Baazel is coming and it will poison your heart.
Children’s stories. That had been the consensus among everyone in Hydlaa Cwyn had dared ask to about it. At best: bedtime stories that mothers tell children to scare them into behaving. At worst: vague references to the dark parts of religion and the sewer fanatics. And even then these boiled down to: ‘Children’s tales, Cwyn, surely you’re old enough not to believe in any old yarn some madman in a tavern spins you?’
Actually, it had happened just outside of the Kada-Els. A fellow Dermorian, clearly in distress, and Cwyn not sensible enough to make a wide berth around the crazy elf. The man had a hand full of circles; said they were talking to him; pleaded for someone to make them stop. One misguided attempt at heroics later, Cwyn could only remember about half of the man’s muddled babbling: something about Dakkru’s dark machinations, something about demons coming through the cracks and fissures of the realm. The only clear words, the words that Cwyn couldn’t forget – Baazel is coming and it will poison your heart…
A couple of weeks of petrifying paranoia followed when Cwyn doubted even his own sanity. But when nothing else happened, he eventually put the whole encounter out of his mind. Until he heard that name again.
It should’ve been just a quick trip through the forest to Levrus, nothing worse than dodging arangmas. But then he saw Roled, standing a little ways off at the edge of the clearing around the magic shop. Even though Cwyn knew he should avoid the other elf, an opportunity presented itself that was too good to pass up. So he snuck closer to see what the disarming Dermorian was up to – realising too late that the opportunity was in fact somewhat of a worst case scenario. Because there, hidden from Cwyn’s line of sight behind a rock, was someone he’d hoped he wouldn’t run into any time soon: Rigwyn.
Roled was busy confronting Rigwyn. About Allena. While Cwyn would’ve dearly liked to know what Roled thought he knew about the Rigwyn-Allena complication, his survival instinct told him to get away before he could become collateral damage in a fight between two powerful mages. Rigwyn alone was bad enough. Rigwyn and Roled with the latter about to lose his temper, well, that was pretty high on Cwyn’s list of things to run away from as fast he could.
But then the Diaboli said that name: Baazel.
From his hiding spot, Cwyn listened first in disbelief and then in growing terror to Rigwyn’s ranting: To hear his name is to be tainted with it. The name has power. The name turns your mind to him.
This alone should’ve been enough to make Cwyn obey Roled’s frantic order to run once the younger elf was discovered. But common sense only took Cwyn as far as Levrus’s shop, where he ran into someone else without any apparent sense of self-preservation. Instead of running or hiding, the Ynnwn, Aleeane, dressed in crystal mage robes, joined the fray.
And somehow Cwyn found himself creeping towards the fight as well. (If anyone should ever ask him at bladespoint why he did this, well, depending on who is doing the asking, he had a number of lies ready. The real reason wasn’t something Cwyn would admit to for all the tria in Yliakum.)
Thankfully, he never got a good look at the vile creature that Rigwyn had apparently summoned. Its presence alone was terrifying. The fight, too, was mostly obscured from where Cwyn was hiding, although the fog and the flashes of magic and the stench and the sounds of fighting and howling and the shaking of the ground painted a picture horrifying enough. Heart hammering, cursing himself for a coward and a fool, he heard Roled’s prayers; Rigwyn’s cries; Aleeane’s shout of battle. Also the demon’s foul words as he tried to force or entice Roled into letting him possess the elf. Coupled with Rigwyn’s attempts to trick Roled into saying the words that would allow the demon access.
Finally: a howl of agony from Baazel as Aleeane dealt him the death blow. A rustle of leaves as a fresh wind blew the filth from the battle away. The sounds of the wildlife who dragged off Baazel’s lifeless body.
Aleeane came away more or less uninjured. Roled escaped with his life, although narrowly. Cwyn had no idea what had happened to Rigwyn. For a few moments, Cwyn had itched to slide a dagger between the Diaboli’s ribs while he was apparently incapacitated, but he was glad that he didn’t. Publicly making an attempt on Rigwyn’s life would burn bridges that might be useful later.
In the end, survival was about priorities. Baazel, if – or rather, when – he returns, would be the problem of someone significantly stronger, more powerful and better equipped than Cwyn. No. His first priority lay injured and sick in the second floor of Levrus’s shop and, to be honest, didn’t have anything to do with survival in the strict sense of the word.
The second priority was to do something he should’ve done long ago: get rid of the circles the madman had given him. He would’ve done it straight away the moment he got it (any thief knows that the best way to hide ill-gotten money was by spending it, discreetly) but a sensible, beautiful fenki had persuaded him not to. After all, if the circles did drive people mad, Cwyn wouldn’t want to be the one that spread insanity through the whole of Hydlaa. But then, the circles had never talked to Cwyn. The most plausible explanation was that they were truly harmless and spoke only in the deranged fantasies of the lunatic who gave it to him. Or perhaps Cwyn’s mind simply wasn’t of the right shape to hear them. Or maybe Dakkru protected him. Whatever the case, now that it seemed there was some truth in the lunatic’s words, it would be best to cover any traces that Cwyn had ever been involved.
His third priority was in direct opposition to the first, but nonetheless urgent. Cwyn had to reconstruct the smokescreen of half-lies, half-truths and blatant misdirection he has spent weeks weaving and a few unthinking moments nearly destroying.
Otherwise it was more than possible that someone else would slit his throat long before Baazel could return.
[Long post, I know. I try never to use 3 words when 30 will do...
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