That One Time I Went on a Quest

Four Days (2/2)

Soon after that I fall asleep – like a rock – which is ridiculous considering, well, everything, but the body doesn't listen to the silly and juvenile demands of the brain. It does what it wants.

I'm standing on a hilltop with the dawn at my back. To my left, with one foot upon a conveniently-placed tree stump, is Kathanhiel decked out in her ceremonial cuirass. Her face is half-turned to me, and it is perfect, more beautiful than any work of art, nobler than all the kings of the Realms put together. The way her lips slightly part, as if on the verge of speaking or, Maker wills it, giving a kiss – it's impossible to look away from.

'I have to give,' she says.

I try to shake my head but it won't budge. The dream doesn't let me speak, only watch on in mounting panic as her words echo across the hilltop, understood by no one.

She holds her hand to her chest and, with compulsive fingers, claws at it as if her heart has stopped beating. Little wells of light bubble up around her fingertips, all fiery red and yellow and white, as she digs into herself with the manic desperation of one who has let go of the most precious thing in the world. Three bright pillars, curved inward like sharpened claws, rise around her wrist like a flaming pedestal.

No. Stop.

She pulls. Her hand reappears as an abomination, a mangled pile of squirming flesh held together by the glue of ember. Red lines have dug into her skin, each writhing like an open wound festering with maggots. In her grip is an ornate grip seemingly wrought out of static flames; its light is so brilliant that her deformed hand almost looks beautiful in its shadow.

The hilltop shatters like a mirage. From the blackening earth rises great pillars of frozen fire. To the sky they grow, caving inward like clutching talons around Kathanhiel's body, obscuring from her the dying sun, and through the thinning gap between them I see a sword of fire emerging from her heart, a blade so brilliantly white its light pierces through the pillars as if they're glass.

I jerk awake to the gentle prodding of Oon'Shang. Somehow it is dawn again; this despicable human being has manage to sleep through the second day of the apocalypse.

The battle has become one of attrition. Instead of recklessly charging in wave after wave the dragons are now watching, waiting on the edge of Kaishen's reach, ready to pounce the moment this dogged herald of fire shows the slightest weakness. Meanwhile, Kaishen's (energy? corruption?) has completely overwhelmed her body; in the sunlight her skin glows like a statue of bronze, and there is no distinguishing where the sword ends and her arm begins.

Her arm...if you could still call it that.

Tendrils of what looks like solidified flames, with the texture of burning coal, have encrusted it all the way to her shoulder. Flakes of skin – for what else could they be – are shedding like autumn leaves with the breeze. The wounds on her shoulder, arm, back, head...she's amassed quite a number, but instead of bleeding they're all pulsating with the orange fire of molten metal.

So far she has lasted three days without food, water, rest, or even a full minute of sitting down, and it's about to get worse: the rainclouds are leaving. If using Kaishen for a single night made her sit in water for an entire day, then...without the rain...

She's standing in low guard now, Kaishen pointed at the ground next to her right foot. Her bow had been discarded, its obsidian grip a melted blob. That pick she uses to detach her sword is nowhere to be seen; she didn't even bother taking it. There's no sense of calm or readiness in her posture; instead, it's as if she's frozen in place.