“I figured as much.” The soldier said flatly.
“I reckon that’s not what you were expecting to hear, and I I’ll admit it’s a lot to just drop on a strang- wait, what?! What do you mean ‘you figure as much’?” Her jolt of shock had been near palpable, if not even comical, but Elias's matter of fact tone and countenance hadn’t faltered.
“I mean, I figured as much. Like I said, you weren’t very subtle with your attempts at espionage, nor does it seem you’re at all familiar with spotting a tail. I had you followed, Mrs. Corwood.” Again, the surprise, again, the Ravokian held cool his composure in light of its demanding nature. “You visited The Black Tar a few times -more than a few times actually.” Though she didn’t seem like the type, in this particular instant Merrill had shown herself to be the kind of indecisive that got soldiers killed and battles lost. She’d gone to the less than reputable store more than once with an initial confidence as tangible as the summer sun, but time and time again, though her journey had begun promising and full of vigor, come the moment she’d actually reached the store's front entrance, her resolve had faltered and failed, leaving her a wavering, tentative mess just outside its doors.
Finally, after far too many bells spent dawdling outside in mental debate, and far too many days ending in a trip to the nearby pub instead, Merrill had finally found the nerve to step inside.
Naturally, most people had heard the dark and ominous stories about the Black Tar and its shadowy purveyor, but the man behind the curtain wasn’t as mysterious as he liked to believe. You threatened to break enough vials and burn enough important looking herbs and all the pomp and façade vanish like so much cheap incense with the windows thrown open. “The owner told me about the curious conversation you two had, and about the poison you purchased from him that day,” Elias continued, reaching down into one of his saddlebags to gingerly retrieve something. “And when I pressed him, he was kind enough to surrender the antidote as well.” The little vial he had pulled free from the bag caught the light as he gripped it between his fingers. The contents were an odd and sickly shade of green and the bottle itself was inconspicuous and unlabeled, but within resided the cure for the deadly toxin Merrill had spent so much coin on. He had taken the antidote fully expecting to use it for himself later should things go awry as they often did, but after he’d arrived, his concept of what this clandestine meeting was all about had changed drastically.
He had looked into her aura as she looked back at him, smiling, and he could see that behind those sad eyes there were none of the things he saw in those who had come before her to claim his life. The tightening of muscles, the shortness of breath, the seething rage, the focused fury, the putrid conviction, Elias knew all these things combined made up the stink of a man who was intent to kill. He’d been around such subtle and overbearing signs nearly his entire life and grown accustomed to spotting them, with or without his auristics. Merrill was a lot of things, many of them confusing, but what she wasn’t was here to kill him, that much was plain to see.
Truth be told, it had been the letter that had made things so obvious in the end. The sheer fatalistic nature of her script, the way each sentence ended with a sense of dreadful intent, even if it hadn’t been purposeful, had still been a clue towards piecing together her mysterious ends… that and the fact that she had also requested he bring a shovel along hadn’t helped much in concealing her motives either.
“Well,” Merrill said after a while, half scowling, “You must be a real joy at surprise birthday parties. You’ve certainly ruined my surprise.” The Zeltivan sighed, brushed at her robes indelicately, and then swept the stray strands of silvery hair from her face to better reveal the beleaguered look that had been hiding beneath them. “Yes, I came out here to end it all. There, its out in the open now, I suppose. I got my affairs all in order, got my myself all dressed up, wandered out here into the woods with a hand full of poison, and I then called you to help -gods above, I sound absolutely insane saying all this out loud now, but there you go, I’m a mad old woman with nothing left to lose. Anymore questions?” Clasping her face in leathery, calloused hands, Merrill dropped herself unceremoniously upon a nearby capsized log. She groaned, defeated, and the pained and fatigued sound reverberating within her palms as she sunk deeper into her seated slouch.
For his part, Elias still had not moved from his own seat atop the nameless horse, but now he was fighting off the fidgets that beset him and was looking about the clearing uncomfortably as if in search of some rescue. He cleared his throat, returned his attentions back to the suicidal mad woman, and asked “And... you chose me to help you do this solely because of the gnosis we share?” Another heartless groan from her, though this time it sounded vaguely of agreement.
“And you wanted me to bury you once it was done.” He concluded matter of factly. Merril finally released herself from the imprisonment of her embarrassment, fingers stretching the sagging skin of her cheeks taught as she pulled them free with one final sigh. “My Tamlen... died during the journey here. He’s buried just beyond the grove back the way we came. I’ve had my eye on the little spot next to his grave ever since we put him in the ground, the one where those pretty white flowers grow. I had hoped to join him there once I had… worked up the courage.”
“I see. I’m sorry.” Was all the stryfer could manage. He didn’t mean it, but he didn’t know what else to say. Usually that just meant it was time to leave, but something held him here, with her, if only for a little while longer. Was it the gnosis, or her tale? Both were tragically familiar in their own way.
“Oh, that’s alright. I’ve come to grips with it since then, I think. I’m not all that unfamiliar with loss, you see.” She gave him a sly yet rueful look, pulling up the sleeve of her blood red robe to reveal the equally crimson links of Viratas’s chains upon her arm. Elias was shocked to see two marks of the blood god there. “In fact, you could say me and loss are practically old pals by now. That’s the thing about getting as old as I am, I suppose, you get to watch as everyone else fades away before their time while you keep trudging along. Sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, I've lost them all. In the end it was just me and Tamlen, and for a long, long time that was enough. We came up north hoping to find a quite little place for us to spend the last of our days in peace, but then that damn, stubborn fool had to play the hero one final time. Didn’t even give a damn about me when he saw those people in trouble, just charged after that monster like he was fifty years younger and just as dumb. He’s always been like that, running head long into a problem, especially when it wasn’t his to begin with. Stubborn, stupid old fool…”
She looked up at him, a seriousness taking hold of her tone now. “I’m a Corwood, Zeltivan true and proud. Giving up isn’t in my nature, but I’m also a Corwood, and family is everything -or at least it was. I don't know if you know what that's like, but its hard to explain, and even harder still to describe the hole it leaves in you when its gone. Now every time I look at this gnosis, I feel like a sham and I’m reminded again of all the ones I lost. I'm marked by the god of family, but I have none left... Putting me in the ground is only part of it, and yes, I would very much appreciate not being left out here to rot like a hunk of shriveled up pork. What I asked you out here for though, what I really need you to do, is just to listen to an old woman babble for a little while. After me, there’s no one left to carry on the story of my family, and it would be a real damn shame if we wound up forgotten because I couldn't work past my pride to ask for a little help.”
Merrill’s eyes fell to the floor once more, dejected and lost. “Yet again I hear the words out loud, and yet again I am reminded how utterly ridiculous they sound outside my head.”
There was a pause in the conversation, and for what felt like a long time, the rustling of the sentinel pines around them and the distant chirping of the birds hiding within their evergreen embrace was the only sound to be heard.
“You’re intent on going through with this, then?” Elias asked, breaking the tranquility with a question.
“I am.” Merrill replied sternly. "Don't bother arguing with me about it. I've been arguing with myself in the mirror for months now. One of us finally won out."
“You know, I could stop you. Drag you back to Ravok and have them lock you away for your own safety.”
“You could, I suppose, but I’d just wind right back up here in the end…”
The two looked at each other, cold blue eyes mingling with the dull, jaded greens that defiantly stared back. He knew this loss, he understood perfectly. It was what he felt after his mother passed. What he felt after Torian's demise. That hollow, gnawing void that ate you up for them inside like a sickness. It was inescabable, and it had to be filled with something -anything, lest it consume you whole. For Elias, it had been vengeance. The need to slaughter his false father for his crimes was all that hjad driven him for years. After the deed was done, there had been nothing left, and that darkness had returned, but this time he'd welcomed it gladly. Death would have been a reprieve then, but as fate would have it, god had bigger plans than the fool whom worshiped him.
Without another word, Elias dismounted, slung his reigns over a nearby branch, walked over to the old sea captain, and took a seat next to her on the log. He rested his elbows upon his knees and leaned forward, attention decidedly cast anywhere else but on Merrill herself. He was fighting his own discomfort, and it was obvious, but the soldier swallowed, honed his nerve, and then with a strangely casually tone he said “Tamlen sounds like one hell of a man.
Tell me about him.”
For the first time since he’d met her, Merrill Corwood's eyes lit up with a spark of something that looked genuinely… happy.