[Story] Echoes Part the First

[Solivar]

This was not quite how he imagined it happening.

Shadowglen's village church was just that -- a simple, one-room chapel of classic design, its walls of unadorned wood and plaster pierced here and there with windows of leaded glass, its floor milled stone covered in rough-hewn wooden planks, its pews simple backless benches crafted from the boles of trees halved and sanded smooth, the platform and pulpit lectern raised only a few inches off the floor. On holy-days and feast-days it would be just enough to serve the village's population; now, withShadowglen's numbers swollen with desperate refugees from the Eastlands , it was inadequate for nearly anything beyond acting as a local operations coordination point, and that only barely. The pews were all pushed and stacked against the walls, for example, to make room for the camp table upon which was spread a map of allLordaeron , covered in carved red and blue counters marking the relative positions of forces according to the most recent intelligence. This was also moved as far into a corner as it could be, given its size, to make the center of the room as much a proper aisle as it could be under the circumstances.

On each side of that aisle stood a rather harried-looking acolyte, clad in the nearest approximation of a formal white robe as could be managed on such short notice, holding a candle -- hour candles, he couldn't help noticing with something perilously close to hysterical amusement, burned half their length by the long nights spent at labor they were all presently enjoying. Under normal circumstances, there would have been at least a dozen, waving censers of incense, intoning the call and responsory prayers that were supposed to attend moments such as this, for the edification of both the audience and the celebrants. There was, in fact, no audience of any kind, for which he felt a strange, tangled reaction, half-relief (for he found the public ostentation so beloved of senior prelates and legates and other high Church officials of all stripes rather off-putting much of the time) and half-regret (for, he could not help but wonder, would his father and brother have bothered to make the journey fromQuel'Thalas , even if the time had existed to summon them and a raging war with the dead not lay between? He doubted it, frankly, and wished that he could do otherwise). Nor were there the traditional, though not strictly required, ranks of witnesses drawn from the Order itself, the men and women who would shortly become his sword-kin, his comrades in arms. He was neither surprised nor disappointed by their absence -- nearly every blade and every hammer and every healer in the service of the Silver Hand was deployed in the field and he did not doubt that, were the situation not so desperate, the need for more of those skilled hands not so dire, he would not be standing inShadowglen's chapel at all yet.

But he was, and High Legate Fairbanks, resplendent in the formal robes of his office, was standing at the lectern glaring down that intimidating beak of a nose with the book already open and waiting, flanked two to a side by the four knight-celebrants the ritual required. He advanced down the aisle, head high and eyes straight, acutely aware of the six days it had been since he'd addressed matters of personal grooming with more than a lick and a promise, much less changed clothes, the painful dryness of his throat, and the fact that he absolutely could not recall the proper order of theresponsory vows he was about to swear no matter how hard he cudgeled his brain for the information. At Fairbanks' feet, he knelt and bowed his head, an expression he knew was quite some distance from properly serene and confident thankfully concealed behind the curtain of his own sun-golden hair.

Fairbanks had the sort of rich, melodious voice that would have made him beloved of any congregation in Lordaeron, and probably a few in Quel'Thalas: it filled the chapel and spilled out the cracked-open windows, drawing startled attention from passers-by outside. "In the Light, we gather to empower our brother. In its grace, he will be made anew. In its power, he shall educate the masses. In its strength, he shall combat the shadow. And in its wisdom, he shall lead his brethren to the eternal rewards of paradise."

He looked up in time to find Fairbanks laying the scriptural aside, taking up the blue stole and the small crystal ampule of holy oil, and offered the High Legate his hand to aid the step down from the altar platform. Fairbanks had, he thought, a reassuringly firm grip, though the Legate's expression remained stern as he draped the blue stole, stiff with silver embroidery, over his own neck and touched the tip of one slender finger, slick with the fragrant, blessed oil, to the very center of his forehead. "By the grace of the Light, may your brethren be healed. Knights of the Silver Hand, if you deem this man worthy, lay your blessings upon him."

He found that he knew all four of the knights gathered here, and also found that more than a little comforting; he rather doubted that they would hold it against him if he made an absolute fool of himself the moment he opened his mouth. SirTyrosus stepped forward, holding a long, slim bundle swathed in a length of blue silk, smiling as he commonly did with only one corner of his mouth. Not for the first time, he regretted that the field hospital had not been able to save that eye, though he appeared to be adapting well to the lack.Tyrosus knelt and laid the silk-wrapped bundle at his knees, opening it to reveal not the traditional warhammer -- or even a lighter mace -- but an unsheathed sword: long, slender, single-edged and chisel-tipped in the traditional Quel'dorei fashion -- more than the fashion, he realized, and caught his breath as he recognized the maker's-mark etched into the flat of the blade. Its hilt was wrapped in blue-dyed leather and its pommel carved in the shape of awarhammer's head. His master came forward next, but the plates Lord Mograine laid over his shoulders were not the heavy, ceremonial trappings but smooth, freshly oiled steel that perfectly fit the curves of muscle, thepauldrons of the field armor made to his own measurements, armor he guessed he would need sooner rather than later. Lord Mograine stepped back, a genuine smile, the first in many days, came to stay on his weary face. "By the strength of the Light, may your enemies be undone."

Fairbanks made the traditional gesture of benediction. "Arise and be recognized."

He gathered his sword into the crook of his arm and did so, trying to work enough moisture into his mouth to speak in something other than a croak.

"Do you, Solivar Eventide, vow to uphold the honor and the codes of the Order of the Silver Hand?"

He swallowed hard and murmured, rather more huskily than usual, "I do."

"Do you vow to walk in the grace of the Light and spread its wisdom to your fellow man?"

"I do." That came out better, as the hours they had all spent rehearsing this moment came rushing back all at once, bringing something like assurance with it. He wondered, for the briefest of instance, whereAretegos was -- none of them had doubted, for an instant, that he would be the first of their number to receive this honor, and it seemed strange, almost wrong, that he wasn't one of the knights attending...

"Do you vow to vanquish evil wherever it be found, and protect the innocent with your very life?"

"By my blood and honor, I do."

Legate Fairbanks smiled, a swift but true expression, and addressed the assembled acolytes and paladins. "Brothers and sisters, you who have gathered here to bear witness, raise your hands and let the Light illuminate this man."

It rolled over him swiftly, spilling forth from the upraised hands of his master, the brothers and sisters to whom he had just sworn his life and honor, winding around him in all-encompassing brilliance and warmth. In the instant the last days, the last weeks, were washed away, the weariness, the gnawing fear, the ache of half-healed injuries and wit-slowing weight of not enough sleep. In place of those things came peace and an intense inner stillness, a buoyant serenity he was certain he had never truly felt before that moment, the knowledge that, no matter what might come, his soul was forever wedded to this, to a beauty and grace and brightness greater than himself, greater than them all, that held the world and all its life and death in gentle, mighty hands. A pair of very warm, very real hands came to rest on his shoulders and he opened his eyes -- when had he closed them? -- to find his master's still-illuminated face a few inches from his own, pressing a father's kiss to his forehead, drawing him into a father's warm, tight embrace. His throat tightened almost unbearably and he closed his eyes again before the sudden tears welling there could embarrass them both.

"Well done," Lord Mograine murmured against his ear. "Were you my own I could not be more proud of you now."

"My Lord," He whispered in reply. "I will always be grateful for this, and for you, and for all you did to help me here."

"None of that. You did this, and the honor today is yours." His master stepped back, still holding his shoulders, and gave him a gentle shake. "Your first order, paladin, is to go forth and findKeldris and Talia for me. Drag them back by their ears if you must."

"As my Lord Commander wishes."

Solivar came back to himself covered in blood. This was, by itself, not a completely unusual occurrence: while the undead did not require sleep as the living did, a certain amount of rest, of recuperation time, was necessary in order to maintain intellectual function, to avoid sliding into a state of mindless killing hunger that could not be broken, only appeased. Failure to seek that rest in some form -- quiet meditation, a well-worn physical ritual that required no thought to complete, something, anything -- inevitably had consequences. And, while icy control and vicious precision and utterly serene brutality had been the hallmarks of his personal service, he could not claim that he had never descended to the level of mindless slaughter, returning home toNaxxramas or Acherus mostly clad in the leavings of someone else's life.

He could not remember the last time he had truly rested and so he found himself, for the first time in a very long time, emerging from mindlessness with the blood splashed across his face and hands and hair and weapons still slightly tacky but more dry than not, slumped against a half-familiar half-not gray stone wall. And, rather more annoyingly, with the best part of a largish two-handed sword still transfixing his chest, having penetrated his armor along the weak point of one of the side seams. Gripping the bit of blade he could reach, he gave it an experimental tug and found it most firmly stuck, caught in the grip of bone and muscle and metal. Had he been able to fill his lungs enough for it, he would have uttered a sound of disgust and irritation; as it was, the best he could manage was agurgly metallic wheeze and to heave himself awkwardly to his feet with the aid of a broken weapon rack. In the dim light of the single guttering torch he took stock: whatever other injuries he had suffered, beyond the most obvious and annoying, had repaired themselves and so he at least had no extra hindrances to his mobility to deal with. Looking about, he realized he was in one of the half-ruined towers that dottedLordaeron's landscape like crushed toadstools, one that had seen some recent use, and a glance up showed him by whom: the banner of the Scarlet Crusade hung, sadly defiant, from the single intact ceiling support beam.

He had not been hacked into tartare while too senseless to adequately defend himself, which told him much about the situation. The fresher but still mostly-dried blood-trail across the tower's already deeply bloodstained floor told him even more and as he staggered outside into the misty chill of theTirisfalen night, he found the owner of the sword, collapsed an impressive distance down the ramp given that Frozen Death was still jutting out of her back. It took a few hard tugs on the axe's handle to get the great, curved blade to come free, the rigor of the Scarlet worker-ant's corpse seeming almost reluctant to let it go, and a few more minutes to work up enough air to whistle for thedeathcharger whose burning white hooves he saw further up the twilit, heavily overgrown hill. Moonshadow moved to join him in her own good time, taking the opportunity to browse amongst the red-clad corpses scattered whole and in pieces across the browned and dying heather, tearing a bit off here and there and chewing loudly in what he took to be an extremely reproachful manner. Planting the axe head down and leaning his weight on the haft, he reached out to her with a thread of the power that bound them together. My most humble apologies for leaving you to your own devices for so long. Now spit that out before it gives you rabies.

The deathcharger dropped the gobbet of cartilage she had been gnawing on -- he suspected the remnants of an ear -- and blew a snort at him; for a moment, he swore he could feel something like amusement flowing at him through the bond between them. Then her velvety nose touched his side and her tongue lapped at the fresh blood the exertion of simply getting up and walking had drawn and all appeared to be forgiven. She let him take hold of her reins and even lean some weight on her neck as he struggled into the saddle, kneeing her gently into motion.Moonshadow set her own course and traveled it at a mercifully slow, non-jarring pace given the state of the terrain while he clung to saddle with one hand and his axe with the other, and tried to put his mind back in order.

That was, to his frustration, no simple task. Darkness lurked at the edges of his being, surging in like a shadowy sea at high tide, flowing over his mind and washing bits and pieces of thought, fragments of memory, tantalizingly into and out of reach. Hour candles. He had absolutely no idea why his head should be full of the thought of hour candles, but it was. In his mind's eye a great stone wall loomed out of the rugged hills and needle-carpeted floor of a great evergreen forest, its gates lowered and barred against the miserable refugees who huddled hard by it for the illusion of safety it provided. Greymane Wall. He had ridden to the old border of Gilneas and Lordaeron, there to meet with...a brother. Several -- sword-kin of the Ebon Blade, and the Forsaken warrior whose path had crossed his own with startling regularity of late. He could not remember why he had done so, or what had passed between them, but the sense of violent disquiet he had felt afterwards lingered strongly enough that he flinched away from examining it too closely, the darkness swimming behind his eyes threatening to drag him down again. For a moment it was all he could do to cling to his saddle and force himself to focus on things beyond himself: the sound of his deathcharger's hooves striking the ground, the rhythmic motion of her stride, the taste of the cold night air. Slowly, the shadows receded, taking with them the perturbation that threatened to completely undo his self-control -- and nearly everything else, as well. Except the damned hour candles.

Moonshadow's saronite-clad hooves struck stone and he looked up and about. The road was not one of the ruined, overgrown traces strewn across the Tirisfalen hills, marking the lost places where the living walked before the plague came to devour them, but a well-maintained thoroughfare, the verge trimmed back and the paving stones clearly maintained.

"The highroad linking Brill and Shadowglen is clear of the dead and secure its length, but we will need more men to maintain that state of security. Moreover...if the Bulwark defenses are overrun...we will need reinforcements that will not have to fight their way to us from the Eastlands. I therefore propose..."

He heard the voice as clearly as if the speaker were standing beside him, a voice he had known long and well, and the pain of hearing it again now that its owner was lost was stunning. He jerked Moonshadow's reins more roughly than he meant, and sent her cantering south toward Brill, letting the nagging discomfort of the sword stuck through him drown out the sharper ache of hearing Alexandros Mograine's voice again. The ride was just far enough to render him completely physically wretched, making less easily manageable miseries fade thankfully into the background. Moonshadow slowed of her own recognizance as they approached the town limits, dropping from a canter to a slow jog and from there to a sedate walk, ignoring all instruction from his knees or the reins and made straight for the stable, where a visibly bored Forsaken hand lounged on the steps outside, the remnants of his teeth grinding lower still on the shoe-nail clenched between them.

Something deeply unpleasant came and went in his marshlight-yellow eyes, the remnants of his lips curling back in an expression that could not be called a smile by even the most imaginative. "Mounting block's around the side, sir knight. Do call if you need help."

Solivar was becoming rather inured to the lack of pleasantries among the vast bulk of the Forsaken, who seemed to find the existence of well-preserved -- or, at the very least, less obviously rotten -- undead to be a vast personal affront aimed directly at them by Arthas himself. Knowing as he did the Lich King's propensity for inflicting petty torments, they likely had a point about that, and so he bowed as best he could from the saddle in thanks. The mounting block did, in fact, make getting down considerably easier and the hand took Moonshadow's reins and silver enough to see her well cared for civilly and even pointed the way to the smithy without much noticeable condescension.

The smiths gave their names as Abe and Oliver and it took the combined powers of both of them, an enormous pair of tongs, and a considerable amount of heat applied directly to his armor around the point of penetration to actually get the sword removed. It came out in stages, with three separate hard jerks, and emerged smoking and pitted in a fountain of dark blood that struck the smithy floor with a hiss and crackle and immediately crumbled a good two feet of stone into mingled black and gray dust. His body, of course, began reordering itself at once, the contractions of reconnecting muscles and reorienting bones forcing involuntary sounds of discomfort out of his mouth along with quite a bit more blood from his ruptured lungs, adding to the ruination of the floor. Once he was recovered enough to speak, he rasped out, "Add the cost of your floor to my repair bill, if you would."

Abe Winters made no promises concerning the reparability of the armor given its punctured and now heat-warped state, but was more than willing to accept his pledge to pay for the floor and to point him in the direction of accommodations more pleasing than a bedroll in the stable loft. "The Gallow's End has rooms to let upstairs, sir knight, and unless you feel like taking your rest in a box propped against the wall you'll not find better even in the Undercity."

He had passed through Brill some weeks before and had, in fact, passed the last hours he'd spent with his sister-in-arms Unquiet in the Gallows taproom, though he had not been back since their parting. The innkeeper, Mistress Renee, looked him up and down upon his entrance and tossed him a damp bar towel to press to his still rather sodden ribs. "Well aren't you a pretty sight to see again. What was it you were called? We get so many of your kind passing through these days."

He had, when first they met, given her a different name, the name he had worn in the service of the Lich King, but now is tongue rebelled against saying it. "Solivar. Solivar Eventide. It is good to be back in your fine establishment."

She laughed, an oddly pleasant sound. "That's not what you said the first time, but we'll let it pass. How may my fine establishment serve you, Sir Eventide?"

"Sir Eventide."

That voice echoed in his ears again, and he forced himself not to start and to attend the question he was asked. "A room for the time being and a bath, if one's available."

The rooms in the Gallow's End contained real beds, mattresses stuffed with straw ticking regularly replaced, laid with linens and blankets and pillows still sweet-smelling from the closet herbs they were stored with, touches mostly intended for the tavern's occasional living patrons but which he appreciated nonetheless. He left his traveling gear locked in the chest provided and descended the stairs, looking forward to laying on something softer than a cut granite floor or a patch of ground for a change. The bathtub, a simple thing made entirely of cut and welded tin was brought up from some forgotten corner of the tavern's basement, required some cleaning out before it could be used but with the addition of several buckets of steaming water proved more than adequate to the task at hand. He washed the dried and clotted blood out of his hair first, using water reserved for that purpose and a chunk of soap that smelt of the same herbs that perfumed the bed-linens, and then climbed in for a relatively soporific soak. The chamber-maid, who'd helped him carry the bath out back and clean it, gathered up his bloody, mostly-ruined clothes with a sound that likely would have resembled tongue-clicking disapproval had she a fully intact tongue and returned a short time later with an actual towel and a light linen robe to wrap himself in once he was done.

It felt...good to sink into warm water again and a careful moment spent sorting through the contents of his mind yielded no memories of a recent vintage concerning such matters, though he suspected he'd enjoyed a nice bath when he still lived. He certainly had nothing to complain of now, scrubbing himself clean with a length of fresh linen cloth and letting the heat of the water lend him the illusion of human warmth. Sighing, he sank down until the tip of his chin touched the water and permitted his eyes to drift closed, luxuriating in the buoyant warmth...

A pair of very warm, very real hands came to rest on his shoulders and he opened his eyes -- when had he closed them? -- to find his master's still-illuminated face a few inches from his own, pressing a father's kiss to his forehead, drawing him into a father's warm, tight embrace. "Find them. Keldris and Talia. You must find them."

His eyes flew open, truly open, and for an instant the image of his master's face hung swimming before them, almost painfully radiant, brilliance slowly fading into ashen shadows. The words, by way of contrast, did not fade at all.

"Keldris and Talia." He whispered to himself, and reached for the towel, moment of motionless peace abruptly at an end. "Find them? What if I do, and they are gone beyond recall? What do you suggest I do then?"

To that question there was, almost blessedly, no answer.

[~Kaiden~]

Great story Solivar. Your descriptions of people, places and events made it like being there. The lore usage makes the story believable and credible. Thanks for great writing.

Yes, you must find them.

[Chabindi]

I am enjoying this very VERY much!