The Story Continues ... My Nephew the Crusader
#1
We last saw Angeleyes leaving Haragoth as the world began to tremble with the end of Baal and Tyrael's decision to destroy the Worldstone. She headed out of town with one mule, her nephew and a badly wounded Gulzar in tow. I have tried to piece together what happened for the next 20 years, and will cover some of that in Chapter II of the Prologue. The fate of Orthas and Aliza probably needs to be wrapped up. I have included what I know of the Crusader class to try and fit it into Mikal's story. The opening chapter of the Reaper of Souls phase in the life of the Rogue with a Heart (turned Mage Slayer). Her dismay and feeling of deja vu as regards Diablo, Lord of Terror, will become apparent as the story grows.

Prologue Part I --

Moving westward across a stony field, two figures leading horses emerge through the thin, misty gloom of an early autumn afternoon as they follow an overgrown wagon trail.
They stop abruptly.
The shorter of the two kneels, placing both hands on the cold, damp ground.
"The ley lines are still here, but they have weakened" she says, in the clear voice of a woman. "The standing stones should be due west of here."
The broad shouldered figure next to her nods, remaining silent.

They resume walking. The mist and the overcast sky lend a dreary air to their journey.
Both figures wear cloaks and hoods, presumably to keep out the cool, damp air. Hers is a nondescript gray/green weave of wool and something else, spattered with bits of mud and turf around the hem. Her traveling companion’s cloak was once a shade of white, but is now stained green, brown, and red with alternating splotches of grass, mud, and dried blood. Below the filthy cloak, iron shod boots, heavy and spurred, dig into the turf with each lengthy stride. Her light tan, un-soled footwear seems to barely touch the ground as she glides forward.
An odd couple, this pair.

Abruptly, she stops and raises a hand.
"There.”
She now points and looks directly at him, a trace of challenge in her tone as she states, ‘’There are the standing stones."
A baritone voice rolls out of her companion.
"I never lost faith in your memory, only in your sense of direction. Let's have a look at these stones."

As the two move closer, the looming shapes resolve into five obelisks, roughly three times the height of a tall man, sunk into the earth in ages past.
Closer inspection reveals the layout – the five stones are arranged as the points of a perfect pentagon, or a pentagram. At the center is a barren spot where no grass grows. Otherwise the vicinity of the stone monument is unremarkable. A few score paces to the west of the stones, a similarly sized obelisk lies on its side, covered in moss.

The man pulls back his hood to reveal broad cheekbones, a strong jaw, gray-green eyes, and a shaven head. The outline of a suit of armor is poorly hidden by his stained cloak. The cloak’s left breast sports a symbol that looks like a badly drawn pitchfork stitched in a deep shade of red. He is above average in height, taller than his companion. The horse he leads is large, a draft horse or war hose. He moves with a powerful, purposeful stride.

The contrast with his companion is striking as she lets her hood drop back to her shoulders. Tall and lean, she leads a courser and moves with a light gait. Her cropped white hair is held out of her eyes by a narrow band of gray silk. Her face shows signs of approaching middle age, her eyes show deep and hard experience. For most of her life, those two gray green eyes held a barely concealed twinkle. Now, these eyes give her face an unsettling aspect above perfect cheekbones, a medium sized nose, and a slightly wider than average mouth.
This mouth, set in a slight frown, bursts into a smile that transforms her face into a visage unrecognizable from the instant before.

"Nephew, you should know better than to doubt my lead in this part of the world.”
A sly, needling tone creeps into her voice as she finishes. “As you like to say ... have some faith."
Her eyebrows raise slightly as she awaits his riposte.

The man grimaces as he touches each of the obelisks in turn.
"Faith or not, Aunt, I feel no power, no Light, no life in these stones. You told me that they would offer a portal to Tristram, as they did in my father's day."
He pauses, waving his right hand around in a slow half circle.
"I see no portal. These stones are as dead as that tree you took me to in that dark wood. Another failed lead, Aunt, with no leaves, no fruit, and no life ... just an old tree rotting with age in a barren county."
Her smile fades. Muttering something about serpents’ teeth and children, she turns from him and moves quickly to touch each stone in sequence. She pauses, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing does.
She moves again, touching each stone in a different order.
Nothing.

Eyes narrowing, she reaches up on the easternmost stone, fingers feeling for and then tracing the worn impression of a rune in the inner face of the obelisk. Approaching each stone in turn, she does the same four more times. All she feels is the cold rock under her finger tips. There is no hint of the old blue glow that once greeted those who knew the stones’ secrets -- secrets that would open a shimmering blue portal.

Sensing that she is lost in memory, he walks to the horses. He turns to watch her, holding both sets of reins lightly. She continues her little ritual. After numerous attempts at the circle of stones, in each case reaching up to the runes in a different order, she stops, stills herself, and sits at the very center of the stone circle -- the bare spot -- legs crossed and hands on her knees, eyes closed.

The man reaches up to his horse, and loosens a large wrapped bundle.
"We may be more successful in solving your mystery in the light of a new dawn, Aunt. We can make a camp here.
I see little evidence of Kazrah in these parts, but I need you to set a few snares just in case. One can't be too careful in the wilds. The ambush in the marshes cost me – cost us -- dearly.”
His jaw sets for a moment.
“The ley lines didn't help us there, nor did the shelter of a ruined tower."

The woman remains silent as he drops the bundle to the ground and begins to untie the rope holding it together.
She raises a hand, eyes still closed, when she hears him fiddling with the rope.
"Stop. We have some daylight left. I know where the old travel point is from here. The old ley lines will allow us to travel via other means."

The young man shakes his head, the restraint of patience heavy in his words.
"Aunt, we haven't traveled by other than foot, boat, or horse since you took us through that portal into Harogath when I was a boy – twenty years ago. The Sisters at the Monastery could not activate the old energy fields when we came west through the mountain pass. They told you, and I believe them, that the nature of the Worldforce has changed forever with the Worldstone's destruction.”
He sighs and continues, trying to sound less exasperated.
“I don't begrudge you the miles of this journey. I am young and have traveled far since my apprenticeship began. My quest, my mission, requires me to range far and wide."
He pauses, searching for the right words.
"Forgive me for saying this, please, but you may have lost the talent for traveling the ley lines when you let go of the shadow."

Her eyes flash open, her nostrils flare, and she leaps up from sitting.
She spins to face him, a move that charges the air with energy.
Then her hands go to her mouth, covering it.
Whatever she was going to say dies behind her fingers.
Her hands fall.
She breaths out. In. Out. In. Out.

"These stones point to the old ley line intersection, Mikal. Put that back on your horse and follow me. It isn't me that does the way-traveling, nor the wayward power of shadow. The Horadrim harnessed the power of the world itself. The original Monastery in Tristram was built by the Horadrim when their power waxed. So too the Cathedral it grew into."

With a grunt he pauses, and stops untying the rope.
The near display of temper is a danger sign. He hasn't seen that flash in her eyes since before she'd permitted him to apprentice with that Crusader: Miklanjou.

His memory takes him back to that look, and the heel of her hand striking the face of a man who was too forward with her in that tavern in the mountains, back in the town of Orehold, the mining settlement they called home for most of his youth. In vivid recall, he hears again the crack of her hand hitting that bearded face. He sees the man's head snap sharply to the right, the eyes glaze, then the body sagging and collapsing to the ground.
His aunt hung up and forsook the blade talons of the Viz Jaq Taar -- Mage Slayers -- long ago, but her hands are still formidable weapons. The pile of dead goatmen recently left to the scavenger birds of the marsh was testimony to that.

He carefully reties the bundle, takes it back to his horse, and then fastens it behind the saddle. He mounts and sits patiently until she finally jogs to her courser and leaps lightly into the saddle.
She walks her courser up to one of the stones, and then directly to the stone across circle and to the right.
"Follow me." Her voice is flat, the command unmistakable.
Gently kicking her horse in the ribs, she urges it into a trot.

Mikal follows, marveling once again at how self-confident his aunt could be when she wasn't feeling the sorrow of the sins and errors of her past. Give her a purpose, or give her a mission, and you could watch twenty years and a mountain of pain, pain that would crush a yeti like a small bug, fall from her like snow from an evergreen.

It had been a hard argument to make to his Master, an argument in contradiction to his vow to let go of his past. Traveling into the unknown (to them) West, they had needed a guide to New Tristram. By chance or by Fate, they met Auntie Ange in Lut Gholein. Once the shock of reunion had faded, his needs focused on the practical.

He had proposed to include in his quest the only blood kin left to him in the world, the woman who had allowed him to apprentice to a Crusader. This woman was the loving, demanding aunt who had shed the bitter tears of the abandoned when he walked into his future as a man, into the Light, nine years ago.
He had argued to his Master that she had always served the Light, as an acolyte of the Sightless Eye, then as Mage Slayer in pursuit of Vizjeri demon summoners. She was no less a servant of the Light as a Sister of the Thousand Eyes, the hands and feet of Ytar.

He had argued with vehemence that the woman who had buried her blade talons into the brains of Tal Rasha, the wizard possessed by the demonlord Baal, deserved an exception to the rules so strictly followed by those who followed the True Light. How could one who had helped end the reign of destruction Baal had wrought all over Sanctuary not be worthy of their trust?

He got what he asked for: his Master’s acquiescence and a guide to New Tristram.
His Master had once warned him: “Be careful of what you wish for, Mikal, for you will surely get it.”

He had argued himself into losing his Master in combat with the horde of enchanted Kazrah warriors, a foe who rose out of the Khanduran marshes from nowhere. The stench of demonic sorcery had burned his nostrils as they fought and smashed the horned demons with the desperation of the doomed and surrounded.
Should he regret his choice?
Should Mikal have charged the bloated goat shaman and his guard of champions?
Should his target have been the demon surrounded in bands of glowing energy, rather than the pack of Kazrah surrounding their guide -- his flesh and blood? She'd been beset by a second wave of goatmen after the initial skirmish had pushed the ambushers back.
Had the Light led him to save the right life?
Had the Light led him to a brief salvation?
Only the Light knew, and the Light had not yet revealed that mystery … as with much else.

Mikal was spared the mortal burns that seared the flesh from his Master's body and ripped the limbs from his powerful torso, spraying the landscape with shattered armor, body parts, and the fragments of his holy shield.

Rubbing his left hand with his right, he feels the damaged nerves on the back of his wrist where the explosion of arcane power had burned through his gauntlet with a combined sensation of cold, heat, and lightning. The blast came when his Master caved in the Shaman's skull with his flail. It had spelled his own doom, and had knocked all combatants, kazrah or human, off their feet. Killing off the remaining goatmen had seemed easier after the shaman fell, but it was hard to be sure: in combat, time and space sometimes warp and fool normal perception.

His Master's voice returns, in his mind, the memory both bitter and sweet.
"The calm of battle is within you, Mikal, while the fury of combat is without. Never mistake one for the other. Never let the fury of your blows contaminate the peace of your purpose, nor your inner resolve. What others see as our holy wrath and battle fury is born in the stillness of pure Light."

Had his master died calmly? Mikal’s lips move in the archaic prayer, udpaksvenzend, hoping that such was his Master’s fate.

Less than half an hour later, his guide abruptly reins in her horse and dismounts. Feeling about in the ground, under the grass, she drops to all fours and crawls around for a few minutes in ever widening circles around her mount.

"Here it is, Mikal. I can feel the pulse of the ley lines. Come, help me tear up some of this turf and we'll find the runes."
He dismounts and helps her rip up clumps of earth, his strength making short work of the damp dirt and grass. They stand up and step back to behold a square, flat stone imbedded in the ground. It measures about three strides per side.

Deeply etched into the tan stone, though partially filled with mud and pebbles, is a circle perfectly quartered by two crossed lines that run from corner to corner. All around the edge of the stone are cut runes. The woman pulls a water skin from her saddle bag and kneels by the stone, working her way around the edge of the square. Using water and a corner of her cloak, she clears the dirt out of the inscribed marks.
He watches her, impassively.
He feels the mist thicken slightly, and then notices that it has turned to a fine rain.
She stops her latest chore. Her spirits seem to have risen, if the tone of her voice is any indication.

"I have found life in a few of the runes, with something west indicated by the aura.”
Looking at him, her voice takes on the unmistakable tone of command.
“Get the horses, Mikal, and shield their eyes. Horses get nervous when the ground hums, right before the travel force comes alive"
She restores the water skin to the saddlebag.

He wipes the dirt from his hands and knees. Gripping both sets of reins, he leads the two horses to the center of the square and unfastens his cloak. Tossing it over their heads, he ducks under the impromptu shelter against the small drops of rain.

He doesn't see her move from rune to rune, but he feels her move next to him and stamp her foot once. He feels a swell of power pulse into the bottom of his feet. Muttering softly to the two horses, an old poem his grandfather taught him, he smells the intense scent of energy. He is barely surprised to feel once again the unique collapse of the air around him, and its release as his feet sense the warm power surging through them all.
Then the sensation stops.
The horses keep pulling at him, and then slowly calm down, his poem never quite finished -- as usual. That is doubtless a good thing, he muses, given that his grandfather knew only bawdy sailors’ shanties and ribald poetry. He realizes that she has moved away, and that he is standing by himself with the horses.

"You can come out now, Mikal, we're here." There is a trace of joy in her voice.
"New Tristram, Aunt?" he asks, removing his cloak from covering himself and the horses.

He looks around and sees nothing resembling human dwelling, but notes the white haired woman walking south from him toward a lump in the ground.
The rain here is steadier than where they were moments before.
"No, Mikal, the old rogue camp: Kashya's last stand against the army of Terror."

She lightly hops from lump to lump, making a circle, before grinning at him in triumph. Again, the transformation in her face makes her seem a different woman.
"This is Cain's old fire pit." She sweeps her arms wide, parallel to the ground.
"The wooden palisade was from here to there. Asheara’s tent was over there. You can see where the wooden gate posts were if you look at the ground with more care."
She points east. "Take the horses to the stream, they could use some water."

As he walks the horses in the direction of her pointing finger, he makes out the shape of an old stone bridge and hears the sound of running water. Taking the horses down the bank on the north side of the stone bridge, he shakes his head and speaks to himself, or maybe to an old friend not present.

"She promised to escort me to New Tristram, to seek the falling star and the demons it has awakened.
I get instead a trip down her path of memories, memories of stories she never told to me.
I have sworn to leave my past behind me and pursue the purity of the Light.
How does this diversion aid my quest?
Master, is your death the price I pay for letting my past back into my life?
Have I failed in my quest already?
Have I tainted my vow to the Light?"
He stops.
There is no answer beyond the sound of two horses drinking water and the stream flowing steadily south. Mikal loosens the saddle belts on both horses, and rubs their necks.

After they have finished drinking, he takes two water skins from the saddlesand fills them both. Before plugging the openings, he makes a small gesture with his right hand and whispers - eksloks pooritahz -- words in an old tongue from the other side of the world. A faint glow emanates from the water skins, briefly, before fading out. He pushes in the corks and hangs the skins on his saddle horn.

"Whatever you are up to, Auntie Ange, it had better be in service to the Light. My quest is about securing our future, not your tortured past."
He walks slowly back to the old encampment, certain that this time he’ll be able to set up the tent without interruption.
========================

To be continued.
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
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#2
Walking the horses back to the camp Mikal sees a brief flicker, and then the beginnings of a fire. He then notices a second flicker that doesn’t go away, and he grits his teeth in frustration. His eccentric aunt is bound and determined to aggravate him. Covering the distance at a slow walk, he brings the horses within range of the stone fire circle, and spends extra effort on pounding pickets into the ground and tying them both. His back turned to the two figures sitting by the fire, he seeks the calming memory of his master.

“Mikal, the Light manifests itself in different hues for each person. When you have difficulty with someone, or can’t understand what they are doing, reflect upon the rainbow. The many different colors of light combine to make that glorious sign of hope.”

Hope. He had almost given up hope on her as a guide when she energized that node on the ley lines. Maybe his distrust should be replaced by patience. Taking a deep breath he turns and walks to sit on a rock across the fire from her. The sight of the fire spirit and his all too human aunt sitting next to each other seems an abomination meant to taunt him. He consigns patience to the future.

“If you find my company and principles tiresome, Aunt, summoning demons will hardly improve our discourse.” He nods to the gently glowing figure sitting next to her, a translucent carbon copy of its creator. “This fire creature of yours … is she a surrogate for the Shadow you lost to the Demon Lord?” He picks up a small stick and tosses it across the fire pit, where it strikes the summoned creature – and is consumed in a bright burst of flame. The creatures face remains impassive throughout.

Impassive does not describe the green eyed woman’s expression. A mixture of amusement and annoyance dance across her face as she bites her lip. She opens her mouth and then closes it, then looks into the flame.

“Mikal, I didn’t raise you so that I’d have someone to lecture me on the morality of the True Light.” She pauses. “Some years before you were born my father sent me to the Monastery to become a Sister of the Sightless Eye. I went reluctantly. The whole time I was there, I missed my brother -- your father -- bitterly. My high-spirited, brave younger brother Temp.” Her voice trembling, she continues. “I embraced the challenges that the Sisters’ discipline and training presented. I meditated on the mystery of Anu, the nature of Light, and how sight is both a physical and a spiritual sense. I didn’t forget any of that when I left the Sisters and their petty power struggles.”

She takes a deep breath. “Descending into Hell under Tristram to face the Lord of Terror gives you a new perspective on what’s important in life. It’s a hell of a shock to watch a slain demon lord’s body transform, right before your eyes, into the dead shape of his innocent host: a youth. How often have I cursed the day that Morweina convinced me to go on the grand adventure of demon hunting? The nightmares never completely leave you.”

Her finger interlock and separate as she fights for control of her emotions.

“The Viz Jaq Taar would not have accepted me had I lacked the discipline and spiritual sensitivity I developed as a Sister. The Mage Slayers taught me about the zone between light and dark, that difficult part of reality that shadows represent. Did your Master ever teach you that Sanctuary is like a shadow taking form, a reality poised between the Light of the High Heavens and the Dark pits of Hell?”

She nods her head toward her glowing double. “Fire gives off light. Before you accuse me of summoning demons, Nephew, I challenge you to think outside that stifling tunnel of True Light. Pyra is the spiritual aspect of my inner fire, not a Shadow being. At Ivgorod, I learned another way to experience and embrace the Light. Sometimes, I see the thousand gods as glittering facets on the grand gem that radiates Anu’s eternal Light, and sometimes as rays of Light emanating from the Sightless Eye.”

Mikal’s voice rises in mild sarcasm as he retorts: “Auntie Angela, a philosopher? This is new. Where was all of this wisdom when we lived in Orehold?”

She waves her hand, impatience plain on her face. Her voice acquires a hard edge.

“All wisdom comes with a price, Mikal, and the Light knows I have paid! Miklanjou is dead now, and you’re the Crusader. Before you take on an apprentice, as I gave you to him nine years ago, you must be wise enough to teach.”

Shaking her head she looks up and stares directly into his eyes. “You’ve got a lot of learning to do before assuming his role. I don’t think he did you any favors.”

He’s seen her like this before, wound up, itching for a fight or an argument, so he rises and stalks over to the horses. He busies himself with removing a pot, two tin plates, one of the waterskins, and the ever shrinking bundle of salt pork: their dietary staple for the past few days. Look on the bright side, he tells himself, the demon started a fire while it was raining without having to find dry wood. That was convenient.

He returns to the fire and begins the comfortable ritual of preparing a simple meal, the work a substitute for further discussion. As he starts the hunk of salt pork boiling, he sees her get up and cross to the horses herself, digging deep into a saddle bag. She returns to the fire holding a hand weapon with a rounded blade. This was nothing he’d ever seen her fight with. He looks up into her eyes, his eyebrows raised in a question.

“I thought you had hung up your assassin’s tools forever. I recognize that for a blade fist. You taught me well about weapons, hunting, archery, fishing, and fighting.”

She reaches forward, handing it to him with the grips first.

“This blade fist was custom made by Larzuk. One of the things you collect when demon hunting and fighting the hordes of Hell is shards of various gems. Demons seem to attract them. I had Larzuk embed a bunch of crushed diamond chips into the edges of this blade.” Nodding to herself, she sighs. “That man sure knew his way around a blade. What a waste, him staying in Harrogath to be consumed by Tyrael’s grand disaster at Arreat.”

Examining the blade carefully with the aid of firelight, he notices the modification to the cutting edge. She continues.

“Diamonds are very hard. I wanted a weapon to cut through the hard scales and carpaces of some of the monsters we were fighting, but I never needed it. When I hung up the blade talons, I kept this in remembrance of Larzuk. Maybe the Light inspired me. I now know what you need it for.”

Mikal shifts his gaze from the weapon to his aunt. “What I need it for? I fight with a sword, with a mace, not with an assassin’s tools. My honor does not permit this.”

The lilt of her voice borders on laughter as she replies, “No fighting, my brave crusader. I need you to cut some rocks.”

Taking the weapon, he returns to his rock by the fire, sits down, and stares at the pot. He realizes that staring at the pot won’t cook the salt pork any sooner, but it makes more sense than rock cutting. He asks the obvious question.

“How does cutting rocks in an abandoned rogue camp get us closer to Tristram and the fallen star, Aunt?”

“You’re going to modify the waypoint we arrived on. While you were watering the horses, I had an epiphany related to how the ley lines have gone awry, and how the transport stones stopped working as they used to. The symbols are out of tune with the new nature of the world.”

At a complete loss he gapes at her, wondering what she’ll say next.

“Shadow, light, darkness … a mystery of three elements of perception. The Horadrim were mighty in magic, and used geometry for subtle reasons in their works. The destruction of the World Stone changed a great deal in this world, seen and unseen. It obviously changed how their craft works or can work. With that thought foremost, I meditated upon a mystery of three by three and took another look at the runes that glowed when we were transported here. Come here, I’ll show you.”

Moving closer to the fire, she uses her finger to sketch in the dirt a depiction of the waypoint a few paces away. She then sketches a circle within a circle, a triangle enclosed by the inner circle, and two sets of three alternating semi circles filling in part of the inner circle. She then modifies three of the semi circles into ovals, open towards the center of the circle. The other three turn into oval that arch away from the center and intersect the circle’s circumference. She thickens the legs of the triangle. The points of the triangle each land where an outward facing oval and an inward facing oval meet.

“The old waypoint held four triangles within the circle. I think it is out of balance, now. This triangle represents the mystery of shadow, light, and darkness. The two circles represent Sanctuary and the Sightless Eye. Three ovals open toward the center -- actually, those ends are meant to be horns -- represent the three prime evils. The other three partial ovals represent vigilance, justice, and valor as the light exposes the evil trying to hide in darkness and shadow.”

She stops, fingers finishing up small horns on each of the three open ovals. “Are you following me so far.”

He grunts. “Yes, Aunt, the philosophy is obscure, but these symbols I am familiar with from my travels in the East.”

She nods. “What I need you to do is take that blade fist and carve the transporting stone we arrived in so that the circle is all that remains. Remove the corners of the square. Then, I need you to etch in the inner circle, and finally the six ovals as I have sketched them here.”

He puts his hand on hers, and looks seriously into her eyes. “Aunt, are you asking me to perform sorcery?”

She shakes her head sharply. “No, I’ll do the spiritual things, Mikal. I need your strength. You can cut that stone a lot faster than I. Your smooth hand at engraving I remember well.” She grins. “Your time working with that blacksmith in Orehold was well spent.”

She gets up, brushing the dirt from her hands, and returns to her stone by the fire, and her attentive fire spirit. She reaches behind the stone and pulls up a small bag which clinks with metallic sounds.

“While you get started on that, I need to meditate on the odd items I found lying about this old camp. When the Kashya led the sisters back to the Monastery, and when Gheed took the rest to Lut Gholein, they left some things behind.”

Looking at the fire now, he asks the question she’d heard a hundred times when he was growing up.

“So what do we do about dinner, Auntie Occhi?”

A wave of joy and grief wash through her at the change in the tone of his voice. She leaps from her spot and vaults over the fire, surprising him with a warm and energetic embrace.

“Mikal, Mikal, Mikal.” Tears spring from her eyes and pour down her cheeks as she grips him even harder. “There’s not a day goes by when I look at you that I don’t see your father. Love is hard, oh so hard.”

She begins to sob as he hugs her back, and continues.

“I never expected to have children. Raising you was the best and hardest thing I ever did. I know I was stern with you, but the world is unforgiving. I can’t change how much love I have for you, the hopes I have for you, and it hurts me when you talk to me in that aloof Crusader tone.”

She leans back slightly and puts her palms up to his cheeks. “When you went away with Miklanjou, I spent nights worried sick that I erred in letting you follow the Crusader path. It was less than a season before I had to leave Orehold. That town was home because it was where you and I lived. With you gone, there was no reason for me to stay. I hurt so badly … oh, Mikal, you have no idea. Temp was dead. Sonya was dead. You were gone for a Crusader. Love hurts, love scars, love wounds and harms. My soul has scars a plenty, Mikal, and some are from the wounds of self-flagellation.”
She stops and bursts into a new shower of tears before rambling on. “Your father would be so proud of you, your mother would brag to the whole world in that crazy way of hers about her brave and noble son!”

Mikal had rarely ever seen tears in those grey green eyes, so he marvels at this new experience while trying to soak up this sudden avalanche of emotion. Had he wanted to say anything, his habit of reticence saves him from doing more than staying in the moment. He lets her hold his face in her hands until the waves of emotion finally subside and she regains her composure. The rain drops gently wash some of the tears from her face. He notices, in a brief moment of clarity, the fire spirit sitting on the rock next to the fire, face still impassive. Something in his heart connects, and he sees the face in front of him like he’s never seen it before. In the depths of those gray green eyes, he sees something he never quite understood: parent's love of a child. He finds his voice.

“The first scars I remember getting was the day I beat the sass out of that miner’s son who told all the other children that my aunt was crazy. I’ll try not to add to those while I cut that rock.”
=========
For all of her confidence in his strength, cutting the corners off of the waypoint stone is hard going. He adds his master’s old war hammer to the tools to speed up the work. Losing himself in the work, he stops when he realizes that it has stopped raining, and the moonlight breaks through the low lying clouds. He realizes that he is soaked to the bone.

Looking back toward the fire and sees his aunt curled up next to the circle of rocks, guarded by the glowing figure of the fire spirit who remains seated, face unreadable. He returns to the fire and sits. The fire spirit - Pyra - picks up the pan and hands it to him, revealing the remaining portion of salt pork. He gravely accepts it and eats slowly, watching the moon go in and out of the scattered clouds. His thoughts drift and fuse with shadow and light as they make changing patterns in the sky. He lets the contrast of shadow and light from the dying fire blend with his quiet prayer for peace.

When he is finished, he looks back at the fire spirit. It nods to him, and stands up in a mocking imitation of a soldier standing guard duty. He nods back, and curls up to sleep facing the fire.
======
Mikal wakes up well after sunrise, the sound of soft singing and loud scraping blending in dissonant harmony. He stands quickly. The horses are no longer tethered, but are standing quietly next to fire ring. His aunt, the source of the singing and scraping, stops and leans back, hands on knees, to examine her work. She rises while wiping the dirt and rock chips from her hands and knees. Turning to walk to the fire ring, her face lights up in a smile as she sees him.

“Are you ready to travel, Crusader Mikal?”

He nods, and moves to pick up some of the tools still lying on the ground. As he returns them to their bags and pouches on the horses, he notices the completion of the pattern he had started the night before. Gone are all of the runes, gone any trace of the crossed lines. In the dirt around the symbol laden stone circle lie an assortment of odds and ends, each with a particular glyph cut into them. A hammer, a spear head, a sword handle, an old boot sole, part of a table leg, and a rusty old lantern. Embedded into each glyph is what appears to be a flake of Fool’s Gold.

He walks to the center of the circle and guides the horses next to him. He takes off his cloak and covers their heads, their reins firmly in his hands.
“I am as ready as I can be, my one and only Aunt, but I will ask: where are we headed this time?”

Her reply comes back with a nervous edge in her voice. “Tristram, and a reunion that I was hoping never to have.”

Taken aback by her change in mood, he reaches up to calm his horse and himself. “Reunion? Who are you meeting?”

She stops short of the circle, eyes staring intently at the collection of odds and ends encircling the transport point. She slowly moves around the circle, touching each item gently in the center of the glyph.

“An old acquaintance who nearly got me killed on countless occasions. One thing I discussed with the Sisters was the source of the rumors surrounding Tristram, and of the new Tristram. The new town is a base for treasure hunters who came to loot the old cathedral’s catacombs, after the Lord of Terror was slain. Most of them are never seen alive again.” She kneels and reverses the orientation of the sword hilt. One last touch in its glyph and she is satisfied, so she steps into the circle.

“That grizzled son-of-a-whale-cow will be the death of me yet, but he’s the only focus I have to give direction to this transport point. If this doesn’t work, I’m not sure where we’ll end up.”

Mikal stops stroking the horse. “If it doesn’t work? If this fails, won’t we just end up standing here as we did in that stone circle?”

She shakes her head. “No, this will all be consumed by what we are about to try. If you have any prayers for safe passage, now’s the time to say them.”

He puts his head on his horse’s nose, and mutters salvanozekristof before turning to her again.

“I am not big on omens, but I notice that you put flecks of fool’s gold in the glyphs you carved into those remains of the old camp. Aren’t you tempting fate to use fool’s gold when dealing with the power of the world itself?”

She bursts into laughter. “Fool’s gold? I suppose you are too young to remember. That isn’t fool’s gold. Those golden flecks, are the leavings of a Horadric beard. Do you remember, from the days we spent in Harrogath, the old man who told you stories in the square? He wore a gray robe, always scratching his beard.”

“Yes, I remember him. He was kind, but Mahla always scolded him for trying to scare me with his fanciful tales. I remember spending more time with her and Larzuk than with him.”

“Those flecks, Mikal, are pixips from his Horadric beard. There is a strange magic in them, but they work.” Her voice raises in volume. “You and I are headed for a reunion with that crazy old man. We are off to see” – her voice becomes a shout—“Deckard Cain!”

She grips his left hand and slams her foot down hard in the middle of the triangle.

This time, the feeling is different. This time, the stone emits a hot, blue-white hue. This time, his feet get warm, then hot, and then the horses are screaming and jerking the reins from his hand. This time, instead of the air collapsing, the ground suddenly goes out from him and he falls, the wind whistling past his ears as he accelerates downwards, a death grip on her hand.

And then everything goes dark.
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
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