16


    With a muted flash and crack of collapsing air, the sniffling boy disappeared from Valerian''s lap. The twisted wrinkle left in his cloak by a moist, clutching hand persisted just a bit longer. Gone by the time he stood up again, though.


    "Good fortune be yours," offered Val. "Mirielle''s, too. May you both live to grow up, and I to explain what has happened." None of which seemed very likely, just then.


    He stood in a sort of sheltered negative space, at the center of a newly-repaired ban sigil. Very powerful and intricate thing, most likely not mortal or elvish in origin. There were too many twists into upper dimensions for anything short of a god, thought Valerian, leaching a bit of its thrumming-bright power.


    That glowing, beautiful script was meant to seal the Mother out of this plane, and so it did… except for the part of her life-ending will that oozed through when goblins slaughtered a child, here. They''d created a gate which was shut now. But… barn doors and murderous griffins.


    Valerian took a moment to ready himself. The sea-folk drinking horn and his grandfather''s boon had restored the elf''s manna, but he was wrung-out, bone-weary. Sick of running and fighting, right down to his core. No choice at all, though. Not if he meant to stop all those terrible visions from coming to pass. He had to distract, and maybe destroy, what remained of Her.


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    ''Just bait,'' the Mother had taunted. ''Never meant to actually win.'' Right. Speared on the hook and dangled by whom, though? Not Firelord, surely… not the Shining One''s style. But that left only his former master, Sherazedan. Which…


    Val shook his head. ''One hopeless fight at a time, if you please,'' he thought. The Mother''s truncated remnant was more than enough of a problem. Out there, still, circling his refuge like skull-headed smoke. ''Angry'' didn''t begin to cover it.


    Only, in this case, anger was good. Let Her focus that rage here, on him, not on his Emperor, allies and friends. Tough to mark time underground, but he figured they''d reached Shortest Day, the time when the power of Chaos exploded.


    Just had to get through a day and a very long night alive, and everything ought to start swinging back to the powers of Light. He could wait in the sigil, came an unworthy thought. Ride out that unfolding nightmare in relative safety.


    …Except that there would certainly be a ''later'', and Val could only stay drunk for so long, even with magic. Everyone sobered up, had to face themselves, sometime.


    Just… who or what was he intended as bait for? Not the Mother, as she''d been present already, no lure required. Something worse?


    Val shook his head again. Drive himself stark, barking mad, thinking like that.


    "Very well, Old Lich, I am bait," he snapped. "Back into the river, then... and may whatever you catch bite your shriveled old carcass in half."


    With that, Frostbite unsheathed and back in his hand, war-spells hovering ready, Valerian stepped from the rune-cage and plunged into battle.