From alt.pub.dragons-inn Thu Dec 28 10:21:50 1995 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:8932 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!newsfeed.internetmci.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!psgrain!nntp.teleport.com!nntp.teleport.com!not-for-mail From: stiltman@teleport.com (Stilt Man) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [Y't] Kalirya's Tale Date: 27 Dec 1995 16:03:34 -0800 Organization: Teleport - Portland's Public Access (503) 220-1016 Lines: 486 Message-ID: <4bsmsm$e5v@kelly.teleport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: kelly.teleport.com [ADMIN: Well, after I finally dug all my threads out of the dust pile, it seems that I've evoked considerable impassioned response from the fans. But I'm going to ignore it and keep posting anyhow... :) ] [ADMIN2: No Variable Man in this post (that was pretty good, Jeff! :), just the two psychotic women stuck in the woods. The slightly psychotic woman with the blue tattoos named Azzar is the doing of Tanya Olsen, while the very psychotic woman with the Embodiment of Death look named Kalirya Haladane is the hallucination of myself, the Stilt Man, the Recently Married, and Omnipotently-Evil-Horrible-Awful-Bad-And-Villain-Major-Domo- In-The-Gospel-According-To-Hutch SCRIBE!! (Side note: that was intended as an inside joke. Smilie to follow for the humor-impaired... :) For this thread in its entirety, you may look at the Y't Thread Home Page at http://www.teleport.com/~stiltman/Threads/ytthread.html . . . and for a directory to the rest of my concoctions you can find it in http://www.teleport.com/~stiltman/stories.html. Any and all comments and/or flames can be directed at myself or Tanya. Roll film...] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Azzar woke in the middle of the night with her sword half-drawn. Her eyes darted about, trying to find a sign of whatever it had been that had awakened her. She looked at the dark elf, still twisting and turning fitfully on the ground where he was attempting in vain to sleep with his fetters on in the presence of . . . Kalirya was gone. Thrud was still kneeling there, peering out into the night in his vacant-eyed watch, but the enchantress was not in the camp. Azzar stood abruptly, alarming Thrud with the sudden movement. He raised his axe, prepared to strike, but subsided when he saw that it was her who had moved. "Where is Kalirya?" she whispered. "Gone," responded Thrud helpfully. Azzar rolled her eyes skyward in irritation. "I can see that," she snapped. Thrud's face fell instantly. Azzar saw it, felt guilty for holding him to a standard he was not capable of fulfilling. "Where has she gone to?" "Woods," Thrud gestured up into the branches. "She just went up into the trees and left?" asked Azzar. "Flew up, yes," said Thrud. "Flew up?" she repeated, surprised. "Yes," Thrud nodded emphatically. "Use wings. Flew." Azzar looked up up into the air as though the enchantress might dive down at her at any moment. Seeing nothing, she turned back to Thrud, who was anxiously awaiting some response from her. "Thank you," she said warmly, and went into the woods looking closely both at her feet and above herself, leaving Thrud beaming as he continued his watch. Azzar wondered if it had occurred to him that, without Kalirya or herself in the camp, the only thing he was guarding with his watch was their prisoner. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Some distance from the camp of the three intruders, two black unicorns cantered into a glade and reared up on their hind legs. Their torsos shrank in size, their hind legs growing thicker in the shins and thinner in the thighs, their hooves turning into hands and feet. Their white manes remained as hair on their heads, their horns vanishing into their skulls. Where two black unicorns had entered, two humanoids with skin the same color of coal as they had been previously stood. One was male. The other was female. "She should know about these intruders," said the male. "She already knows of the intruders, fool!" snapped the other. The male shook his head, striking himself on the temple for forgetting this. "Then perhaps we should learn of them from Her." They walked onward, into a murkier area of the woods. Two heaps of wet vines came into view before them. Several greenish stalks protruded from the top of them, with a sticky reddish substance dripping from bulbs at the end that were roughly the size of a human fist. At the sound of approaching animal life, gaping maws opened in the heaps, revealing huge fly-trap teeth lining the insides. The two humanoids stopped a respectful distance away from the two creatures, knowing well the fate of those who wandered too close. The disembodied hand of a dark elf that had strayed too close still dangled from the sticky resin on one of the stalks. "What has transpired?" came a feminine voice from both of the mouths at once. The two humanoids stood erect in respect for Her immediately. "Little of which you are not likely already aware," said the female humanoid. "We come seeking your guidance," said the male. "This wolf has us ill at ease," said the voice from the mouths. "It could begin to undo that which we have worked for." "What of the three new intruders?" asked the male. "One of them, the dark cloaked woman, has thus far evaded our ability to spy upon her, even through our many eyes," said the mouths. "We had not thought the Shrouded One foolish enough to enter our domain, but if it is indeed her, we must drive her from our woods or destroy her as quickly as possible." "We have sensed a demonic presence about this one you speak of, Mistress," said the male. "We had not believed that the Shrouded One trucked with such creatures, nor is she one of them. If she were, we would know of it already." "You are correct," said the mouths. "But we are not certain whether the Shrouded One is above such things, nor do we know whether she might attempt to feint us into believing she dealt with such. We must learn more of this intruder. Identify this person, and if it is the Shrouded One, we must deal with her immediately. That one is as dire a threat as the wolf, mayhaps more." "We are blessed by your guidance, Mistress," the two humanoids said. The mouths of the plants began to sag down, until only the stalks and the heaps were visible once more. The male turned to the female. "We must gather more of the insects and learn of this intruder. If she is the one She speaks of . . ." The female nodded. The two humanoids turned, and leaned forward until their hands nearly touched the ground. Their shapes shifted again, and two black unicorns left the glade as they had entered. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Azzar walked soundlessly, keeping to the shadows of the woods. She had taken up a small stick and was quietly poking them into the soil before her, wary of any further traps intended for the wolf. She heard the sounds of wings fluttering, and the cracking of a decent weight suddenly coming to rest on a branch. She whirled, her sword out, and looked up into the trees. She could see nothing up there, but she could sense that someone watched her. More wing fluttering, smaller this time, and closer. The stench of something evil reached her nostrils, and she shivered. "For what do you search?" came the voice of Kalirya from above her. "I search for you, enchantress," Azzar replied. She still could not see the other. "A search which you do not appear to want to see completed." "You stand in a combat-ready pose, you admit openly that you search for me, and you draw your sword at the first sign of my presence. Perhaps I am to believe that you wish to discuss the weather?" said the other woman sardonically. "Did it occur to you that, out here in the night, you nearly beg to be ambushed? You cannot see in the night, while the dark elves can see you even better now than during the day." "And yourself?" retorted Azzar. "I have not the same . . . deficiencies of sight," Kalirya said, trying to evade the subject. "Who or what are you, really?" demanded Azzar. "You have a friend around here somewhere that you do not reveal to me." "Such as your own?" responded Kalirya. As if in answer to her noticing its presence, the owl that served as Azzar's familiar hooted at that moment. --She knows too much! She suspects me!-- came the voice of Sornulakh in Kalirya's mind. --She must die!-- {No}, Kalirya thought back firmly. --And why not? Because she, too, is Kryalla's stooge?-- {If you wish to have the Shrouded One's vengeance pursuing you, feel free to strike at this one}, Kalirya responded sarcastically. --How would she ever find us? The amulet she gave you prevents her!-- {How do we know? She may have only given us such means as others cannot find as, while leaving herself the ability to do so if we defy her. Even did it do as you say, your lord might well give much to avoid the Shrouded One's ire.} --She would not dare challenge him! His power is inviolate!-- {So do many say of the Dark One herself.} --Point taken. So what do we do?-- {We act like we're still paying attention to Azzar instead of each other.} "Kalirya? Are you still there?" demanded Azzar, having indeed grown impatient with the other woman's silence over the last few moments. "Perhaps closer than you realize," came Kalirya's voice behind her. Azzar spun, but still saw nothing. Kalirya had to applaud Sornulakh's superb mimicry. Azzar heard movement up in the branches again, louder movement which betrayed that the enchantress herself moved again. She saw Kalirya, with wings sprouting from her back, flying down from a branch above to the ground. When here feet had touched the soil, the wings folded up and resumed the shape of the enchantress' cloak. "I respectfully request that you lower your sword," said the enchantress. "Why?" said Azzar. "Are we not allies?" asked Kalirya. "I had thought so," said Azzar, lowering her sword slowly but keeping a firm grip upon its hilt. "My question still stands. Who or what are you, really?" "My name is Kalirya Haladane, daughter of Haladane," said the enchantress. "I am no demoness, if that is what you fear. I am half dryad by blood, half human." "Are dryads not supposed to be linked to nature?" challenged Azzar. "I had thought that their offspring were as well." "I was," responded Kalirya simply. "That is a thing of the past." "Tell me about it," said Azzar, sheathing her sword. Kalirya looked up at her, incredulous. "You know something of my past. I know nothing of yours. Your actions certainly beg for some form of explanation." Kalirya said nothing. "If we are to cooperate as equals, we should know something of each other." Kalirya sighed, sitting down upon a log. --You're not going to . . .-- began the voice of Sornulakh in her mind. {Yes, I am.} she responded. --She doesn't deserve . . .-- {I care not. I want to speak of it.} --Oooo, the talky-feely sort who wants to speak through her problems with someone, anyone, to give comfort.-- {Comfort which you have failed to give me.} responded Kalirya. Azzar sat upon a rock near her, listening intently both to her and their surroundings. Realizing that Kalirya could likely see better than she in the dark anyhow, Azzar did not continue listening to aught but Kalirya herself long, trusting her owl to warn her should something approach. "My mother was a dryad, of the woods of an island nation. She was like most of her ilk, caring nothing for tomorrow, living without any cares at all in her trees," began Kalirya, openly contemptuous. "She was a smaller woman than you or I, waifish in appearance and with little strength of will." Kalirya sighed again. "One day, a man entered the forest. I know not why he was there, what he was doing, or how he happened across my mother. I never knew even his name until much later. All I know is that he encountered my mother, and she quickly cast a powerful enchantment over him, taking him as her mate. He was kept from his people for long, staying with her in this enslaved state for several years. Over that time, she conceived and bore a child of the union." "Yourself?" asked Azzar. Kalirya nodded. "I had no memory of my father as a child. The enchantment upon him faded with time, and he left my mother. My mother cared little, and forgot about him entirely, not even speaking to me of him. I knew I had had a father, for I saw this same thing happen with others of my mother's kind, but like my mother, they simply released their mates and inducted their children into their world, with little regard for the men who had sired them. I only knew his name: Haladane." Kalirya sighed. "I was raised with little cares myself, quite unaware of many things of the world," said Kalirya. She half smiled wanfully at the memory. Then the expression turned to the same stone-like one that Azzar had become familiar with. "One day," said Kalirya, speaking in a monotone, "a man came with a small mob of other men into my mother's woods. They had brought charms with them from the local soothsayers, that protected them from the enchantments of my mother's kinds. They rounded up all of the dryads of the woods and slaughtered them on sight. The leader personally inspected each one before they were killed, and when he came to my mother, he took her out from the rest. He violated her, beat her, tortured her, and at the end, killed her slowly." Kalirya shuddered. "My last memory of my mother was the pain on her face at what was being visited upon her." "You escaped?" asked Azzar. "Yes. A handful of us managed to get to our trees, bind ourselves to them for a short while, and evaded the raiders," responded Kalirya. "Mine died soon after the slaughter." Azzar started. She had heard that the trees of such nature spirits were the very souls of those who were bound to them. She looked deeply into Kalirya's eyes. Was there even a soul left to the enchantress? Had it died with her tree? The hair of the kind was said to be green, the color of leaves. The enchantress' was brown . . . the brown of dead leaves, Azzar realized. "With no remaining bond with the forest, I left, became an urchin of the streets of humanity's cities, a part of the decay that their kind likes to conveniently ignore in their self-serving myths that all is well in their society," said Kalirya bitterly. "Over time, I began to hate what I was, hate my mother for bringing me into this world to endure this." Kalirya's eyes shook, anger coming into them. "One of their soothsayers took pity upon me, wondered how it was that such a child of nature should come to be a victim of humanity's cruelty. He took me in, raised me." She looked somewhat more cheerful. "He said that I had a gift for his arts, one that he could not teach me. My link with the elements made me a natural sorceress, he said, and this together with what he saw as a burning intellect and will would take me far in that art. However, he could only teach me the rudiments of magic. I had to make do with that whilst I grew up. "Over time, he grew older, and finally he died. He had no family, and what small money he had was left in my keeping. I used it to find a wizard to teach me. That was the soothsayer's final wish. He wanted me to take what he could leave me and use it to better my skills of magic beyond what he could provide. He said that his only regret was that he would not live to see what he felt I would become." Kalirya smirked sardonically as she said this last. "I found a Wizard's Guild to take me in as an apprentice. But I soon found that their motives were selfish. They wanted the money I had, wanted to use me as a magical tool for their own elemental spells," said Kalirya bitterly. "I had to bear it, for I had nowhere else to go. Over time, they learned to respect me, fear me, even. They described me as a half-demoness running loose, searching for a focus to give vent to my rage at the world around me," she said sarcastically, contempt for what she clearly saw as their high-and- mighty airs showing. "When I felt that I was strong enough, I set out to find this vent. I did, after all, have a perfect motive for it." "The death of your kind," Azzar observed. "One of my first spells cast towards this end was to learn from certain powers of those who had despoiled my mother and her ilk," said Kalirya, ignoring the interruption. "What sort of powers?" asked Azzar, not sure she wanted to know. "Some which you would no doubt consider too distasteful to deal with," said Kalirya. "Ooooo, they're going to come for my soul and take my children . . . whenever I have any," Kalirya mocked. "You consulted a demon lord of some form," Azzar said. It was not a question. "Some who do not understand them call them that," responded Kalirya. "I see," said Azzar tightly. "Who are you to consider yourself good and they evil?" said Kalirya, anger rising in her voice. "Have you any concept of the evil that humans are capable of? The tortures and injustices they dole out upon other races, deeming them either `goblins' or `orcs' and exterminating their kind because they are different? The injustice they dole out upon their own kind. The paladins who claim to be the high and mighty protectors of the common good, who kindly put to the sword anyone who disagree with them as to the nature of that good as heretics? Uh oh, little woman have too much will of her own, she must be a witch, let us burn her at the stake!" Kalirya reflected bitterly. "Little half-sprite bitch able to control sorcery! The heathen! We must burn her to save her soul from her own evil! She profanes the greater good of This God, That God, and the Other God! We must grant her a fair trial and then burn her to ashes to be scattered in the cleansing breeze of the pure heavens!" Kalirya pointed an accusing finger at the other woman. "You act shocked? It is easy to live among humans . . . if you adopt their ways, pay lip service to their cults, and kowtow to all of their little customs and prejudices which say all other creatures are obviously inferior!" "And demons are better?" asked Azzar rhetorically. "By me . . . yes," hissed Kalirya. "I see," said Azzar, somewhat uncertain what to say. --Great comfort ya picked for yourself there.-- said the voice of Sornulakh sarcastically in her mind. {For once I agree with you.} responded Kalirya, rising from the log. Azzar looked up, somewhat confused and frustrated that she would not learn the rest of what had driven this woman half-mad. "You are leaving?" "Why not? You have demonstrated that you are not understanding thus far..." "I sympathize with your troubles . . . if not your means for dealing with them," offered Azzar. Kalirya smirked. "You know not even the half of them thus far." "Then tell me," said Azzar. "We're going to be working together, we don't have much choice, we may as well find out each others' dark secrets so there aren't any surprises when we suddenly start running around screaming with no clothes on." She hoped Kalirya would recognize this as a jest. She was rewarded with a smile from the other woman's lips. Kalirya sighed, sat back on the log. "I learned the whereabouts of the man who had led the assault upon my mother's tribe from these forces you would consider to be demonic," said Kalirya. "I went to that place to find this man, struck against him, and cut him slowly, catching him in a holding spell while I slowly skinned him alive, every moment of his agony punctuated with a reminder of why he was dying this way." Azzar was feeling both revulsion and sympathy at once, knowing from the way the stony eyes were watering that, though the woman had willingly done this horrible deed, much had happened to drive her to it, and she did not recount the memory fondly. "His companions came up the stairs of the inn before I was finished with him. I was forced to end it more quickly than I had hoped. I used my arts to hide from them, listening in on their exclamations of horror as they found him," said Kalirya, a tear falling upon one cheek. "If you thirsted for revenge so much, why does it pain you to remember it?" asked Azzar, confused. "From what I know of you, you seem the sort to take great satisf--" "There was something that the demons did not tell me! Something about him that was kept from me until his companions cried his name aloud!" Kalirya shrieked in impotent fury. Azzar stared at her, still not understanding. "His name was . . . Haladane." Azzar thought she felt something lurch within her. The thought of the whole ordeal . . . she turned from where she sat and had to maintain an effort not to be violently sick. Kalirya watched coldly for a moment, her eyes beginning to dry, stood and turned away from the other. --I hope you're happy.-- said the voice of the imp. {Were you when I killed him? How much did you know of his identity? How much did your master know and deliberately not tell me?} The imp did not answer. "Now you know," said Kalirya. Azzar coughed. "But that doesn't explain . . . the elf . . ." "I will not suffer my mother's fate," said Kalirya. Azzar froze, confused for a moment. Then . . . "Oh." "They will not have the opportunity to do to me what my father did to my mother," Kalirya nodded, seeing that the other woman understood. "What of Thrud?" asked Azzar. "Why do you keep him with you?" "What of Thrud?" Kalirya repeated. "He was cast out by his family as a child, perhaps had no family at all, lived the life of the urchin. Somewhere along the way, I think, he found his head in contact with a horse's hoof or some such," she added, pointing at her own head and making confused expressions in rather brutal imitation of her companion. "He found his way into numerous dungeons, on to the slave block to serve penance for his misdeeds." "What did he do?" asked Azzar. Kalirya shrugged. "The magistrates were never quite clear on that, and Thrud himself has no idea. My guess is they found an excuse because he was undesirable, and locked him up. Human justice is like that at times." Kalirya chuckled. "I saw the look of despair in his eyes when I saw him on the block as I passed by. No one else was willing to risk their money on someone who looked that stupid, and it wasn't clear what his fate would be if he were not sold. They most likely would have impaled him and left him on the city walls to rot." Azzar frowned. "It is not so bad as . . ." "Have you ever been in trouble with the law?" asked Kalirya. "Been considered `undesirable'?" She looked Azzar over with an eye that looked a brutal imitation of the average boorish leer. "Somehow, I doubt it. For those that are, it can be a very rough life." "You are not so `undesirable' yourself," said Azzar, looking closely at the other woman's appearance. "Did you not show the look of the Grim Reaper, I think some would find you quite attractive." Kalirya shrugged. "Which meant I would have wound up as a slave girl in some fat human lord's harem, instead of the outcase." Kalirya seethed a moment. "I will not abide a cage, even if it be gilded." "I cannot blame you," said Azzar quietly. "You have some knowledge of such, then?" asked Kalirya. Azzar sighed now. "I suppose it is your turn to hear my story." She looked at the other woman. "You have quite earned it." +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ + The [Y't] thread (who or what is "Y't"???? Who knows??) + +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ + . . . scribed by the Stilt Man and Tanya Olsen, + + stiltman@teleport.com or tolsen@leland.stanford.edu + +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+