Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  "Why would you want to disturb the spring," Muriel asked.

  "The bowl used for Flying lies beneath the water," Bacchanor explained. "If we don't drain the pool, the water will be caught inside the new sphere Mar'Gul will soon make. Besides the discomfort that would come with Flying in a fish bowl, the amount of air that would be left for us to breathe would be greatly reduced."

  Startled that the bowl made of blocks of hewn stones was used for Flying, Muriel took time to consider this fact before she set her mind to developing a plan to get rid of the water. "I've got an idea,” she said before adding: "Give me some room to work."

  Pulling out one of the Candle Maker Candles she was carrying, Muriel spoke a Word of Power that made a small flame burst to life on the protruding wick. After making the candle twirl about her outstretched hand, the flame expanded to form a shield of fire that she quickly reshaped into a fiery hand she sent into the bowl to scoop out the water.

  Steam was seen rising up into the brilliant light the hand cast into the sky overhead as the water was pushed from the bowl, light that the could be see from afar. When the magical illumination appeared, the number of wolves it sent to howling revealed how vast the pack was, if it was only one pack they heard.

  Looking out over the plain, as she got ready to recall the huge, fiery hand she used to push the water out of the stone-lined bowl, Muriel saw the candle's light reflecting off of scores of eyes that bounced along as the wolves ran toward them. She could make out three distinct packs moving her way in the fiery hand's last moments of life. This made Muriel wonder how many more packs could be seen if the rock outcropping was removed from blocking her line of sight.

  A distant roar drew the Prophetess' attention to the sky.

  "That's Seym Blood," Grour Blood explained. Without hearing an answering roar that should have come from others if they were travelling with him, he added, "He's alone."

  "If he's by himself, why would he roar so?" Muriel asked

  "It sounded like a warning signal to me. But I don't think it was intended for our ears, not with how far away it was."

  The moment Muriel lit the candle she carried, the magic it released accompanied the light that was sent out until it touched the elongated crack that sat at the back of the cleft where the bowl was found. Reaching inside the strange doorway that legend said led to the Warl of the Dead, the talisman's power enabled Pearl to sense what was found within.

  "Assemble the wood around the bowl," Pearl's ethereal voice sounded uncharacteristically agitated, "in three equally spaced piles. Muriel, keep you candle lit. We'll use its flame to light the wood once it's properly arranged."

  After looking at the ominous crack again, Pearl added in a voice that almost sounded like the one she had before she died: "Hurry! Something's making its way up the tunnel. My guess is that we've stepped into a trap just as Elamor feared we might. Whatever's coming out of the Warl of the Dead wants to pin us against a wall of possessed wolves. Hurry!"

  Bacchanor and Bala went to a pile of debri they had hidden behind a nearby boulder and carried it to the designated spots where fires would be built to act as the catalyst that would activate the Magic of Flying. Because the rock outcropping, where the bowl used for Flying was built, was found in the middle of a plain filled with dried grass, little true wood was included in the combustable fuel. Sticks of varying thicknesses were the main staple. Brittle brush and dried grass was included in addition to three pieces of wood Bacchanor had the presence of mind to take from a woodpile he ran across before he and the others left the encampment where Muriel's tent was found.

  Once the combustible detritus had been arranged in triangular-shaped heaps that held the three pieces of firewood at there centers, Bacchanor called for Muriel to use her candle to set the fuel aflame. But before she had time to light the first pile, Pearl shouted, "Bacchanor, behind you!"

  Looking to see what Pearl was alarmed about, Muriel saw a black human-like shape leap out of the dark, elongated crack sitting at the far end of the rocky cleft and jump on the wizard's back. Since he just happened to be the closest one to the mouth of the passageway that led to the Warl of the Dead, Bacchanor had the misfortune of being the one targeted by the strange being. Two others of its kind soon joined the gangly thing that was trying to wrap its unusually long arms and legs around the struggling wizard.

  "Catchers," Muriel shouted after recognizing the wraithlike creature that had latched onto Bacchanor. Once human, the black things had morphed into beings whose sole purpose was to serve the Evil One who ruled over the darkness covering half of the Warl of the Dead.

  Armed with the Magic of Persuasion, the Catchers, as they had come to be called by those who knew about them, ambushed the spirits of the recently deceased as they approached the Fork in the Road where the path leading into the Warl of the Dead split into two tracks that led either into darkness or light. After wrapping them up with their slender, elongated arms and legs, the Catchers would convince their captives that it was only right to embrace the wrong they had either done or was done to them as they sojourned through the Warl of the Living; and as they did, the Catchers' black color was transfered to their prey like ink spilled out of a toppled ink well. Eventually those apprehended were turned into variations of the Catchers themselves.

  Setting aside the task of lighting the fires needed to initiate the Magic of Flying so she could go and help Bacchanor free himself from his would-be captors, Muriel moved to use her candle's flame to loosen the Catchers' grip on her dear friend. Turning the flame into a radiant lance, the Prophetess thrust supernatural fire’s tapered point into the creatures' tar-black limbs, making them convulse under her assault as they lost hold of their prey.

  Time and again, Muriel stabbed the Catchers who screamed as she attacked them with fury that was bred from her memories in the Temple of the Oak Tree when the foul specters had come to claim her as their own.

  When Pearl arrived with a phantom sword held in her hand, one her inimitable magic enabled her to devise, the tide of battle was turned even though more Catchers kept coming out of the crack in the rock outcropping that gave them access to the Warl of the Living. Those that Pearl wounded were able to continue to fight as they tried to grasp hold of the wizard and the Prophetess with arms and legs as supple as a denizen of the deep's tentacles, while those her mystical blade ran through were turned into black smoke that was sucked past the elongated crack's jagged lips and into the passageway the took the specters back to their dark abode.

  Screaming, as the last Catcher to maintain its grasp on him poured the Magic of Persuasion into his ear, Bacchanor didn't notice the mist-like blade that was thrust below his chin and then outward through the neck of the black creature that stubbornly held onto him. To Pearl's chagrin, even though the Catcher's body was vaporized into a mass of black smoke, the head kept hurling its spell into her husband's ear until it, too, finally succumbed to her sword's power.

  With their first attempt to catch a prize brought to a temporary end, the Catchers settled on maintaining their position up against the rocks that formed the cleft the bowl used for Flying was found in. Looking like thick, black blood oozing out of a jagged cut in the stone they stood up against, the Catchers continued to make their way both to the right and to the left, creating a set of black jaws that could close on their prey at amoment's notice.

  While this was happening, the plains wolves arrived. But instead of attacking straightway as Bala- who stood before the lupine throng with her needle sharp blade held in hand and her nearly translucent wings folded agains ther back, a throng that had exchanged its howling for incessant growling that was so loud it sounded like an ocean's wave was continually breaking against a rocky shoreline- the packs seemed content to serve as the cork that kept Bala and the others bottled up with the black poison that continued to spread out around them.

  Grour Blood, whose massive body was crouched and ready to spring into action against the wolves, stood beside the intrepid ti
ny cretchym while Pearl ordered Muriel to light the fires needed to conjure up the Magic of Flying. But whenever she moved close enough to set the piles of debris aflame, the Catchers stepped forward in a way that told her they would contest her actions if she continued to approach the detritus.

  "What's going on?" Muriel asked Bacchanor for his take on things. "Why don't they attack?"

  After taking a hard look at the throng of Catchers that lined the sides of the huge boulders surrounding them, and glancing at the growling mass of wolves that stood just beyond the cleft's mouth, the Brown Wizard said, "They’re waiting for something. All they want to do is keep us boxed in until it comes. But they’ll fight if we try to leave. That's why they're willing to dispute your attempts to light the fires."

  Cretchym that came to roost on top of the rocky outcropping added weight to the wizard's assessment. At first there was one that looked like a giant preying mantis with long, blonde hair flowing down from an oddly human-shaped head. Of its six legs, the two upper ones were replaced with shell-covered arms and hands that were ready to unsheathe the sword strapped around its long torso.

  When a second cretchym that looked like the first's twin arrived, the sky was removed as an uncontested avenue of escape. The two huge beetle-like monsters that came to roost on the other side of the cleft from the mantis-men confirmed this assumption.

  "They’re waiting for something or someone," Pearl's voice sounded like it was echoing against the rocks lining the cleft. "But whatever is coming, isn't coming up the passageway that leads to the Warl of the Dead or else it would already be here. Neither is it coming overland. That would take to long. I say: look to the sky for your answer."

  "Ab'Don's coming!" Muriel had no doubts about it. "I saw him fly off on the back of a fiery-winged worm following the Battle of the Temple of the Oak Tree."

  "I think you might be right," Pearl replied as she looked overhead, "though I feel the darkness that dwells in the recesses of the Warl of the Dead accompanies him."

  "I sensed that it in him too before he flew off on his fiery mount," Muriel added. "But this time, it feels different. The darkness is deeper. It's like the ashes sitting in a fireplace have been thrown at us and not the bitter fragrance alone. Substance over smell is how I would explain it. Ab'Don has changed. The darkness found in the Warl of the Dead has taken deeper root in him since the last time I met him, so much so, he feels no different than the Evil One who breeds that darkness."

  "And you would know, wouldn't you?" A Catcher that detached itself from the mass of black beings it was pressed up against had spoken with a voice eerily similar to Pearl's in its quality.

  Maintaining a semblance of its former appearance when it was a human, in spite of its present elongated shape, Muriel thought she recognized the spectral creature. "I remember you," she said. "You're Alynd's grandfather, aren't you?"

  "Regrettably yes," the former King of Otrodor admitted. "But that's a mistake I'm committed to rectifying. That's why I'm here: To hurt a person the elf-mutant loves, though my hatred for you includes the part you played in keeping me from reclaiming the Throne of Otrodor.

  "Look around you," the Catcher's teeth were as black as the rest of his body when he smiled, "those who accompanied me to the Temple of the Oak Tree are here too. They have a score of their own to settle with you, though the settling will be carried out by the one you fear the most."

  Laughter that sounded like it came from far away wafted out of the crowd before the bemused Catcher continued. "Do you recall the horror of our master's touch? Do you miss it? Would you like to feel it again?"

  The Catcher was refering to the time Muriel's spirit had been taken into the Warl of the Dead where she met the Nameless One face to face and endured the depth of defilement that only the evil entity was capable of delivering.

  "I won’t let you drag my spirit back into the Warl of the Dead again," she shouted as the magical ring that her father had given her at the time of her birth began to glow on the finger it sat on.

  "As you've already sensed," the Catcher folded its hands together like it was a teacher lecturing a wayward student, "that’s no longer necessary. My Master has entered the Warl of the Living as you shall soon see. You are wrong to think Ab'Don is coming, though his body is the vehicle our Lord has chosen to commandeer."

  "Ab'Don is no more?" Muriel asked, incredulous that her lifelong enemy had been replaced by a greater foe.

  "I wouldn't say he's no more," the Catcher explained with a satisfied look on its face. "He's just not driving the wagon anymore." Laughing, the once King of Otrodor added: "I'd say he's been tossed into the wagon's bed, all trussed up and gagged."

  "We've got to get out of here," Muriel, terrified by the prospect of facing the Evil One without her husband by her side, turned and shouted to the others to get them ready for what she was about to do. Once she was certain they had been properly alerted, Muriel turned the flame that danced on top of the nearly burned out candle she was carrying into a fiery lance and moved forward and shoved the brilliant flame into the pile of debri. Setting it aflame with magical fire the Catchers couldn't extinguish, she moved onto the second pile while Pearl stepped between her and the black fiends that rushed forward to stop her.

  While Pearl's busy blade created a cloud of black smoke around her, Bacchanor took out his own blade to protect Muriel's flank, singing a Song of Healing as he went, using the Healing Magic's power to confront the disease that infected the Catcher's spirits. Though the Brown Wizard's blade couldn't dispatch the fiends like his wife's spectral sword could, the wounds it inflicted forced memories of the former lives the Catchers once lived to resurface in a way that made those who had recollections of times of peace and happiness, mixed in with the evil they either gave or got, stumble as they wrestled for control of their minds.

  The stronger the memories, the longer it took to complete the wrestling match. Those that had only experienced darkness in the lives they once lived were only slowed for a time. Those who had enough pleasant memories mixed in, memories of loving families and faithful friendships, never escaped the bout of anguish they tussled with.

  Before the plains wolves had time to attack, a ruckus broke out the rear of the packs, one so violent that the lupine hordes attention was diverted from Muriel.

  Hearing the giant's roar, Groar Blood looked at Bala and said, "That's Bear and he's bellowing like he did in the Battle of the Cave of Forgetfulness. Get ready Little One, fury is on its way."

  "Ashes!" Bala shrieked. "We got to fight a bear along with these fire-blasted wolves?"

  "No, Little One," Grour Blood chuckled, though his fierce expression was anything but jovial, "Bear's a giant who's on our side. The fury is his. I've seen it before. I wouldn't want to be one of the wolves right now."

  "I've got my own fury," Bala spat on the ground as she spoke, "I don't need no giant's fury to help me."

  "I don't doubt it, Little One. But after you see him and the massive metal-studded club he wields in action, you'll think otherwise."

  The wolves that had fallen under the Spell of the White Hand were the first to turn their attention back to Muriel, who was now advancing on the third and last pile of debri. Connected to the One Who Is Not Ab'Don by the spell he had cast over them, the wolves were driven on by a will that kept them focused on the prized prey- the Prophetess, Muriel Oakenfel, she who held the key to his plans to unleash the Warl of the Dead on the Warl of the Living.

  "Little One, keep your eyes on the cretchym. Your blade will do little good against these bloodless wolves, but it can keep your kin, no disrespect intended, off our backs."

  "Aye, I'll keep my eyes on the sky," Bala said as she extended her wings and took to the air.

  The mantis and beetle-men rose up to meet her. But Bala was too quick for the larger cretchym who futiley swatted at her as she sped by. In time, she had taken one of the mantis-men down. But with three more cretchym trying to corral her into a space tight enough where their w
eapons would be of some use, Bala still had the odds going against her.

  Once she caught sight of a swarm of cretchym flying out of the east as the graying sky of the predawn day spred across the horizon behind them, she knew the unfavorable odds she was facing was about to be dramatically increased. How the foreboding, black creature that trailed them would affect things, a bird-like monstrosity whose wings spanned half the swarm's width, wasn’t hard to guess. With its smoke-like appearance, sorcery had to have a hand in conjuring up the monster.

  The roaring that rose out of the southern sky didn't do anything improve Bala's mood until Grour Blood shouted out in the midst of savagely batting the bloodless pack of wolves about as they tried to get past him and reach Muriel. "Take heart Little One: The Blood are on the way."

  I hope those who are coming remember me. Bala dodged another cretchym blade as she considered what could happen if any of the approaching griffin were unaware of who she was.

  But she needn't worry, the Blood who were on their way were all at the meeting. The greater concern was that there were only three of them: Seym Blood, who escorted Bear get across the plain, was one of them; the other two, Nazar Blood and Shar Blood, had been Muriel's close friends since they were cubs.

  Muriel used to call Nazar Blood, Slim, and the female, Shar Blood, Mittens when they were young. But now that they were fully grown, she set the nicknames aside since they weren't in keeping with the powerful griffins the two had become.

  Like Bear, their concern for Muriel overrode the order to not follow her. And like Bear, they would soon be fighting for their lives as they gave the Prophetess what aid they could, given the overwhelming circumstances they faced, aid that drew the swarm's attention away from a solitary green cretchym that had the gall to fight against her own kind.

  A growing cloud of Lorn Fast Wraiths marked Bear's progress through the wolf packs that separated him from the Well of Souls. It was useless for the disembodied spirits to remain in the wolves he slew with his massive, metal-studded club, since the wraiths didn't possess magic to animate the dead bodies that fell to the dry, grass-covered plain like lifeless rag dolls. And once they were crushed, the deadly weapon that had taken their lives continued on without giving the wolves a second thought. So they left the crumpled bodies and joined the growing throng of Lorn fast Wraiths that clawed at Bear's eyes and face as he relentlessly plowed his way forward, a throng that looked like a cloud had affixed itself to the giant’s head and shoulders.