The Conjunction

TWO WEEKS AGO

The young priest extended the torch as far out in front of himself as he could.

“You’re not afraid of the dark, are you my friend?” Constable Dreng needled him.

Brother Markus looked sourly over his shoulder at the fallen paladin.

“Afraid of it, no,” he replied. “Just overly familiar with the things that dwell in it.”

The friends carefully picked their way through the depths of the emptied Black Edifice, coming eventually to the great, stone disc the adventurers had described to them.

Markus stepped up to the structure, holding his torch aloft. It was dark stone, perhaps twelve feet in diameter, and covered in runes and sigils etched deeply into the rock. In the center of the disc was a relief fashioned in the likeness of a great, thorny eye.

“Basalt,” he remarked. “Well, that is odd. These chambers were carved directly out of the limestone of the region’s rocky hills. This dark stone would have had to have been transported from the seashore. It’s quite some distance from there to here. Not an easy route, by any means, nor an easy task to come by such a large specimen.”

“As to the markings, I can not make them out, but with the blessing of the Whispering Wind, that will not impede us for long.”

Markus intoned the words of one of the strongest enchantments he knew, which would provide him with the gift of many tongues. As the divine spark took hold in him, the obscure markings began to take on an intelligible shape.

“Hmmmm,” Markus mumbled contemplatively as he began to read the runes. “Oh, ho!”

Dreng groaned at his friend’s exhortations.

“Every time you do that, something bad is about to happen!”

Markus smirked at the constable’s displeasure. “The moon is waxing,” he explained, “ and it is also nearly the time of the summer solstice.”

“What of it?”

“These runes predict that certain events occur at such times, as such times are sacred to something named He Who Dreams in Shadow. I have seen that very honorific referred to repeatedly in the goblinoid letters recently captured by our local adventurers. This Edifice must have once served as something like a shrine to this personage.”

Markus continued to read.

“The last conjunction of full moon and solstice would have occurred 68 years ago, so if this set of markings in the fashion of a calendar are to be believed,” he explained, pointing to various images and lines of script. “This complimentary set of runes here suggests that the last conjunction initiated a dormant phase, with the conjunction prior to that initiating an active phase. Fascinating . . .”

“Why is that fascinating?”

“Well, that cyclical pattern would suggest that the approaching conjunction would initiate another active phase.”

“Wonderful. What happens during an active phase?”

“Corruption,” he began, touching a series of runes in order. “Madness. Destruction.”

Destruction

The two friends felt the word suddenly reverberate in their minds just as the flame of Markus’ torch extinguished, leaving them in utter blackness.

Markus heard Dreng draw his greatsword from its sheath.

“Shirak,” the priest whispered into the dark, and a cool light burst from where he held his left hand aloft. With his right, he drew the mace from his belt and held it out at the ready. The priest and the fallen paladin stood back to back, peering out into the inky depth beyond the radius of Markus’ light spell.

“Remember how to use that thing?” Dreng needled him again, jabbing a thumb at Markus’ weapon.

Markus smiled at his friend’s jibe as the darkness pressed in on them.

ONE WEEK AGO

Ghaelvwynne  Swift Hands

“The weapon will not come alive in my hands . . . ,” Ghaelvwynne muttered darkly to herself, looking down at her family’s greatest heirloom. “By this time in their life, both my mother and sister had already bonded with Sadekeha.”

Sadekeha

“You are the heir of the Valinesti, Ghaele,” Lothlaeril the Runner reminded her. “Your time will come.”

Lothlaeril the Runner

She looked fondly at her lifemate. He was right, of course. And he always knew what to say to ease her troubled thoughts.

Even so, another concern lingered in her mind, which she had not spoken of with Lothlaeril. The sacred lands had been cleared, it was true, and Ghaele could tell that the land was already healing, but she could also sense that the healing was slowed, and that there was still some lingering corruption that would need further uprooting. As heirophant of her people, she would return with her fellow druids to perform more rituals to ensure the land was fully cleansed. First, however, she would need to know more about what they were dealing with.

The humans who had helped them had sent the corpses of the invading creatures back to the priest of their hometown of Hannsport for examination. She would need to do her own examination, as well.

Ghaelvwynne put her bow away amongst their traveling packs as the pair broke camp under the light of the growing moon. With their keen eyes, the elves moved about the clearing as if it had been mid day, rather than close to midnight. When they had finished their preparations, the stoic ranger looked to her once more.

“Now that our ancestral grounds are recovering, do we return to the deep wood to deal with the orc bands descending from the mountains?”

“I think not,” she replied, after a moment of thought. “At least not yet. With the events of recent days, I would first travel to Hannsport speak with its resident priest.”

THREE DAYS AGO

“My love, tomorrow my mother shall be laid to rest with our ancestors, and I do not know what will come next for me,” Abby March confessed, as she drew close to her paramour under the moonlit boughs of the March Estate gardens.

“Do not let these things trouble you for now, love,” he replied, pulling closer to her. “This is your time to grieve. Know that your aunt Jhessa is here to guide you in this time of sadness. And I am here for you, as well.”

“But you will not be there during the rites,” she replied. “Tomorrow is the first night of the full moon and the interment must then follow in the morning.”

“I cannot attend you then, as you know. It wounds me deeply, but my presence would not be tolerated by the upstanding citizens of Logash.”

As they huddled together under the night sky, the young lovers failed to mark the prying eyes that watched them enviously from the shadows.

Torren Skiff had come this night to March Manor to decide upon a final course of action, only to come upon the scene in the gardens between his object of affection and her lowborn lover. The insult to his status by such a thing was nearly incomprehensible. It appeared this night that the fates had decided for him what he must do.

He reached into a belt pouch and pulled out a scrap of paper. On it was written a rare gypsy curse, purchased some time ago from a wretched creature belonging to the Zsoldos. On many a night while in a drunken stupor he had vacillated over whether to use it on the woman who had repeatedly made him look a fool.

And tonight was once again such a night.

The rage continued to build within him, further blurring his already impaired vision. Fumbling with the paper, he began whispering the words of the curse. The unworthy strumpet would pay for her treachery!

Swaying hazily in the dim, pale light, he quickly rushed through the foul text of the incantation. Perhaps, too quickly. At the final, complicated turn of phrase that was the climax of the curse, his alcohol-thickened tongue stumbled slightly over the words, sending a sharp, shivering chill through the core of his being as he felt the dark energy leap out from the scroll to the pair across the garden.

At that very moment, the young man began to become visibly ill. The young man! The gypsy curse had affected the wrong person! He had been robbed of his revenge! Damn their tinker eyes!

“My love, I do not know what has come over me, I-” the young man murmured, as he wretched convulsively into the nearby shrubbery. Breathing raggedly, he gasped out “I do not understand what is happening.”

Nearly a quarter hour passed, and his condition only worsened. With it now clear that the young man’s plight was not a fleeting malady, the lovers resolved to part ways.

“Go and seek relief from your people,” Dame Abby said to him in parting, “and I shall find you again on the morrow. Be well, my love.”

Both young men took leave of the garden, one to find some means of remedy, and one to sulk in the darkness, eager to find some means of revenge.

NOW

“My friends, let me begin by saying how fortuitous it is that you are here to lend your assistance to the good people of Logash in their time of need,” Lemminkainen Meade began his address to the small band of adventurers assembled in his office.

I think we have a problem,” Lord Meade explained solemnly, his voice tight. “On each of the last two nights, there have been a series of terrible incidents.”

“Although you have only been in Logash for a short time, your reputation as men of action precedes you, and I beseech you to come to our aid and bring a villain to justice!”