| She spent two days clearing her home; packing the necessities into crates and leaving what she could not take for the poor.
The temple had also been stripped; the tapestries packed away; the braziers extinguished. One task remained. The most difficult of all.
“I’m sorry. I thought ye’d find some peace here.” She was addressing the tomb, or rather, he who lay within. “I suppose I thought I’d find some peace here, eventually, but it was not te be. I’m afraid I’m going te have te move ye once more, old friend. I’m going te send ye back te Him.”
Tasker, first disciple of Raza and wielder of the mythic axe, Glory. He had died here; slain by Mondain as he protected Kaldor, the elder son of Wolfgang. Kaldor had gone on to become first king of the nation that bore his name and, later, the united kingdom of Gorimdor, but Tasker had never set foot on those lands. For that reason, Cal had been opposed to sending his remains there. Her home was not his; nor was it Glory’s.
Carefully, reverently, she removed the bones from the tomb and placed them in a box, along with the fragments of the shattered axe, Glory. She knew what she had to do now. She knew where she had to go.
The air above the Lake of Fire shimmered with the heat. The balron, Raza’s guardian, had not bothered her today; perhaps it sensed the precious cargo she carried, and decided to let her be.
She kneeled on the warm stone, just as she had so many times before, and opened her wrist with a sharp, steel blade. Crimson flames blossomed on the surface as her blood was consumed. She sensed Raza’s approval. Her blood sacrifice had been accepted.
“My lord Raza…” She turned her gaze heavenward, to the single crimson star that hung directly over the Lake of Fire. “…I return te Ye the First, and that which he bore.”
She placed the box upon the lava, where it floated for a moment, before being consumed in a roar of flame.
Tasker and Glory had returned home. Now it was time for her to do the same.
She slept fitfully that night, but when she finally succumbed to sleep, she found herself in familiar surroundings.
Black, volcanic sand stretched as far as the eye could see. On the distant horizon, a volcano belched ash and smoke into an angry red sky.
Raza’s realm. There was no mistaking it.
It was then that she saw him; a huge man, perhaps six and a half feet tall, and impressively muscled. His hair was cropped close to his skull; his eyes, when he turned to look at her, were a haunting ice blue. A deep scar ran diagonally across his throat.
From what she knew of the legend, the neck wound had left him unable to speak. Perhaps that remained true, even in death.
“Tasker,” she said.
He nodded once, then slung the great axe across his shoulder and set off in the direction of the volcano. |