“I suppose some people wouldn’t react well to seeing it.”
“Some will be scared. Many others will want to have nothing to do with you unless they think the benefits outweigh the risk of getting embroiled in a Maker’s business. And some will try to kill you.”
“They wouldn’t be afraid of getting my boss mad?”
“Yes, but it’s a calculated risk. Makers rarely involve themselves directly in the affairs of the Realms, and the Prime Mover never has, at least as far as I know. He’s a hands-off kind of super-god. Which means a few of the nastier Powers in the Realms will risk killing you just to make sure you don’t mess with their plans.”
“Double-edged sword. Like most stuff in the damn Realms.”
“You got it, buddy. Nothing’s free, and there are strings attached to everything.”
* * *
“I think you know what that Mark means,” Hawke told his future mother-in-law.
“Yes, Hawke Lightseeker. I do. Perhaps better than you,” Kassia said before glancing at Tava. “And now you have given me reason to fear for my daughter’s safety.”
“You have not cared about my well-being for most of my life, Mother,” Tava said in an icy tone. “Why start now?”
Horosha kept quiet, but the way his eyes acquired a fixed glint worried Hawke. He recognized the look. It was the look of someone figuring out the best way to kill every mother-lover in the room.
I might need your help, guys, he sent to Blaze.
“There will be no quarrel between my Guild and Sect and you, Hawke,” Kassia said, defusing the tension in the room. “Bringing you into the fold would complicate things far too much to make it a wise move. So would antagonizing you, as long as you do not oppose our interests.”
“I have no intention of doing so.”
“In that case, I think our business here is concluded.” Kassia stood up. “I’m afraid I need to report this turn of events immediately, so I will not be able to attend your nuptials. I am sorry, Tava.”
“I hadn’t expected you in the first place, Mother. Thanks for visiting. May fortune be with you as you continue on the Path.”
“And may fortune be with you as well,” Kassia said, finishing the formal goodbye that Adventurers often used.
It was something that strangers said to each other, and that was what the two women were. Strangers. Kassia had abandoned her family and had no plans of ever coming back. It made Hawke angry, but he also felt sorry for the Adventurer. He knew what being part of Kinto’s family was worth, and he wouldn’t give it up for any magical doodads or quests.
A few more awkward pleasantries later, they were gone.
Tava hugged Hawke. “My mother is gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
There really wasn’t much else Hawke could think of saying.
Nine
“It’s a nice day for a white wedding,” Olaf Goode sang in a low tone.
“What’s that?” Hawke Lightseeker said, welcoming the distraction. He hadn’t expected to get butterflies in his stomach, not after facing death more times than he could count, but there he was, nervous as hell.
“An old song my father liked,” the Priest explained. “From back in the last century. He made us listen to it a lot.”
“Ah. Maybe I should have hired you for the music.”
“Not a good idea. I have zero talent. And the Bards who got the gig would have me killed.”
“Point.”
The music was actually pretty good. The performers were a trio of Bards, two Eternals and an Adventurer from far-off Alpinia who had come to the Domain when news of the mysterious Sunset Valley reached that city. The Ren Faire Troubadours, as they called their band, played a mixture of local tunes and pseudo-medieval fare from Earth that had become fairly popular in Orom. They were doing their best to entertain the guests at the event of the year, where Tava Kintes and Hawke Lightseeker would tie the knot in front of five hundred of their closest friends.
We discussed this already. Tava said it wouldn’t be proper, remember?
And you and Luna get to provide fireworks. Which you couldn’t do down here on the ground.
he relented and took wing, soaring over the celebration.
Blaze was surprisingly mature for a somebody hatched only weeks ago, but he was still a baby and wasn’t above whining, repeating the same question over and over, and trying to get away with assorted misdeeds. At least he didn’t throw temper tantrums, which could be deadly when coming from a fifteen-foot long furball who was strong enough to crash through a castle wall and whose draconic breath inflicted ridiculous amounts of Mind damage.
Hawke watched the flying fuzzball fondly before turning his attention to the crowd gathered around Kinto’s old hunting lodge, which had been transformed into an open festival. Several colorful tents covered the shallow hill, in sharp contrast to the longhouse and shack that Tava had called home for most of her life and where she was getting prepared for the big event. A traditional wedding started at the house of the bride’s father; Kinto would be giving her away. The only missing piece was Tava’s mother, who normally would be in charge of dressing the bride. Kassia had been true to her word. She and Horosha had left at first light, riding through the town’s main gate without looking back. Instead, Tava was being helped by a team of bridesmaids: Alba, Nadia, and Tava’s newest bestie, Rowena.
There had been some mutters about Alba Bastardes playing a prominent role in the wedding; Hawke’s chief of intelligence had been a fatherless tavern wench, and her sudden rise to prominence had irked a few people. The mutters hadn’t been very loud, however. A few demonstrations of what Alba could do to anybody who dissed her publicly had seen to that. Fear had defeated snobbery. Not Hawke’s ideal of how to handle that sort of thing, but it had worked so far.
Rowena was an Eternal and one of Kaiser Wrecker’s slaves. After hearing from Tava what the woman had gone through, Hawke wished he had spent more time on the Nerf Herders’ leader before zeroing him out and sending him to whatever awaited the perma-dead. Hopefully an eternal stay in Hell. The real Hell, not the made-up Realm known as Tartarus. In any case, Rowena was beginning to recover from her ordeal, and Tava’s kindness to her had grown into a friendship of sorts. The former gamer was working for Flava the Alchemist and was advancing rapidly in that craft. She was a fourth level Sorceress but had no intention of ever adventuring again and had refused to join the Defenders’ guild. Alchemists could be productive members of society without risking their lives, so her choice was probably for the best.
And then there was Nadia, Hawke’s – and Tava’s and Saturnyx’s – ex and the current Empress of the Spider People, holding sway over some fifteen thousand Murk Arachnoids scattered throughout the Sunset Mountains. Her rule had started as largely ceremonial, but she now could resolve disputes, negotiate peace treaties between tribes, and even lead them to war. During a recent invasion of Wolf People into the mountains, she had taken command of a sizable army and led it to victory. Despite their relationship issues, she remained a friend and had been happy to lend a hand.
Hawke turned his attention to his best man. Gosto was in his best Druid finery. The Warden’s Panoply consisted of a suit of scale mail, except each scale was made of polished wood woven into place with vines over a leather surface. The top of a bear skull acted as a helmet and his new staff was a living branch with leaves and flowers growing its length. He cut an impressive and fearsome figure that earned nervous glances from some of the townsfolk.
“I guess I’m too late to talk you out of doing this,” Gosto told him with a grin.
“Heh. Not a chance.”
“I suppose someone had to take a liking to her,” the young Druid went on before turning serious. “I am glad it was you, Hawke. She could have done far worse. Would have, in Orom as it was when you found it.”
Hawke nodded. Back then, the town’s Prefect had allowed vampires to prey on its citizens and the murderous bully he had installed as Guard Captain had his eye on Tava. That situation would have ended up badly. Even without those problems, Tava’s love for travel and adventure wouldn’t have been appreciated by most potential husbands in the valley.
His grin widened. He’d discovered he couldn’t stop smiling since he’d woken up that morning. It was nice being the groom when all the details of the wedding were in the hands of other people. All he had to do was show up, say his lines and go home with two beautiful women. The only thing that could put a damper on his good mood was the chance that someone might decide that this was the perfect moment to attack. But he’d taken precautions against that possibility by quadrupling the number of summoned critters watching over the area and extending the wards to encompass the town’s environs and raising their power level. He’d burned through half the Domain’s Mana reserves, but no Demon, Fae or Undead who wasn’t on the invite list could enter Orom without getting hit by some very high-power spells. To that, he had added dozens of Inscribed spells all over the area. Any wedding crashers who tried their luck wouldn’t live long enough to regret it.
He watched the gathered crowd. Everyone and their brother had wanted to be there but they’d managed to trim the list down to only a few hundred people. Most of the sixty-two members of the Guild were there, of course, except for a couple of teams doing quests and patrolling the Shadowy Foothills. All the town notables had been invited, including all the town officers, major merchants, craftsmen like Katros and Flava, and twenty Dwarves from the Stern Company, including all the Adventurers who had helped Hawke overthrow the Necromancer. All the living Adventurers, that was; Hawke still felt guilty about the death of Daggon, who had fallen during the final fight at the Stronghold.
There was even a visitor from Akila that Hawke had not expected: Jake Duchamp, better known as Archmage Jacobus of the Council of the Wise. He spotted the Eternal wizard walking purposefully toward the groom’s party. Hawke hadn’t seen Jake since their conversation about the Prime Mover. He had sent an invitation, but hadn’t received an RSVP back. Understandable; the Council of the Wise had been a mess ever since the Nerf Herders had burned down its tower and murdered almost half of its leadership and dozens of lower-ranked members. Hawke wondered what he was doing in Orom and suspected it might involve asking him to do something. He shrugged; whatever it was, he would take the chance to talk to the wizard about his problems with Akila’s authorities. If you had friends in high places you’d be dumb not to ask them to lend a hand.
“Lord Hawke,” Jake said.
“Archmage Jacobus,” Hawke replied. “Why so formal, Jake?” he went on in English.
The wizard grinned before speaking in the same language. “Just a stickler for the forms, I suppose. When you spend decades learning how to greet V.I.P.s and figuring out which fork to eat with, formality becomes a habit. It’s good to see you again. Congratulations. I only wish I was here only to witness the blessed event.”
“I figured it was something like that.”
“Now that I’m here, I think I’ll take the day off and enjoy the party. But I do need to talk to you at some point.”
“You’re going to ruin my honeymoon, aren’t you?”
“I wish I wasn’t, kid,” Jake said ruefully. “But we’ve got a problem. And if we don’t fix it, it’s going to affect your valley as well.”
Ten
The wedding went down without a hitch.
Nobody tried to assassinate the bride or groom. No witch showed up to cast a deathly curse upon the celebrants. No monsters showed up, other than those who had invitations, and those behaved quite well. Neither war nor natural disaster interrupted the ceremony. Sometimes the universe gave you a break, if only for a short while. Hawke only wished he had taken the time to enjoy the day more thoroughly.
Tava had looked beautiful in her wedding dress, pale yellow rather than white and a simple design that still managed to show off her figure in all the right ways. By contrast, her normally tied-back hair had been done up in an intricate series of curls that made her look both older and more regal at the same time, a fitting bride for the Lord of the Domain. In the midst of the dumb happiness of it all, he wondered if she shouldn’t keep the hairdo for when she started attending meetings as co-ruler of the Sunset Valley. On the other hand, she didn’t need any schticks to gain the respect of the people of Orom and, if anybody hadn’t gotten the memo, the Dire Bear that followed her around like a puppy would probably make it clear that she wasn’t someone to be disrespected.
The rest of the wedding had been a blur he only half-remembered. There had been the vows, which fortunately were traditional, sparing him from trying to come up with his own lines. The party that followed had been fun, but he’d hit the booze a little hard and he’d mostly smiled and nodded at the seemingly endless parade of well-wishers. For the first time in what felt like forever, Hawke had relaxed, trusting his friends and allies to keep him safe. He hadn’t let his guard down completely, of course. A part of him could never stop assessing everyone who came nearby, looking for potential threats. The list of people who meant him harm was too long for him to completely let go. He still didn’t fully trust many of the new Eternals he’d brought into the Domain, just to name one potential enemy. Declaring war against the Court of Thorns hadn’t helped, either.
He survived the party and had most of a full night of joy with Tava. Even Saturnyx left them alone to celebrate. It was a rare luxury and Hawke tried to make the most of it.
Finally, the two of them lay together in bed and Hawke told her the bad news.
“You saw that Jacobus came to visit,” he said.
Tava nodded. “And he wants something from you.”
“There is trouble in Akila. The Malleus Mallum Labyrinth is letting its monsters out. Two villages have been destroyed already.”
“They have an entire Legion at their disposal.”
“Only a few dozen of them are Adventurers. They’ve lost several of them already. It’s gotten so bad that they released four Nerf Herders to help out. They got killed. Reincarnated back, of course, but they need help.”
“They want more Eternals to deal with their enemy.”
“Yep. Even if we get killed, we will come back to life and report what happened.”
“And you would risk one or more of your lives for the folk of Akila?”
“I made them pay for the privilege. For one, Jake is going to deal with that nonsense tariff.”
“That’s not much of a reward.”
“There’s more to it. The monsters aren’t normal. They have been changed by Chaos magic. Remind you of anything?”
“We’ve seen an Undead-tainted Dungeon. You think the Court of Thorns is involved?”
“I figure it’s them. They were pulling the Necromancer’s strings, they used the Revenant, first to raise an army of Woodlings, then to corrupt that Infernal Dungeon, and finally to start a zombie apocalypse in Akila. Looks like they are trying something different this time. Or maybe they like to have multiple plans in the works.”
“If you go – if we go – who will keep watch over the Domain? The Court is threatening the Foothills as well.”
“I was hoping you would.”
“I knew it. You want me to stay behind.”
“You are now the official co-ruler of the Domain, and a third-level Arcane Steward. And you’re also one of the few people over level twenty we’ve got.”
She didn’t say anything, but the glare in her eyes was answer enough.
&
nbsp; “I’d rather you were by my side, to be honest,” he told her. “I just don’t know if I want to leave Olaf in charge of everything. Not because I don’t trust him. It’s just a lot to handle.”
“In that case, leave Olaf in charge of Orom, put Marko in command of the Stronghold, and let Nadia watch over the western border with her Arachnoids, perhaps after forging a formal alliance. Then, extend the wards against Fae and Undead to encompass the entire Domain.”
“Expensive,” Hawke said, but after he thought about it, he figured he might be able to afford the Structural Mana involved. He would have to do nothing but pump Mana into the system to avoid depleting the Domain’s reserves, but it was doable.
Tava smiled. “I can almost see your mind at work like some clockwork mechanism. But you agree it can be done.”
“I’ll have to play with the Domain Interface to make sure, but yeah, I think so.”
“Then we’ll ride together.”
“We will,” he agreed.
Truth was, he hadn’t felt good about asking her to stay behind. This was one argument he didn’t mind losing.
“I’m taking Artos and Glorificus too, after I get them a full pardon from Akila. If they are releasing other Nerf Herders, it’s the least they can do.”
“Who else?”
“Grognard, of course. Gosto, if he can get away from the Grove for a few days. Whatever is affecting the monsters is mixing Chaos and Life magic and his expertise will come in handy. And Alba. She still hasn’t forgiven me for not bringing her to Akila.”
That had stirred a lot of hurt feelings, but he’d felt that Alba was needed keeping things secure at home. The last-minute change in plans had spared her from running into Desmond, which was probably for the best, but she wasn’t happy. She was level seventeen and would have hit the level twenty milestone if she’d come along. Of course, if she had come along she might not have lived to hit level twenty. There had been plenty of close calls during that trip. People in the Realms were a lot more willing to take risks than Hawke thought was safe – or sane. If he only had one life to put on the line, he would have probably tried to retire from the adventuring life as soon as he could. Alba didn’t think like that, however. A lot of people didn’t.
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