Free At Last

"Death in some gladiatorial arena," came the grumbling voice of Siobhan, proud Blood Knight of the Sacrament, now reduced to this. "Wasting away in some foul dungeon. Torture at the hands of brutes. Made into some man-monster's plaything." She chuckled at the thought, contemptible as it was. "But not this. I never imagined this."

She reached into the froth, questing forth for another filthy relic of these monster-men, amidst the murky morass. Her hands found a thing of bone, twisted and spiked, having pierced countless hides, and seen the inside of creatures she'd rather not contemplate, a hundred times over.

The bone fork was easy to clean, with only a few clinging bits of some forsaken meat clinging to it. A quick scrub, and it went into the rack with the rest of the dishes.

As she'd done for several nights now, Siobhan slaved away, scrubbing dishes from some feast the monster-folk had enjoyed, no doubt at her expense. And, as every job she'd ever done, she did it with her full attention, her best effort, and her complete committment. To the consternation of her companion, of course.

"Why do you bother?" he asked, as if the question hadn't been broached a dozen times. "Do you think you're earning some special consideration? Some preferable fate? What do these monsters have to offer but death at the end of a sword? Or axe? Or some even less civilized weapon?"

She'd not known Blackpool all that long--certainly not as long as their common point of contact, Travelyan--but she knew he was no child of privilege. Quite the opposite, the rattiest of street rats, saved from the depths of the gutter by his illustrious patron, offered the chance to "greater things" such as--doing exactly as he'd always done to survive, but now to serve some other's man's profit. And she expected better.

"The thing about captors, young one," she explained while scraping some particularly stubborn starches off a pewter plate, "is that they want nothing more than disobedience, than suffering. If you complain--" she strained herself, barely dislodging some disgusting lump of what some Drooamite dared to name 'food' before sending the plate to the pile--"if you winge and wail, cry for mommy, spit curses at them, whatever it is...that's just a sign that you're weak, and that they're winning. You know what you should say when they stack another stone on you, and your ribs start to crack, and you can't breathe, and you're sure you'll die?"

And they said it together, for she'd delivered the lesson three times already, even though he seemed unable to grasp it. She wasn't one to give up on a task.

"More weight," they said together, as she stacked the last of the dirty dishes on the rack. The filth-water began to drain, and she wasted no time in carting the rack to the cleaning machine that would scour the rest of the monster-filth from the vessels, readying them for another sortie with the hands of mouths of heathens.

"So you've said. And yet, I somehow can't shake the feeling that we exist only insofar as we have value to our enemies. We can either offer that value--and subsequently die--or try to mortgage our value for freedom, or at least comforts, in the vain hope of some sort of rescue. Which surely wouldn't come in a thousand years."

Siobhan sighed as she locked the rack in place and closed the door. Truly, this contraption was clever. The men of Galifar had busied themselves building airships, tanks, warforged, guns, and bombs. And so it seemed, the witches of Droaam had invented something far more important: machines to take the toil of washing dishes, laundering clothes, cleaning floors, and all of the invisible work that forms the true foundation of civilization. I wonder, she dared to think, what could women do, if such toil were taken on by machines?

Switching the infernal contraption on, she bought herself a moment of respite, although her mind already turned to future tasks and the path to ascension. This was an opportunity to educate, and she had a duty, after all.

"Faith is unyielding, young one. There may be no gods above that will deliver us from toil, from peril and ruin, but that does not mean they do not open doors. The Divine helps those who help themselves, little one. It does not do the work for you, but it does not forget you, nor give up on you, at least until you give up on yourself."

It was an invitation, one she was sure he would refuse. But, somehow, this time, he relented. Gathering himself into a solid mass--clearly not his preference--he formed a proper human body, so he could bag the trash and take it to the garbage dump. When he returned, she helped him wash, and, with the hope only the faithful can know, anointed his dedications with a bit of scripture: "It is not our purpose to toil. It is our toil that gives us Purpose."

"Yes, very deep. You should send that to the Chronicle, there's a special page for that kind of drivel."

She laughed him off. For centuries, she had known toil in a dozen forms the child couldn't imagine. This was but a chapter in a long saga, whose ending was known but to the Divine. Rescue wasn't a vain hope. It was a certainty--in life, or in death.

And it just so happened, it would be in life.

Night had fallen, and rest came with it. Simple, humble, and no less worth savoring than the previous thirty-thousand nights, Siobhan contented in her bed of straw and mud, even as Blackpool whined and kvetched, as per usual. She'd hardly had the heart to talk him down from his usual tirade, tired out by the extra load sent her way by the festivities of the victors above.

Perhaps it was their festivity, their certainty of victory, that blinded them to the dangers that yet lurked. Or, maybe they just didn't care. It hardly mattered.

When he appeared, she was ready. The Divine had made its will manifest. "Dame Siobhan," he began, regarding her from beyond the iron bars of her cell.

"I stand ready. The blood in my veins is hot as ever. The Faith is--"

He cut her off. "Useless. You had one job, and you couldn't hack it. Your friends had the decency to die." He turned his back to her, regarding her fellow prisoner. She was hardly one to be wounded by such derision, but surely the Divine hadn't sent him for such a petty exchange.

"My strength is uncompromised. I'm ready to fight again. I've lost nothing that cannot be regained in a single battle! Open this door and I shall prove myself anew!" She reailed against her bars, but Travelyan's image ignored her, instead regarding the sleeping form of Blackpool.

"When I met him, he was just some unremarkable wretch, a street rat's get, another starving orphan on the streets of Korth. A stray spell, meant for a proper foe, which the Fates decided should end his life--at least as anything we would call human. The poor thing was just a lump of flesh, begging for death, but in my ignorance, I thought myself capable of saving it. The best I could do was this, this...half-existence. And yet, he proved useful, far more so than some beggar child, some thief-get who could snatch a loaf of bread from time to time. This way, he could be a perfect spy, an assassin, a true asset. So consumed was I in my...duty...that I didn't give him the death he deserved."

Siobhan knew all about duty. Far more, she suspected, then the so-called master of the Dark Arts that Travelyan claimed to be. Sure, he was accomplished, as humans go. But for all his travails, all his hard-earned experience, his grandparents were babes when Shiobhan's most formative experiences were etched into her being like runes in stone. He didn't have the slightest respect for her, nor the others he'd chewed through. She never dared mistake him for a true member of the faith, but now more than ever, he seemed the antithesis of all her beliefs.

"Quintus, don't you even think--"

"Thinking is my job, dame. Smashing and slicing is--was--yours. And you've proven ineffective at it." He never let his gaze wander, and he began conjuring fel magic, aiming his wizardly intent on the sleeping boy.

The Sacrament, she would be the first to admit, is not a faith for everyone. Its most basic tenets require acknowledging that the Cosmos, rather than existing solely to produce a tiny planet with a single chosen race, who must merely make a few right choices about food and sexual gratification, and thus achieve eternal pleasure, is in fact a vast place, vaster than is comfortable to comprehend. The Divine does exist, but it exists for reasons the lesser races do not decide, and certainly not to serve their preferences. Mortals exist at the sufferance of the Divine, not the other way around. And yet, it provides a path--a hard one, admittedly--but a path to greatness. Mortals have the capacity to rise above their animal nature, to be more Divine than Primal, and to ascend to worthiness. But only through effort, through deeds and works, never through entitlement. Never by status.

"Not through Faith alone," she chanted, as the ancient scripture read, as every cell in her body believed. "But by works."

He didn't listen. He was intent on his magic, working up some terrible fate for his failed spy and assasin. "You poor wretch. I did you wrong by sparing you that day. It was never in your capacity to serve ably. Return now to the void that ought to have claimed you." As he worked his magic, he finally bothered to regard Siobhan, albeit without so much as inclining his head in her vague direction.

"Not to worry, I'll deal with this, and have you out of here in a moment. I have a use for you yet." Dark power crackled between his fingers, and evil potential clouded the sleeping boy, as the magic promised to make good on its purpose.

"No."

A simple word. The simplest, perhaps. The woman possessed no weapon, no tool, no armor, no status, no advantage whatsoever against the mighty sorcerer. And had everything to gain from capitulating to him.

"What?" he demanded, momentarily distracted from his task.

"No." she repeated, matter-of-factly. She had only one thing to offer, and Travelyan's image was happy to oblige. In his anger, his bruised ego demanded rectification. He swung his rage in her direction, casting all his necrotic power unto her, simply to punish, and to demonstrate his inevitable rightness.

She could only endure.

Something she'd trained for since long before Galifar shattered, since before men bothered to wonder what faith moved the hearts of elves. Something she'd forged in a hundred vigils, in a thousand devotions, in countless acts of toil and service.

Her body was ravaged, but more ravages it could endure, for the sake of faith, for the sake of Truth, and the truth of the Divine. If she could save one life, even for another moment, she could endure tenfold the torment he had on offer.

And this night, as countless others had proven, the Divine does not forget the faithful.

As he cast his bolts of darkness into her, he did not notice the hand of Fate coming for him. As he twisted Shadow to his purpose, so did Shadow form a purpose of its own. The void blade pierced his false heart, sucking and negating the magical energy that bound his icy form into shape. With a gurgle of surprise, his frozen form, perhaps capable (if momentarily) of feeling the pain and sudden, terrible realization of its own mortality, dissolved in a horrible moment, bursting into a rain of snow.

Siobhan was not well, beyond hope of recovery alone. Elise regarded her, in the silent darkness of her cell.

"Hmm," she mused, weighing her options. The soul energy in her blade, but a fraction of the invader's, did offer a number of possibilities. And she could justify any of them. But envisioning the inevitable report to the Warchief, she made her decision, entering Siobhan's cell, and gathering the energy of the fallen to its purpose.