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I'm in with a flash! Also, hello everyone! Looking forward to going head-to-head with you all in the 'DOME.
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Jan 23, 2024 20:43
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 12:19 |
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Lighting the Fuse Flash: Arriving back home, finally. Words: 1999 “You are asking for a lot and giving us little,” Weimin said. His voice kneeled to a hush in an attempt to guide King Andras towards a civil tone. “On the cusp of total victory, we should not rush into a foolhardy assault,” the chief artillerist continued. Karrel recognized Weimin, he had just joined the king’s war entourage when she had last been called to council. In the grinding six years since then, the planning tent now sported no fewer than two dozen more pennants and banners of every color and heraldic device that Karrel could conjure into her mind. Weimin was a bittersweet reminder of victories won and allies gained. Karrel had, after all, personally led the scouring of the Jīntián Plains. The eternal firestorms she loosed on the Imperial fields would haunt her every night; the chorus of melting flesh and disintegrating stalks of wheat stained trips into the Aetherium for far too long. Shalissa grumbled. She still sported her forest green Wyld Watchers tabard and devices, not that of the Undefeated Lord. She sat on a crate, sharpening a curved dagger. “Why don’t we just rip the leech off the wound here, eh?” she asked with her typical childish malice, the edge of her lips curled into a slight smile. King Andras, standing upright and imperious, ran a hand through his beard. In the time since Karrel had last seen him, Andras had aged less than gracefully. His plump body was poorly contained within his plate, the hinges creaked in distress with his every movement. “I have asked you here for a reason. Karrel’s sorcery will not be needed for the assault tomorrow. We will make a bold assault on the walls at dawn’s first light,” he said. “Weimin, ensure your bombardiers are prepared to bring down the main gate at my signal,” King Andras ordered. An uproar swelled in the tent at the proclamation of the sorceress’ absence. The fury of the congregation surpassed that which they held for the Independent Cities challenging Andras’ rule. “Please,” Grimwold, the right hand of the King, pleaded. “Think of our fighting men and women, your grace. They give their all for you, you should give all you have for them.” “Our King has made a proclamation, you dog,” shouted a small tinker from the Desert Lands that Karrel did not recognize. “You give him your respect!” “Without sorcery, we are in a poor spot to conquer a walled city,” Weimin said patiently. “We can break the gate down, but if they have sorcerers of their own, it might-“ “You doubt our army, Wei?” Shalissa asked. “I doubt nothing,” Weimin said quietly and scanned the room. “Nor should you, frankly, this walled city is a poo poo-stain harboring enemies unworthy of the mercy you show, my lord. What has possessed you,” Grimwold asked. “Possession? Oh, great purgators above!” the tiny tinker shouted and shot a look to Karrel. “Nobody here is possessed,” Karrel said flatly. “Oh, of course she’d say that,” Shalissa said. “Might I suggest a siege, your lordship?” Grimwold asked. “We could spare the residents the soldierly drive towards plunder.” “Enough!” King Andras roared as if already bellowing commands on the field of battle. The entire council, even Shalissa, straightened at their king’s command. Andras the Unbowed surveyed the room and huffed, or perhaps struggled to catch hold of his breath. “This is our final conquest,” Andras continued. “There is open rebellion in the Windward Isles. Administrator Crookedtooth lies broken at the feet of a pretender. We need a triumph to solidify my reign before the true work of unification can begin. Rockholm will not be left in rubble, but elevated as one of many jewels in the crown of our empire!” Despite the wear of the years, Andras still bore the mien of a noble-born and the oration of a fanatic. The idea of uplifting the modest city into something of a capital left even Karrel with the suggestion of a smile. “If we are to bring the rebels and detractors into line, permanently, we need to demonstrate our competence with a swift and sudden strike. We can’t rely on Karrel’s sorcery to mend every stubbed toe or broken goblet, can we?” King Andras asked with an infectious grin. The mood in the room had grown light and tempers diminished with every word out of the grand general’s mouth. “That is all. Get your rest, you will need it tomorrow,” Andras said with a wave of his hand. The inhabitants of the tent slowly filed out into the quietness of the sleeping camp. The only remaining members of the war council were Andras, Karrel, and Grimwold who walked briskly towards the sorceress and opened his mouth to speak, but the words flowed just a hair too slowly. “Karrel, please, stay with me. We’ve much to discuss,” Andras said with a warm smile towards Karrel and his back towards his chief subordinate. “Grimwold, make yourself scarce, please.” Without a word of dissent, the large man sorrowfully strode out. She wanted to tell him not to worry, that she would be seeing him soon. It had been too long since Karrel had shared a bed with Grimwold. Not even a second after Grimwold had disappeared past the tarpaulin flap than Andras spoke. “You’ve not aged a day, yet my body has grown thick with feasting.” The King Unbowed stepped so close that the smell of his sweat flooded Karrel’s nostrils. “I won’t beg you. I know well that once you set your mind, little can be done to sway you. However, if you can offer me just a small glimpse of the Aetherium, then I will reward you with unknowable spoils after we capture the city,” he said and shot a clammy palm towards the sorceress. “You wish to feel the Aetherium on the eve of battle? I might allow it,” Karrel teased the portly lord and crossed away from his embrace. Her face hardened and Karrel narrowed her eyes at Andras. “Why are you really sparing this city?” She asked. Andras sighed and strode back towards Karrel’s side. “Truthfully? Rockholm is my home,” he said. “I want to peek at the Aetherium so I might know if my childhood friends and my family are still alive and well. If I can glimpse them, I might spare them the wrath of the coming assault,” King Andras said quietly. “A noble cause, but are you sure you want this?” Karrel asked softly. “You will be enjoined with thousands, if not millions, of souls who are going to be snuffed out at your hand. Even I have struggled before such a burden,” Karrel continued. Andras gave Karrel a hard look, unsure of how to take her unbidden warning. “Yes, Karrel, let me travel the Aetherium,” he said firmly. Karrel placed her hands on the King’s temples and established a unifying link between their souls. The pale blue light where sky meets ocean shone through the pair’s eyes brighter than any fire. King Andras’ jaw dropped as he felt his senses drip out of his mortal form like overflowing candle wax. Before Andras made himself too comfortable in the shared experience of their bodies, Karrel severed her connection with her mortal body and allowed the crushing tide of the Aetherium in. The unadulterated experience of every soul, rock, and gust of wind circled the two in a twirling spider web of experience. Karrel took in the surety of city walls, allowed the flavor and fullness of the soldiers’ pre-battle feasting to fill her, spied on the romantic aspirations of dreaming squires. The crush of experience could only be filtered as it washed over the disembodied consciousness of the sorceress. King Andras’ consciousness had quickly flown from Karrel’s lavishing in camp, as his mind barreled through slate-grey walls, the patience of ascending forest green moss, and the quiet panic of a city’s night watchmen. Andras centered himself on the panic of the scarce military his mind could scry from the throng of thousands of residents and refugees alike threatening to entangle his formless self and never let up. Karrel couldn’t help but get use her precision in navigating the Aetherium to join Grimwold in his dreaming world and to embrace him as friend and lover as one only can between a lucid dreamer and his welcome visitor. The entire exchange had taken less than a second of time but the experience stretched to consume multiple days of otherworldly courtship and vacation in locales uncharted and peaceful. Finished with her fun, Karrel forced herself past a forest green night watchman and joined Andras, who was currently soaking in the terror of a father mourning his still-breathing son. He lingered on the despair of this father wracked with pangs of inconsolable loss. Andras then dove into the mind of a woman sharing the father’s bed and drank the woman’s inconsolable night terrors of wedding bells smeared in blood. The customary rose petals thrown at her and her groom melted into the blood of their closest friends and family. Those in attendance melted into sticky pools of wine and gold. Karrel could feel that Andras was deliberately shaping this dream – this imagery was drawn by his hand. With a twitch of her finger, Karrel severed the Aetheric connection and gave Andras a dark look. “What was that?” Karrel demanded. Andras faced away from Karrel and stared into the middle distance, shaking visibly. “Garoline lives,” he said repeatedly in a series of soft sighs, his chest heaving. “Then I am to lead the assault. Yes. Yes, that’s the only way that-” Andras exhaled quickly, eyes wild when he turned back to Karrel. “My lord, please tell me that I am misunderstanding you,” Karrel said, the real reason for the assault piecing itself together in her mind. “You understand nothing, sorceress!” the King spat with a murderous glint in his eyes. Karrel reflexively prepared to reduce Andras to ash. Were anyone but King Andras to use such a tone on her, they would have been dust in the wind without a second’s thought. “Get yourself to bed, we’ve nothing to discuss until after the assault,” he continued, sobering up from the brief Aetheric dive. Karrel returned to her spartan tent and returned to the Aetherium. She desired to return to Grimwold to forget that the man she had devoted a decade of her life supporting was no more than a slavering dog, if not for a moment. Once more the world became a hazy spiderweb of interconnected impressions and sensations. Karrel pushed her pure sensate being towards Grimwold’s tent but caught a spicy smell she couldn’t recognize mixed with the humidity of anxiousness on the other side of the city’s walls. Forcing herself once more through the merriment of men at camp, and the surety of stone walls, Karrel found that the cloying anxiousness was a pair of guards preparing a pile of black powder kegs tied in a bundle just under the wall’s main gate. The powder was ready to pop at the mere suggestion of a spark. It would have taken just a snap to light the fuse and stop their trap before it was even set. Where would Rockholm have even procured black powder? Karrel moved to create a microscopic spark in the Aetherium and blow the trap sky-high, but she thought about Andras and his ‘final triumph.’ His desire ‘to protect friends and family’ spiraled through her mind. When did Andras become a peddler of hollow vows? Had Andras’ morality been flayed by years of war, or had there been an ulterior motive for every passing conquest? Karrel thought and debated. Aetheric time stretched through the rising of the moon into its setting, and still, Karrel thought. She thought about a life with Grimwold. She thought about Andras’ conquest and sweet, terrified Garoline. Karrel even thought about Shalissa. As the first rays of dawn flooded the Aetherium with a yawning eagerness, Karrel’s mind was made up.
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Jan 27, 2024 08:33
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