh and buttock. She looked up at the sky, then back down at him. "It's a long way back to civilization. I won't leave you alone in the dark."

[Rayse Valentino]

Waves gently lapped at the docks of Kithdir, with Rayse watching through the window of his room. He had gotten used to the smell of the sea, which was good considering he was leaving Fallien by boat in the morning. The afternoon sun lit up the waters, and children were playing on the beaches nearby. It would be no exaggeration if he described the past two weeks as the best in his life, but all good things had to come to an end.

A gentle weight settled on his shoulder and a slender hand started rubbing his neck. "You're tense."

He turned his head to look at her. The blue eyes that had forcefully struck him still at their first meeting now held some mild concern. "Are you sure you won't reconsider? I'm sure you would be a big help."

Karuka shook her head, sliding her arms around his chest. He brought his hands up to hold hers. "I made some enemies the last time I was in Salvar. It'd be trouble for both of us if I went back so soon. B'sides, we're two people with powerful tempers and very different needs. We'd be sick of each other long before the boat docked. I'd rather part now, with good memories and deep affection, than later with rage and bitterness."

“I see,� Rayse sighed. “Looks like fate isn’t done with me yet, but I swear I’ll break free from its shackles after this. Despite the success of the ritual, I’m still not balanced, and I can feel it clearly now. This incredible power I have is only temporary, and I know I’m meant to use it.�

Since the ritual, his days were filled with restlessness and passion, the power making him think and move faster than ever before. Was it responsible for his happiness? Was it only a fleeting feeling that would pass as soon as the magic ran out?

"This flux, up and down, will ease soon and then level out. You'll come to find a new 'normal.' I have faith that your normal will even be a balanced normal. But if there's something big you need to do... then you need to do it." Her head turned to regard the bright outdoors, but she leaned her cheek into his shoulder. Their time together was dwindling down to mere hours, and she was every bit as aware of it as he.

“I wish I could stay. I only just met you and I want to know so much more, plus I owe you my life. Something terrible is going happen right in my hometown, and while I have no love for the church nor the crown, I do love the land. It’s where I grew up.� Vengeance was also sought, both for the destruction of his home and his livelihood, but he kept that to himself.

"Salvar desperately needs help. I saw it in the faces of its people. I heard it in the tundra underfoot. I hope you make it there before your excess power wanes." She sighed softly. "I haven't had a place to call my own for a long time now, and sometimes that's hard. Just now, hearing you talk of a place you love, I miss Ireland a lot. But I have no place there, either, even if the ways between the worlds opened again. I will have to be content to wander where the wind wills, and call the world my home."

Rayse frowned a little; she was talking nonsense again in that certain tone she had. He spun around and clasped her hands, pressing his thumbs into her palms. “Will I ever see you again?�

Karuka frowned slightly, bringing his hands up and rubbing her cheeks against them. "You have your path you must walk. I have mine. I feel that my path will take me out to parts far, far away from here, to places neither of us have heard about. But if the winds ever draw me back to this part of the world, I'll find you. Caillte or not, I'm still a clairvoyant. So maybe I'll walk your path more someday. But for now..."

She stepped into his embrace, then motioned out the window, to the streets that shimmered with heat. "We still have today. Let's let tomorrow worry about itself, and make the most of this time."

[Karuka]

Four and a half months later...

Karuka gratefully stepped off the boat. Despite having logged months and months and months at sea since arriving on Althanas, she'd never grown to love the water. She'd just learned to tolerate it. More than two months had passed since the previous stop, and she intended to make this one her last. The captain had warned her that this nation, Jalaan, was not a good place for her to settle. She had replied that she really hadn't much choice.

It was beautiful enough. Tall trees topped with broad leaves swayed in the sea breeze. The air carried notes of fruit and spice. Brightly colored fabric adorned buildings and people, and in the distance she could see a large step pyramid dominating the city. The humid heat was slightly oppressive, but that would get worse before it got better. She didn't need to be clairvoyant to know that.

People bustled through the docks. The majority of them were a little bit darker than she was, but of course there were the pale tan people from the continent to the north and even a few white people from further afield. The locals had a sort of restless anxiety beneath their professional dealings, and Karuka could feel the island's tension even through her sandals. Something was at a breaking point.

The phoenix on her shoulder shook and sneezed his discontent, and she reached up to pet him. "Easy there, Taodoine. It'll n-oh! I felt that one." The redhead frowned down at her growing belly, rubbing the site of the kick. Though she was nearly five months pregnant, the fact that the child she carried was her first, paired with strong abdominal muscles, meant that she was only just starting to need new clothes. "Settle in there, Taische. Like I was tellin' Tao, it'll not be so bad. Betcha we find a place t' settle here before you're even born."

Taische. Treasure. Each firstborn O'Sheean was unique; a continuation of the clairvoyant line that carried its founder's name. An O'Sheean's firstborn would always be female, any subsequent children would always be male. She was a treasure to her mother. Treasure - the type that sparkled and signified material wealth - was also among the most important things to this particular baby's father. When they made their way back across the world, when this child met her father, hopefully she would be even more precious to him than gold.

Not for the first time, Karuka wondered if she'd done the right thing by leaving Rayse. While their differences would probably be ruling their interactions more than passion ever had by now, he'd probably have been inclined to provide for his daughter and be there for her. The way he'd spoken of his own father, she couldn't see him willfully making the same choices. The way things were, it would be at least five or six years before they could travel again. Maybe more.

Someday, wee bit, you'll be quite a surprise. And you'll be in for quite a surprise.

With a deep breath and a determined stride, Karuka shook aside the questions of the past. It was time to make a new future, and she bet that big pyramid was as good a place to start as any.

[Gnarl & Root]

Sorry for the delay in posting this!

Judgment Name: Burning Out (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?29993-Burning-Out)
Judgment Type: Full Rubric
Name of Participant: Rayse Valentino & Karuka

Commentary:

Story: (6 of 10 Points)

The premise was intriguing and Rayse's introduction was strong. This made it easy to get into the story. However, as the story continued, it lost the edge that this reader felt it started with. It went from a mystery adventure to an attempt at a romance between lost souls. Therefore, as you tried to develop a relationship between your characters, things came across rather forced and even random at times. The kiss in post eight, it felt out of place and was put into force the idea of a relationship blossoming between to two.

I also found myself asking questions when certain parts appeared to make no sense. The shopkeeper at the beginning didn't appreciate Rayse at all. Then for no apparent reason, decided to give him information and help. Considering this is what sets you both on your journey, then I should be able to understand the motives behind it.

On the whole, it's fair to say the story and what you have tried to do here, was clear and a decent effort. However, it never really struck powerfully any point, and just sort of happened. Since your focus was on a growing love between the two, the story needed a greater emphasis on how they felt about one another and how/why their opinions were changing. Karuka started to do this, but without a greater backing in other posts, it falls flat.

Setting: (7 of 10 Points)

Setting for the both of you felt like a mixed area. Some of your descriptions were wonderful, and I must quote this as a prime example from Karuka, post seven:

The moon rose high while they traveled, then sank until it hovered just above the horizon. The stars turned overhead, almost bright enough to walk by on their own with the perfectly clear skies and shining sands. At long last, soft pinks and purples painted the edge of the sky, subtle harbingers of the coming inferno. When dawn broke in earnest, it did not do so timidly, as it might have over a more charitable land. Instead the sun burst over the horizon in glorious orange and gold, announcing to any and all that the king had returned to rule with his fist of fire.

The only problem was, I felt this wasn't consistently done. Sometimes setting was neglected, such as Rayse in the shop at the beginning. I didn't have a strong sense of where I was in Fallien, just that you arrived in a shop with crystals on the wall. Karuka brought your score back up, but you were both guilty of it. The collapsing cave in post thirteen was also a missed opportunity with very minimal description. Therefore, I never really got a sense for how scary, or dangerous this collapse was. Often, it was the feeling of the place that was lacking, rather than the description itself. Adding a real sense of feeling using certain adjectives can really bring a scene to life.

Pacing: (6 of 10 Points)

There was no serious problem with pacing on this story, but for the fact, it just felt rather steady. The best rise in tension that stuck in my mind was the giant worm attack. Otherwise, a lot of scenes just happened and didn't really build up with any real feeling (which was your objective). The emotional feeling between the two characters should have been a big focus of the pacing, and since this felt lacking, it brought down the score.

While the general adventure paced okay, I couldn't give you a higher score here because the story ending and relationship build up just didn't make the powerful impact that it should have.


Character:

Communication: (7 of 10 Points)

Both of you portrayed your personalities and feelings much stronger through communication than action or internal thought. Some of Karuka's speeches came out powerful and added the emotion that I felt was missing in posts. Rayse stood out here, and getting a grip of who he is as a person, is strong in his speech.

However, you'd be given a stronger score, but for a few things that felt completely out of place. Post thirteen by Karuka:


“Could we move this?”

Not only did this seem out of character, it felt like the oddest question to ask. I couldn't imagine Rayse considering moving a collapsed cave. Things like this were evident from both of you as you controlled one another's characters. You were stronger when you wrote your own character. If you had focused more on your characters individually I'd have given a higher score.

Action: (8 of 10 Points)

Your action was clean and clear, and I enjoyed the difference between Rayse and Karuka in their fighting styles and beliefs. You were thorough in your characters actions and everything was clear and easy to understand. Pretty solid.

I did, however, find the arrival of the blue cat in post eight rather bizarre. I understood after that it was summoned, but this needed to be emphasized more. The way Karuka wrote it, it just appeared. While there's nothing wrong with something being sudden, the way you did it made it difficult to understand exactly what was going on.

Persona: (6 of 10 Points)

This part was difficult to judge. Individually you expressed some nice persona with both Rayse and Karuka. But because of the fact you failed to engage me in the relationship that you formed, and the lack of emotion behind your characters actions and motives, I couldn't give a higher score here.

Part of this was because when you wrote as one another's characters, which you did a lot of in this thread, they lacked the same quality you wrote as individually. There were a lot of times I found myself asking, "how do they feel about that?" and "why did he do that?"

Also, Rayse appeared to completely change persona in post fourteen.


In this endless desert cellar, Rayse felt more at peace than ever. So what if he was facing inevitable doom? Worrying about it was not going to change anything.

He just suddenly changed, and then his ideals changed. I found no reason at all to why he didn't attack the creature in the cave. You tried to suggest Karuka had made an impact, as his actions were a mirror of hers, but where did it come from? He didn't show any insinuation that she was making an impact on him in that respect. Especially when he supposed to be feeling more like his old self.

There was also various scenes that had me asking, why? Such as post eleven:


Taking a deep breath, Karuka headed towards the water, beginning to disrobe as if Rayse wasn’t even there. While normally he would be all over such an action, he decided not to stick around.

There's a lot of dismissive behaviour, with little to no sign of attraction for a long time. So, why was he being this way? Why did he feel the need to do what he did?

A more gradual build up his opinion changing would have helped dramatically here. Have him question his motives or her decisions. You have the scenes and fights of which to do so, but you didn't take advantage of it. Things just happen in this story, and for love to bloom, then feeling should be present in a strong manner.


Prose:

Mechanics:(8 of 10 Points)

Solid. It wasn't easy picking this stuff out, but there were small errors that crept in, both in spellings and some repetition. So I can't give you a higher score.

Clarity: (8 of 10 Points)

While some of this made for heavy reading, it was mainly clear and precise. Apart from a couple of times, where I found myself re-reading a couple of phrases, all scenes, actions and what was going on, was pretty clear.

Technique: (7 of 10 Points)

There is some beautiful technique used. Some of your similes and metaphors used were well placed and brought some scenes to life. These were used in the right places and was skillfully done so. Yet again, though, your technique wasn't used as effectively in relation to your emotions.

A great example here is Rayse mentioning Karuka's blue eyes. You mention them a lot, and yet they are just mentioned as if to fill in for description. This could have been used cleverly to show not only her beauty, but how Rayse felt about her. Have a read over your posts and think about it. Eyes are a beautiful part of the human body, one we all find attractive, and they evoke a lot of emotions in both the host and the viewer. They could easily have been used to bring out lots of feelings.

An example:

*Again Rayse peered into those same striking eyes. Those beautiful blue hues that seemed to stare into his damaged burning soul. There was something spiritual about them, something that generated a strange feeling within him. A feeling that he couldn't quite understand, something he couldn't grasp with his frail dismissive mind.*

Wildcard: (7 of 10 Points)

There's a lot of strength in both of your writing. It's powerful at times, it's well written, and you have two interesting characters that have a lot to give. The only real problem here was having me believe the relationship of your characters, and that took away from your story. If you wish for further feedback on what I'm getting at in terms of emotion, then don't hesitate to get in touch.

Final score: 70

Rayse (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?4242-Rayse-Valentino) receives:
Experience: 2470
Gold: 170

Karuka (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?2215-Karuka) receives:
Experience: 2750
Gold: 200

Congratulations!

[Rayleigh]

All EXP and GP have been added, and the necessary AP have been removed.