Abased - The Exiled Warrior

Chapter 17.2 - Rebirth

She buried her face in her hands to hide her shame.

"What's going to happen to you?" Alam asked.

"I have to get rid of it, but I don't know how," she admitted. "There is so much pressure inside I do not think I can control how it leaves me."

"So what will you do?" Tajar asked.

"For now, concentrate on containing it and avoid doing any more magic."

"In other words," Alam said, "your plan is to ignore it and hope it goes away?"

"What else can I do?"

"Try releasing it slowly?" he suggested.

"What if I can't control it? What if I end up taking more lives?"

Alam and Tajar had no answer.

"Can we please change the subject?" Clarisai asked. "How are you feeling, Tajar?"

"Physically, I feel fine," Tajar said as he stretched and flexed his arms. "Just a bit groggy and confused from dreaming. How long was I asleep?"

"It has been, maybe, an hour since the grags were killed. In that time Saphire insisted we stay in this dump of a room until she calls for us, " Alam explained.

"It can't have been only an hour," Tajar wavered as he pushed himself to his feet. "My dreams were years, and years long. Oh, and by the way in my dream Saphire's true name was Ooshsal, which means 'Desire' in the old language..."

"Ooshal," Alam repeated. The word had a familiar feel to it.

"But," Tajar continued, "when the first humans arrived in this land they called her Mother of Beauty, or The Blue Lady."

Alam stood up and brushed the dust and grit off his trouser seat.

"That's very interesting," Alam said, "and we would love to hear about your dreams, but at the moment we have something far more pressing."

"What could possibly be more pressing than whatever is going through my head?" Tajar smiled.

"Getting out of here," Alan whispered and then checked over his shoulder to make sure Sapphire was not near. "Can you remember the way out?"

Tajar looked around the room. His brow wrinkled in confusion.

"In my dreams I walked these chambers countless times and know every step of them..." Tajar's voice trailed off to a whisper, as if talking to himself. "They might have just been dreams, but they felt pretty real. If there is any truth to them," he turned his eyes back to Alam, "I can easily get us out of this mountain."

"Excellent!" Alam embraced Tajar and thumped him on the back. "Let's go!"

"Where are we going?" Tajar asked.

Alam looked at Clarisai.

"We're going to the Empa lands until spring," she smiled at him. "After that I am going home, to the Evaran woods."

"You do know that means somehow getting around Morcham, right?" Tajar pointed out.

"I tried to tell her that, but she isn't listening, so I have decided to go with her in the spring as well," Alam said.

Tajar wrinkled his brow, deep in thought.

"I hear that, despite it crawling with sorcerers, the lands to the west have excellent cheeses, so I might as well come too."

Alam and Clarisai smiled.

"I think not," Sapphire's dragon voice echoed around the chamber.

Alam, Clarisai and Tajar spun towards her voice. Her long, sinuous neck protruded into the chamber some thirty paces away. Yellow light from the connecting chamber in which she stood cast her into silhouette, other than the edges of her blue, glittering head, which pivoted towards them.