Fatima's Diary

reflections for the lost

44. Reunion

I, of course, flew up to the treetops and skimmed around, flitting from treetop to treetop and observing the labor camps scattered around the countryside. My strange and ephemeral luck was with me this day. I spied Kilasia, a performer from Gabarious' troup, who had been captured when they came to Telyth to look for us, over a year and a half ago.

She had the same blank look on her face as she labored under the overcast sky. I also observed that the beasts from afar that looked like large dogs were more along the ferocity and size of dire wolves.

I reported this all back to my fellow Defenders. We quickly developed a plan where Lobar and Labrinnon were to swoop in, have sleep cast, and then the guard and our old friend would be spirited away before the others noticed. And that is exactly how it was pulled off. Labrinnon was even able to pull out of his wonderful bag of many things a lion that we had stalk about leaving tracks where they once were. We hoped this would cover our trail.

Once across the border outside of the lands of Abrantier, both our friend and the guard we took began to scream until their lungs emptied, and then gasp and scream as they shook and trembled. Labrinnon was able to cast a counterspell to temporarily dispel the effects of the Enchantment on the two of them, and the tale they spoke to us was terrible.

The guard related that the entire population is entranced by some hideous pact made between the dark gods and an ancient member of the Noble House Abrantier. The nobles freely speak of their dealings among themselves, even with normal townsfolk about because they are so arrogant in their power over the population. To my deepest revulsion, he explained that children are aware of their free will, because the pact's effects on the population do not come about until age ten or so.

They spend their blank lives knowing the evil they live with and feed, and cannot stop themselves.

Kilasia's tale was just as horrible. She knew that there was something within the black, windowless tower that juts from the Manor House like a blackened finger into the overcast and stormy sky. She spoke of the fight when they were captured, of Smaki and Triana still being held within the city walls. She spoke of being forced to work before dawn and into the night on the fields under the watchful eye of House Abrantier guards. The large wolves were tended by the guards to fend off the tigers and unusually fierce wildlife that would stalk them when momentarily unattended in the fields. The days passed painfully slow and she had counted each dawn. Eventually Kilasia realized she had given in and stopped counting weeks ago, never adding another mark to her post. One year and a day until she died, she cried. Then the pain began to take her again. Many of the Defenders looked away as Thea and I had to carry her back onto the Abrantier Land, to end her seizuring agony.