When Jaska next awoke, the dim sunstone barely illuminated the cave. Zyrella slept on a pallet along the opposite wall; Ohzikar was absent. Jaska’s stomach churned, demanding food. So with creaking joints and trembling muscles, he retrieved dried meat and dates from the supply packs. He sat by the pool and ate.
Jaska was dressed in a grey shirt and pants that cinched at the ankles and knees. His pack, weapons, and uniform lay stacked nearby. No, he thought, those weapons can’t belong to me. Mine fell into the river. These … must have belonged to my students.
He nearly wept as he thought of the young men he had trained for the last few years. But then what sort of men had they truly been? Salahn couldn’t corrupt every palymfar through sorcery. Most, if not all, must be the worst sort.
And Jaska had trained hundreds of them.
He took the razor from his pack and thought of slitting his throat but couldn’t. After sitting there for some time, lost in thought, he began to shave, navigating around scar tissue through touch. His barely-lit reflection in the pool showed so much scarring that he cringed to imagine what it must look like in full light.
He paused, holding the razor near his face. His brightest students from over the years must now be some of the most notorious murderers in the world. And he was an assassin himself. He couldn’t change that. He would, however, change his prey. He would excise the cancers he had helped unleash upon the world.
“Do you always brood while you shave?”
Having inexplicably let down his guard, Jaska flinched when he heard the priestess’s voice. “I’m not at one with myself.”
She spoke a command and the nearby sunstone flared to full strength, revealing the smooth lines of her face and her deep-set eyes. “Do you wish to talk about it?”
“My burden is great, priestess.”
“I am here to share your burden, that is one of the things priestesses do after all. But please, call me Zyrella.”
Tentatively, Jaska spoke to her about the confusion of his emotions. He wasn’t accustomed to sharing his thoughts with others. “The reality of what I’ve done, of who I have been …” He shook his head. “I have trained many assassins over the years. I thought them sincere students. I still picture them that way. I cannot see their evil for what it was.”
Jaska finished shaving. “How did I do?”
“Well enough, considering.”
“My head needs shaving as well, but I don’t have the strength. My hands are beginning to shake and it’s difficult to move my left arm.”
“I can do it for you, if you wish.”
“I guess I can allow that.”
“You sound unsure.”
“It’s just that I’m used to taking care of myself.”
“You didn’t have servants like the other high ranking palymfar … or a companion?”
“I refused servants, but I did live with a beautiful woman, perfect and alluring, intelligent and playful. I loved her deeply, but now … I don’t know.”
Zyrella felt a stab of jealousy. “Who is she?”
“Mardha. Salahn’s daughter.”
“Oh.” I should have known, she thought.
“Evil surrounds her in my nightmares, but I don’t really know her in waking. You know of her don’t you? I can see it in your face. She is nothing like I described is she?”
“I’m sorry, Jaska. Mardha is a bloodletter and demon-binder. Salahn’s most devoted servant.”
“It’s just as well,” he said, though it wasn’t. He felt betrayed down to the deepest part of his being. The love he had felt for Mardha, and for his mentor, all of it was false and he had nothing except the pity of a priestess and the need of her goddess.
While he stared off lost in his misery, Zyrella started a tiny fire and heated some water. “You should stretch, Jaska, but don’t strain yourself.”
He began the simplest stretching routine, the one first taught to orphans recruited by the palymfar. His movements were limited but he did his best. Eventually he paused, brooding about the young orphans who always adored him.
“Still thinking of your students?”
“Yes. I can’t bear having taught them how best to commit evil upon others.”
With a hand on his back, she guided him to the pool. “Kneel.”
Zyrella rinsed his head with the hot water then smoothed a few drops of oil across his scalp.
Jaska’s body tensed, his eyes narrowed. “I molded them into what they are, and now I must see them destroyed. Each and every one.” His voice sounded so cold and relentless. Chills ran down Zyrella’s back. “I’ll do whatever I must to restore the palymfar to what they once were, to what they should be. I won’t rest until then. You were right, Zyrella, I can’t give up. I have too much work to do, too much to atone for.”
Zyrella cringed at what she had unleashed, even though it was what they needed. He would have been better off had they let him die. But he had been born for this work. This was the destiny Salahn had feared. She only hoped Jaska’s turning hadn’t come too late.
As Jaska returned to his pallet, Ohzikar crept away from the cave entrance where he had been listening in hiding. He didn’t understand Zyrella’s attraction to the man, and he wasn’t sure what he should do about it.
~~~~
Jaska spent three days walking and stretching, eating as much as he could, and building up his strength. Complete recovery would take much longer. The Jaska Bavadi of old had moved with supreme efficiency and complete awareness. Stiffness plagued him now, and worse, his mind was scattered to the winds, broken by the realizations of what he’d done.
The three sat together in the cave, eating but speaking little. Distrust hung between Jaska and Ohzikar. The qavra’s presence did little to help. Jaska’s eyes often strayed to it, and a forlorn, desiring look plagued his face. Ohzikar countered with a narrow-eyed scowl. Jaska had many days to go before his addiction would break if it were even half as strong as those opiate addictions Ohzikar had witnessed.
Suddenly, a chalk rune on the cave’s ceiling flared a brilliant white. Ohzikar leapt to his feet and grabbed his weapons. Zyrella put out the fire.
“I’ll scout the canyon,” Ohzikar said.
Zyrella hugged him as the rune faded. “Be careful.”
“What’s going on?” Jaska asked.
Ohzikar ducked outside as Zyrella replied. “Someone attempted to scry us. They weren’t successful. Otherwise, the rune beside that one would have flared as well.”
“I should go with him. I know how they operate. I probably taught them.”
Zyrella put a hand on his arm. “Let Ohzikar do it. Save your strength. He knows what he’s doing. We fought palymfar with the resistance, while you were away helping Karphon take Xampaji. Besides, Ohzikar is wearing a scrying ward and you aren’t.”
“I feel useless.”
“Now you know how I feel most of the time. Ohzi and my other templar guards have always …” Her voice choked and Jaska looked away.
“I’m sorry …”
“It wasn’t you. Another man and his acolytes killed them. It’s done, and there’s nothing we can do to change it.” Zyrella drew one of his students’ qavra from the pouch tied to her belt sash. “As for fighting the enemy, I have cleansed this qavra of palymfar spells for you. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to purify your original.”
With an expression of distaste, Jaska eyed the small jet stone embedded in the leather choker. “I can’t.”
“But you must. Without your powers, you won’t be strong enough to combat Salahn.”
“I will manage.”
“That’s a lie, and you know it.”
“What if all palymfar qavra can betray me?”
“Impossible. With this one I have erased the previous owner’s aura. No spells exist within it, nor does one exist on you.”
“But even a lesser qavra such as that one might awaken things within me. Things that I have buried in the past. The old methods may entice me into committing the old acts again.”
“If so, you will have to conquer those things. To succeed, we need all your abilities. You know I’m right.”
Without looking at her, he nodded. “It must wait, though. I’m not strong enough to bond with the qavra now.”
“I can help you.”
Zyrella held the qavra out toward him. He stared at it. Minutes went by before Jaska reached forward. His fingertips came within inches, but then a look of horror crossed his face and he withdrew. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He licked his lips and furrowed his brow.
“Conquer your fear, conquer the scars Salahn left upon your psyche.”
He leaned forward again and reached, but he still couldn’t do it. Just as his fingers pulled away, Ohzikar returned.
“I spotted four palymfar at the canyon’s entrance. They ventured a little way in and left.”
“We should leave as soon as possible,” Jaska said. “If they didn’t search the canyon, it means they know we’re here.”
“Are you well enough to move on?” Zyrella asked.
“I crossed the wilderness for days in worse condition than this.”
“But that almost killed you. Our position is defensible.”
“It’s not secure enough to survive a full attack,” Jaska said. “Your templar is a good warrior.” The two exchanged dark appraisals. “But even with my help he won’t survive against twelve veteran palymfar.”
Zyrella began to stand, but Jaska stopped her. “I should take that qavra now. It won’t be linked to the others, so they won’t be able to track it. I can use it to detect their positions and aid our retreat. I know spells that will loosen my limbs and boost my strength. And there is one powerful spell I can use against them if it comes to fighting.”
Jaska steeled his nerves and took the qavra. Despite his fears, nothing terrible happened. He raised the leather choker to his neck. He connected the locking studs, drew it to the proper tightness, and fastened the buckles. The specially treated leather fit snug against his neck, covering the pale flesh where a qavra had sat fixed in place for the last eighteen years.
Jaska felt naked no longer. He felt complete and whole. Empowered and confident.
Evil and sadistic, murdering and foul.
Not from sorcery but from memories–nightmares that flooded into his waking mind. Things he had done with the powers such a stone granted. He panicked and shadows flooded his brain. He tore at the qavra until a section of scar tissue opened and bled. He screamed and fell into convulsions.
Ohzikar held him down, and Zyrella soothed him with a chant of sleep that reduced him to tossing and muttering. Fever spread through his body. His limbs flexed into exhaustion, and he descended into a tortured stupor.
~~~~
Ohzikar ripped the canvas sheet from its moorings as he rushed into the cave. “All twelve palymfar are entering the canyon. We have time to slip away, up the back trail, but only if we leave now.”
Zyrella’s breath caught in her throat. The sun was descending, casting shadows in the canyon behind Ohzi. Darkness was falling onto their hopes. She continued to daub Jaska’s tensed face with a cold, wet cloth. Half open, the assassin’s eyes were glazed over.
Somewhat aware of the waking world around him, Jaska muttered an indecipherable reply.
“Ella, we have to go now.”
“He can’t move, Ohzi.”
“Then we must leave him.”
With a cold voice, more lifeless than any he’d ever heard from her, she said, “We will not abandon him.”
Ohzikar knelt and rubbed his hand across her back. “We have no choice. I can’t protect you here. I would carry him, but the trail is too treacherous. Ella, we have nothing if you are lost.”
“No, Ohzi. We have nothing if Jaska is lost. I know you don’t want to face this but you must. Jaska is more important than me. The White Tigress didn’t spend her final free moments giving me instructions. She spent them saving this man. I may be more valuable to you, but Jaska is more important to our cause. If we die defending him, then we die. I cannot help that.”
Ohzikar cursed and stalked to the back of the cave where he tried to marshal his thoughts and emotions. But he couldn’t cool his anger, or his jealousy over how much time and attention she gave to the assassin who had killed their brothers.
Zyrella leaned close to Jaska, whispered and pleaded. “We need you. You must break free. Otherwise, all is lost.” For a moment, she thought his eyes focused on her, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Tear that damn choker off him,” Ohzikar said. “If you won’t leave him behind, at least give him a chance to wake.”
They had discussed this a half-dozen times after she had confirmed that the stone contained no active energies and that this must be caused by a reaction within his mind.
She spun and nearly shouted. “We don’t know that he’ll wake without it! He may become further lost to us. The qavra will remain in place.”
“But, we must–”
“I know that is the right thing to do. I will not be persuaded or threatened otherwise. I am the High Priestess of the White Tigress, and you will obey me in this. Now, I suggest, captain, that you see to our defense as best as you can.”
“As you wish, high priestess.”
Tears streamed from Zyrella’s eyes as Ohzikar harshly packed the last of their gear. She hated fighting with him and rarely did so. She promised herself she would make up with him before they faced the enemy. She couldn’t bear to think of anger hanging between them when death came.