Iorrjaer

Chapter 38

Häsmæl, Sorâth, Malka and Yophiel made their way away from the feasting grounds and found that the closer they got to the ziggurat, the more they felt burdened by their pasts. It was a familiar trick that Sorâth was now able to ignore. He had confronted everything about his past that he regretted. There was nothing more the ziggurat could use against him.

Malka felt the effects anew as he was forced to confront his loss of Shedmoth. A loss, that while necessary, still weighed on him. Mostly he was unable to call Shedmoth back. Was it Granna's kill spell? Was it the unstable magic that now permeated Ockburg's air?

Yophiel was hit the hardest by the intruding thoughts. Thoughts of her inability to complete cadet training. Thoughts of her insistence on her status. Thoughts of her parents and her fabricated lie about their death. Thoughts about orcs and how her preconceived notions were being disproved by an orc. Truths that she denied and purposefully ignored to increase her own standing.

Häsmæl was totally unphased.

The intruding magic washed over him and dissipated almost as quickly as it took for it to hit him. His sights were on the ziggurat but he noticed that Malka and Yophiel were struggling and slowing their progress. He knew, in his heart, that this was the work of Kêdêmel and he knew what to do.

He first went to Yophiel, for she was the most immediately in danger of losing her mind. She had fallen into a low squat, with her head in her hands. He took her gently by the shoulders, she was so much thinner and smaller than he was, so he took extra care in how he picked her up so that she was standing. He had dispelled the larva from taking control of her and now he would again impart some of his antimagic to shield her.

Once she was in his shadow, the thoughts started to fragment and break away. They would form and then deform. It took several minutes before her mind started to return to normal and clear. No longer burdened by the intruding thoughts, she opened her eyes and was surprised to find herself at eye level with Häsmæl's bear and wolf pelt war kilt. The last thing she could remember was falling. Now she looked around and saw Sorâth watching her and the orc.

She was not sure what to say, or what the pale elf was expecting, but she did mutter a thank you.

Satisfied, Häsmæl let her go and turned to Malka.

Surprisingly, his mind was cascading into despair. Häsmæl thought that it might explain why Yophiel was easy to bring back, the effort on Kêdêmel's part was focused on Malka - the man who had defeated his strongest general, in a game of wits.

Häsmæl's presence was not felt at first as his mind had fallen deep into memories of his youth. A youth who had spent years upon years, in what constituted grade school, being heavily bullied. Bullied for his small and thin stature. Bullied for his intellect. Bullied for his social status. Things that had brought him to doubt and second guess himself. However, through careful parenting, his parents convinced him that boarding school in Khico would be his best option for getting away from Lokkel's jealous youth.

In a place like Khico, there were so many people, all of diverse and different backgrounds, that he would be able to blend. This is what his memory told him. This is what he knew to be true to why he left.

The ziggurat was spinning the story, making it more sinister. Delving more to mean that the bullies were employed by his father. His father, embarrassed that his son was physically weak, wanted the bullies to do what he could not. His mother condoned the bullying as well. The decision to leave Lokkel and go to boarding school was not his parents' idea, nor was it endorsed. Which he knew was false, but the ziggurat was convincing him that his going to boarding school was because he killed a classmate and that his father ruined his career just to get him in.