The Dethroning of Vermilion Von Scaldis

Cahsn held their hand over the block of pitch crystal, feeling for
any lingering heat. Finally, to all perception, it was an
appreciable deal cooler than the rest of the stifling workshop.
With something of a curtsy, Cahsn bent down and whispered the
release word: All at once, the black crystalline prism fell to
ashes, leaving in a nest of themselves a silvery implement with
two prongs and a handle.

Delicately, Cahsn picked up the channeler from the heap of ashes.
Walking over to the window, they brushed away the soot on a
portion of the pane with a work cloth, and in the afternoon
daylight inspected the device closely. No visible faults anywhere
on the surface. A good sign so far.

They walked to a workbench, took a deep breath, and centered
themselves. With hopeful intention, they struck the channeler
against the edge of the bench: As the channeler hummed, they held
their other hand beside it, making the old elven hand sign for
listening. Across the fingernails of their little, ring, middle,
and index fingers, written in obsidian mite wax, were the symbols
for knowledge, love, wellness, and material, with the symbol for
divinity added somewhat tokenistically on the thumb: None here had
felt divinity resonate in over a century. The fact that it did not
resonate now was no cause for surprise, and did not give a sinking
feeling to Cahsn's stomach. What did was the complete lack of
resonance in material. Still hopeful but no longer optimistic,
Cahsn struck the channeler against the workbench again, and again
made the listening sign beside it with their other hand. Again,
the fingernails of knowledge, love, and wellness hummed loudly,
while again the fingernails of divinity and material stayed mute.

"Oh dear," Cahsn said to themselves.

"I don't like the sound of that!" Filra called.

Considering that the spectresmith was pumping a noisy bellows to
feed a noisier furnace and that he was entirely across the room
from his dispirited apprentice, Cahsn was impressed that the man
had managed to hear the disappointing utterance at all.

After giving the bellows a few more pumps, Filra came over to see
the problem. He took the offered channeler, struck it against the
workbench, and held it beside his other hand.

"Oh dear indeed," he said, after a moment. He glanced up at the
portion of the window that had been cleaned of soot, and judged
the time. "You'll have to hurry and fetch whatever they've dug up
so far. Take S'lel to--"

He caught his tongue: the stallion had been needed at the fields
that day, and had been lent out.

The spectresmith muttered to himself, and then to Cahsn only
repeated, "You'll have to hurry."

Cahsn nodded, replaced their apron for a satchel, and swiftly made
their exit of the workshop--the air outside was rejuvenatingly
crisp.

Fortunately, a strong wind that day was towards the mines. Cahsn
held their arms out to either side, fell forward, and let a gust
of wind catch them, with which they began sprinting along the
wind's currents, their feet as one with the air. To any who saw
them pass by, they would likely only perceive a troupe of leaves
blowing past, the same deep and pure hue of green as the
spectresmith apprentice's hair.

Ten obelisks surrounded the town. Each day, at the fields, an
immense pit was filled with wheat harvest, or if there wasn't
enough harvest to fill the pit, then the equivalent value in blood
was thrown in. With this sacrifice, the druid who lived on the
castle on the hill outside of town would activate the protective
obelisks that surrounded the town for another night. If activated,
the obelisks kept out the malevolent forest spirits who lurked in
these bleak woods. If not activated... Cahsn had seen what
happened when they were not activated only once. They would not
see it again if anything in the world could be done to help it.

Cahsn stopped their run at the mouth of the mine, and pleasantly
accosted T'nahk who happened to be standing just there.

The forewoman sputtered out an old curse that was unfamiliar to
Cahsn, and then crossed her arms and squared her stance against
the visiting eighth elf.

"Good tidings, I hope," she joked.

"Someday," they lied. "But on this day, I find myself in haste and
must be curt: How fares the spectracite yield this morning?"

"Cahsn, no," T'nahk moaned.

"T'nahk, please: I don't ask it for the pleasure of asking."

T'nahk sighed. "Four ounces that've been processed."

"I'll need that entire yield."

T'nahk's fists balled up for a moment, but then the forewoman let
them go limp again. "If you take it, we'll be here late into the
night to make up our quota for tomorrow. Do you truly need all
four ounces now?"

"Yes. Though none could have known until after the enchantment was
attempted, the yield you delivered this morning was,
unfortunately, a dud."

"Okay," T'nahk said, and nodded. "For the record, if I find out
this is all because you messed up with perfectly good spectracite,
I'll have your hands."

"I think we'd all be in a bad way if we found ourselves short
anyone's hands these days."

"True. I mark you're right about that."

T'nahk turned and went down into the mines.

Cahsn stood outside, arms crossed, the breeze rustling their hair.
On the wind, Cahsn could smell the scent of the fields nearby, hay
and manure.

T'nahk emerged from the mines with a small wooden box in one hand,
and a horse's lead in the other hand--the horse walking beside on
the other end of that lead was a mare named Red.

"Take her, and speed ye merry."

Cahsn curtsied and kissed T'nahk's hand in the old way of thanks,
and then fluttered onto Red, took the wooden box of spectracite
from T'nahk, and began back towards the workshop as quickly as the
mare would take them.

When they arrived, Cahsn lighted off the mare, wished her well in
whatever further ventures the remainder of the day had in wait for
her, gave an appreciative kiss to the side of her mouth, and then
went into the workshop and opened up the box.

It was late into the evening by the time another channeler was
completed. But when Cahsn struck it against the edge of the
workbench, this one hummed on the fingernails of knowledge, love,
wellness, and material in equal and resonant measure. It would
work.

Filra stood looking out of the soot-free portion of the window. He
muttered, "Gods there isn't much time left."

"Then I shant stay us further by talking about it," Cahsn said. On
the workbench before them was the channeler that they had made,
and six talismans that Filra had made over the same period of
time. Cahsn packed the seven objects into their satchel, which,
somewhat specialized for carrying these very things day after day
after day, had seven pockets of appropriate size stitched in--the
pockets had been stitched in by Meuric, their clandestine
sweetheart who was better at the delicate crafts than most would
have guessed by looking at him.

With their satchel, Cahsn departed the workshop once more, and was
pleasantly surprised to see Red waiting outside: Red in turn was
happy to see Cahsn, and approached gaily.

"It's like you like me or something," Cahsn said, giving the mare
a few strokes in greeting before hopping onto her back. "You know
the way?"

Red clicked her hooves on the ground a few times, and stood in
place.

"It's alright. I'll show you," Cahsn said, and spurred the mare
forward down the packed-dirt street.

One by one, Cahsn and Red made their way to the six obelisks
around the perimeter of the town, each one marking the border
between the town and the hazy woods beyond. In a recess in each
stone's face, Cahsn placed one of the newly made talismans, until
each talisman had found his home in one of the obelisks.

The hour was drawing late as Cahsn and Red sped towards the fields
to deliver the channeler. As they drew near to the farm, they saw
that a collection of a dozen stood around the sacrificial pit with
torches: The pit, a thirty foot by thirty foot by thirty foot cube
in the ground, was already filled with wheat, and most of the farm
hands who had filled it had already gone home. Among those who
still stayed were Kohnahsk who was the head of the farm, and
Meuric who was a farm hand and Cahsn's honey.

Cahsn wasted no time with pleasantries: they flew from Red's back
before waiting for her to stop, dashed with the wind across the
surface of the pit, stirring up blades of wheat on the way, and
struck and dropped the channeler onto the center of the pit. When
they came to the other side, they stood beside Meuric, and caught
their breath.

The crackle of torches and the hum of the channeler filled the
air. Then, a flash of lightning came so silent that it sucked the
noise from all else: in a massive arc overhead, lightning
connected a tower of the druid's distant castle to the spectracite
of the channeler at hand. Before the eyes of Cahsn and the
farmers, every blade of wheat in the pit vanished, and the
lightning ceased. The charred sides of the pit smoldered and
smoked. A moment later, the sound of the crackling of torches
returned.

All eyes watched the druid's tower. For a while, nothing occurred,
and Cahsn wondered if they could have done more, worked with
unworkable metal, gone a hair faster than fastest, coerced T'nahk
any more expeditiously than curtly.

But at last, six arcs of lightning blasted silently forth from the
druid's tower, aimed at the six obelisks around the town. They
were safe another night. Around the sacrificial pit, a collective
exhalation was made.

Most of those who had still lingered began trudging away. Cahsn,
Meuric, and Kohnahsk remained, as well as Red, who came trotting
back up to Cahsn and stopped at the eighth elf's side. The eighth
elf put a hand on the mare, to say that they were aware of her,
and appreciative.

Kohnahsk approached the spectresmith apprentice and their company.
"Cutting it rather close today, miss," she said.

Cahsn did not bite, flagrant as the bait was. "Do you need
anything else of me, miss?"

The widow flinched.

Cahsn did bite somewhat.

"The next time we need to throw a living person into the pit,"
Kohnahsk began, and then gave a grim look to Cahsn, and turned and
trudged away.

With all eyes off of them, Meuric entangled his fingers around
Cahsn's, and gave their hand a squeeze. The farm hand had a
comeliness to him that not everyone seemed to see, but very often
the man's understated demeanor had the eighth elf feeling quite
flustered. The man leaned his head against theirs and let out a
whinny of dejecting Kohnahsk and appreciating Cahsn.

Cahsn felt tingles down their back, and gave a kiss to Meuric's
cheek. They then mounted onto Red, and offered their partner a
hand up. Meuric took it, and sat behind Cahsn. The two of them
rode at a slow walk back towards the workshop. Cahsn told Meuric
of the day they had had; later into the ride, Meuric found his
human spirit presenting, and stopped with the horse noises to talk
about his day in turn. It had been an exhausting day for the both
of them, and the partners were glad to have it behind them, and
have the rest of the night to themselves.

--

Quite some years earlier, in a city well beyond the hazy woods, a
man named Amadric, a cobbler's assistant by trade, stood at a
canvas, in a study that he did not belong at in the dead of night,
on the seventeenth floor of a twenty floor tower. His means of
entry had been that he looked rather like the nephew of the noble
who owned the tower, and if he held himself right and proceeded as
though he were at home, the guards would not stop him. He had come
to this tower on winter nights when his own loft above the tiny
stables behind the cobblery proved too cold, or on nights when his
meager payment was put towards the care of his horse Mu, and he
had to find dinner for himself by less honest means.

But as often as he could find the time for, he came here to paint.
By lamplight on this night, he was putting the finishing touches
on a painting of the hindquarters of a mare, her tail whipping off
to the side in a splash of long black hairs, her sex revealing a
crescent of the enrapturing pink flesh that dwelt inside. The
painting was large, twice the dimensions of the real thing.
Amadric stepped back and let the final brush strokes dry. It was
done. It seemed as though he could reach out and touch it, and
feel a good deal more than a canvas and some damp paint.

Behind him he heard the creak of the study door opening. The light
of a much brighter lantern than his own cast its radiance into the
room.

"Estahsh?" inquired the bearer of the brighter lantern.

Amadric turned, and stood tall with an air of arrogance, even as
his heart beat rapidly in his chest. "Yes. One would call the
nightingale a lark," he said, a haughty expression there to
dismiss questions of why one was up so late at night.

"Have you had much to drink, dear nephew?" the woman with the
brighter lantern asked--if she believed him her nephew, this made
her one of the lord's wives. She added, "There is something odd to
your voice."

Amadric coughed, and then nodded. "I have had a fair bit tonight."
He had had nothing, but it was a decent excuse she had given him.

"What have you painted?" she asked, and withdrew a pair of
spectacles from a pouch on her dress. The moment she put them on,
she got a better look at the imposter's face, and gasped and drew
back, out into the hall.

"Guards!" she called, running away. "Guaaaards!"

Amadric fled out of the room as well and began to make a hasty
departure, but was soon tackled to the ground, beaten, and
outfitted with manacles on his wrists and ankles. On the way out,
he saw the real Estahsh briefly--the young man was bleary eyed
from his interrupted sleep, but seemed curious about his lookalike
who was visiting at such a late hour.

In the city where Amadric lived, the punishment for most crimes
was the same, if enough attention was aroused that official
punishment was to occur. Amadric was marched through the frost-
covered streets to a jail, where he would remain locked in a cell
until he starved or froze.

The next afternoon, he found himself visited by a well dressed
lookalike of himself. The two stood across the bars from each
other, face to face.

"You are quite the painter," Estahsh said with a charming smile.

"And you were quite the patron, unwitting as it was," Amadric said
back. "I should thank you, for that."

"My uncle wants the paintings destroyed by a priest. I stole them
away, and have them hidden somewhere where they will remain safe."

"You care for the subject matter that much?" Amadric asked,
leaning casually forward onto the bars, head tilted a bit in
curiosity. The subject matter of all of the paintings was horses,
and the majority of them focused on the genitalia. There was a
crate in the corner of the study where he left them when they were
finished, throwing a paint-stained cloth over the top of the crate
to keep them inconspicuously hidden.

"I will deny it if you tell anyone, but I think that you and I
share an appreciation for beauty in the equine world, strongly
enough so that I should treat you as a friend rather than a
criminal. I have paid for your release." With that, Estahsh
produced a key from his garb, and unlocked Amadric's cell.

"I--my surprised and eternal gratitude, truly, Lord Estahsh,"
Amadric said.

Estahsh then produced a sack of coins, and placed it in Amadric's
hand. "For the purchase of your paintings. I think it should
adequately cover the means of leaving here, which would be wise."

Amadric looked his lookalike in the eyes, and nodded.

The two left the jail.

"Fare you well," Estahsh said.

"And you in twice the measure," Amadric said in turn, as was the
haughty response to such a remark, though in this instance Amadric
truly did mean it.

Amadric returned to the cobblery and snuck straight around to the
back, not caring to get an earful from the cobbler, who would want
to know where his assistant had gone off to for the better part of
the day. Instead, he went straight to the tiny stables in the
back, and greeted his horse, Mu.

In short order, Amadric and Mu left quietly out of the stable,
purchased some journeying supplies, and then were gone from the
city.

When many days and scores of miles were put behind them, the
painter and the horse found themselves crossing a shadowy
swampland; a road crept through it, lit by the occasional
luminescent stone in the cobbled path, though the road was in bad
repair. At one stage, Amadric and Mu were crossing a bridge over
an algae-covered pond, when all at once the bridge fell apart
underneath them, and they were dropped in a startled flailing of
limbs into the waters. As the two fought to keep at the surface, a
flash of lightning struck across the swamp--some old magic, to
deter those who would cause the road harm, but here quite
unfortunately triggered.

Leaping around the magic of the lightning with swiftness and
power, the spirit of Mu left the body that it had until then
inhabited, and found footing on a new body.

Amadric came coughing to the shore of the pond, and there stayed a
while on his hands and knees, catching his breath. Mu was with
him, so something at least was well.

When he did have his breath, he stood, and turned around with a
squelching of his soaked boots in the shore of the pond, and
looked at the collapsed bridge.

The body of Mu laid stricken and unmoving atop the debris of the
bridge that had fallen into the water.

But Amadric could still hear the horse's intonations, vividly.
When another happy snort came, Amadric realized that his spirit
now shared the same vessel as the spirit of his horse.

"I am Amadric," he said. "But I am forever now with Mu. We are
Meuric, and this is good."

Meuric swam out to the equine corpse to salvage what could be
salvaged from the saddle bags. The spirit of the horse spoke of no
remorse at the dead body before him, and in fact was quite eager
to get a move on again.

With what he could retrieve, Meuric did then continue onward, and
soon thereafter left the swamp and entered the hazy woods, and
found work in a town beset by an evil druid who lived in a
menacing castle--there he enjoyed the frequent social company of
mares and stallions, which to both spirits in the body, was good.

--

Back at the workshop, Filra was just finishing cleaning up. He
looked up from his broomwork to acknowledge Cahsn and Meuric as
they entered, and to wave to them. "Looked like we made it, eh?"
Filra said.

"Only just," Cahsn said. "But yes. The sacrifice was sent, and the
obelisks are activated."

"Only just does seem to do the trick around here," Filra said with
a smile, and returned to his sweeping.

Cahsn led the way lightfootedly up the stairs, while Meuric
skulked after. The two went up past the second floor which was
wholly Filra's, and proceeded up to the smaller third floor which
was, in essence, Cahsn's. At the top of the stairs was a miniature
foyer of sorts, with one door and a potted fern plant on either
side. Cahsn opened the door and allowed Meuric in. Meuric began to
disrobe as Cahsn left the door open. With a pitcher and with water
from a small fountain fed by rather cunning pipework, Cahsn went
and watered the ferns outside their door, then closed the door and
locked themselves and their partner inside.

With this done, Cahsn promptly found repose on their living room's
rug. "Mah," they said up to Meuric.

Meuric gave an equine huff of an exhale back, and then came and
laid down with them.

The two both laid on their backs, with the tops of their heads
touching, staring up at the slanted wooden ceiling, which was
littered with oddly angled nails from the shingles on the
ceiling's opposite side.

"We stink," Cahsn observed.

Meuric turned and play-nibbled on one of Cahsn's ears with his
lips.

"Bad," Cahsn corrected. "Bath."

Meuric gave a bemoaning exhale, and stood up and went over to the
bathchambers, and turned a pipe to start the hot water flowing.

Remaining on the floor, Cahsn began disrobing, flinging all items
of their apparel in whatever directions behooved them at that
second. When it was done, they laid on the floor staring blankly
at the ceiling again, but additionally they were now unclothed.

With some time left before the bath would be filled, Meuric
trudged back in and laid down on the floor once again too, this
time on his chest, between Cahsn's legs, staring at the space
between their inner thighs.

Their crotch was a vague aura of softly billowing blue light, with
distinct tiny blue moths fluttering around. Whatever had been
there originally was a secret that only Cahsn truly knew the
answer to--they had not told even Meuric, not that the young
gentleman had ever pressed the question beyond a rare curiosity.
As time had gone on in their relationship, Meuric was gladder and
gladder to not know, and to let Cahsn exist as Cahsn.

When he sensed that the tub was near to filling, Meuric pried his
gaze away from his partner's aura and stood. Cahsn stuck up their
hands, and Meuric grabbed them, and helped them to their feet.
Leading as though it was a dance, Meuric guided Cahsn hand in hand
to the bath tub, turned off the faucet, and the two of them slid
into the water. As they settled, Meuric found himself sitting on
Cahsn's lap, getting his hair washed by his partner.

When many minutes and kisses had gone by, the two were both clean
and dried and lying naked together on the couch, Meuric lying on
his back, arms wrapped around Cahsn who laid face down on top of
him, pecking kisses around his pecs and neck and jaw. Eventually
Cahsn slinked higher up Meuric, and reached over him to the small
table beside the couch, and retrieved a pair of necklaces. Cahsn
smiled as Meuric reached around his neck, and fastened his
necklace onto himself. With that done they fastened the clasp on
theirs as well, and collapsed down onto his chest as the melding
began.

With the necklaces on, each of them could feel everything that the
other felt. Ordinarily these necklaces were used by physicians to
diagnose, and by the likes of Meuric and Cahsn for hedonism. Today
when they melded with Meuric, Cahsn felt like they had been struck
by a swinging hammer: the man's muscles had been worked long past
what Cahsn would have personally thought was the breaking point.

With care, Cahsn pulled Meuric up off of the couch, and lugged him
over to the bed where he flopped down, playfully allowing himself
to be manhandled. From a closet Cahsn retrieved a flask of calming
oils. They poured a portion out onto Meuric's back and got to
work, massaging the man's back and arms and legs, feeling their
own fingers doing the work of rubbing and feeling Meuric's muscles
receiving the relaxation and care. With the use of the necklaces,
Cahsn could not help but be mindful of any tenderness, as well as
anything that was enjoyable. They found themselves rubbing
Meuric's right bicep quite a long time, to the point of flopping
over onto their side beside him, and rubbing it from a comfortable
sidelong repose.

Eventually, from this vantage, Cahsn reached down and gave
Meuric's butt a squeeze, felt the jolt of it themselves, and
slinked out of bed and skipped over to the liquor cabinet.

They returned with two bottles of musk wine, when they noticed
that at the fountain in the corner, a message capsule was just
floating up from the faucet. Meuric sat up on the edge of the bed
and held the two bottles as Cahsn went to go see the message.

They picked the capsule up out of the basin, dried the outside
against the bedsheets for convenience, and sat down beside Meuric
and opened the capsule up, unrolled the little scroll inside, and
read.

"It's from Darmf," Cahsn read.

Meuric tossed his head and stomped a foot, hoping to assert his
disinterest strongly enough that it would bend the will of the
universe and reshape the course of recent developments in reality
into something more agreeable and less likely to include anyone
other than himselves and Cahsn sharing the night together.

"He wants to know if we want to hang out," Cahsn went on.

Meuric again gave a stomp, and tossed his head for a pointedly
longer duration of time.

"Why not?" Cahsn asked, and laid back across Meuric's lap.

Meuric extended a finger on his hand, and hovered the fingertip
over Cahsn, hovering it back and forth from head to toe over and
over, until eventually picking up one of their legs and poking the
eighth elf on the buttcheek.

Cahsn glanced again at the message. "He says he didn't like your
book recommendation."

Meuric gasped. "That bitch!" he said, his human spirit rushing to
the fore. "Okay. Darmf can come over and then we're going to the
library. Let's try to sneak one in before he gets here though. Mu
has been randy all day, you have no idea."

Cahsn wrote a return message, and sent it in a capsule down a pipe
adjacent to the pipe by which Darmf's message had been delivered.

By the time Darmf arrived up the stairs, Cahsn and Meuric were
clothed, if slightly catching up on their breath. Darmf opened the
door. Cahsn and Meuric were sat together on one side of the couch,
though Meuric quickly shot up and stomped forward to Darmf, and
gave an assertive huff to the scrawny man.

"Hi, you," Darmf said, cowering slightly.

Cahsn came forward as well, giving assuring shushes to Meuric on
the way. When they arrived, they took Meuric's hand, and gave it a
few gentle strokes with their thumb.

"What was wrong with A Feast Of Leaves And Sugar?" Meuric
demanded.

"It was barely READABLE," Darmf asserted.

Meuric gasped and tossed his head. "I couldn't set it down!"

"Nothing HAPPENED!"

"So!"

Cahsn interjected to ask, "What was this book about?"

Darmf answered, "Some nameless, faceless, characterless narrator
eats dinner for five hundred pages."

Cahsn noticed Meuric squaring up to punch Darmf; the eighth elf
gave their partner a shove, and an assertive, "HEY. Not how we
settle disagreements about books we don't like, Amadric."

Meuric knew that when he heard his human name from Cahsn, he was
in trouble, regardless of whether it was his human spirit or his
equine spirit that had gotten him there. He crossed his arms, and
remained standing where he had been shoved to, further from Darmf,
which was for the better anyways.

"Well I think it's the best thing I've ever read," Meuric said.

"That's fine, but I thought it was sooo boring. There's an entire
chapter, twenty nine pages, where the narrator eats a carrot and
that's the ONLY thing that's described!"

"That was the BEST chapter. Life changing."

"Okay, you two," Cahsn said. "Meuric, can you agree that you might
be biased towards liking a chapter about eating a carrot?"

"...Yes."

"Can we agree to disagree and move on?"

Both men grumbled that yes, they could move on.

"Good. Meuric, you were saying you wanted to go to the library?"

Meuric nodded.

"Anything you were looking for?"

"I would like to see if that author has written anything else."

"Okay. Darmf, would you care to come with us to the library?"

"Sure. I actually wanted to show you guys something I found down
there, too. A little room that I don't think any of us knew
about."

Cahsn, Meuric, and Darmf exited down the stairs, out of the
workshop, and into the cool night. A dreadful silence hung around
the air. The activated obelisks kept out noise from the hazy
forest, and the townsfolk by and large went to sleep as soon as
they were able, to be ready for the next day's exhausting work.

The three friends made their way to the mines. As they were
walking, they crossed paths with Red, who was milling about town.
The mare was greeted warmly by Meuric. She continued along with
the three, she and Meuric trailing back and flirting with each
other as Cahsn and Darmf led the way--whether or not Darmf knew
that the two were flirting, Cahsn wasn't sure. Most of the fully
human folk were shockingly bad at picking up on communication from
any creature outside of their own species.

At the mouth of the mines, Meuric paused with Red, and said, "You
two go on ahead, I'll catch up."

"Something wrong?" Darmf asked.

That was a no, then, on Darmf picking up on anything.

"Going to see if she needs anything before we head down," Meuric
offered.

Cahsn quickly assisted by shuffling Darmf onward, into the cool
mouth of the mine. Being that it was impossible to see in that
kind of darkness, Cahsn made the old elven hand sign for light: a
faint luminescent aura began to trail about their feet in the
appearance of a low mist, dim in the scheme of things though
brighter than the moonlight from which they had come, and as such
it left the eighth elf and the oblivious human squinting for a
moment.

The two of them made their way down gradual slopes, sticking to
the main tunnel until arriving at a large metallic door embedded
in the side of one wall. There they stopped, and the two of them
took a seat on the ground, waiting for Meuric.

"Do you think he'll be long?" Darmf asked.

"Not too long," Cahsn assured--the melding necklaces were still
on, and Cahsn was very aware that Meuric was close. Though Cahsn
was aware that Meuric was no stranger to indulging frisky equines,
this actually was their first time being party to it themselves,
by way of the necklace. The palms of the hands on the smooth hair
that covered enormous musculature, the soft wet flesh of the sex
itself--they'd had no idea that Red was such an appealing creature
in that capacity. They may not quite look at Red the same way ever
again, though all for the better.

After not too much longer, Meuric's climax was reached, and he
soon withdrew himself from the mare, no longer touching her
hindquarters. Cahsn felt the soles of Meuric's feet as he walked
around the horse, and then shivered as they felt Meuric's lips
touch Red's.

Then after a couple of hearty pats, Meuric began walking down the
slopes.

"He's done," Cahsn idly reported.

"He... who, Meuric?"

Immediately, Cahsn realized they had said too much. With a sigh,
they lifted up the necklace that they wore.

"Oh. It's uh, it's a little weird when you two wear those."

Cahsn and Darmf sat in the silence of the mine, in the shifting
luminescent fog at the floor.

"What was he doing?" Darmf asked, probably just to fill the quiet.

"He can tell you if he wants," they said. They wished that they
could forewarn Meuric, but the necklaces only transferred physical
sensations, not thoughts or speech.

"Wh... how bad could it have been that you won't tell me?"

"Nothing bad, just, not trying to talk behind anyone's back."

"Oookay then," Darmf said. Then quite quickly sensing that the
silence would encroach again, he said, "Seriously though, that
book was so boring. I kept reading expecting some kind of
revelation about why any of it should have been interesting, and
it just never came. It was an entire book about eating dinner."

"That does sound pretty boring," Cahsn admitted honestly. "I do
think that that was his horse side that liked it so much. Maybe
like, his human side getting to read his horse side a story."

"I kinda figured, but it was SUCH a bad recommendation that I did
still have to give him shit over it."

Cahsn smiled a little. "Yeah, fair."

With that, they heard the sound of footsteps coming down the mine,
matching in cadence with the sensation of Meuric's soles touching
the ground.

Cahsn and Darmf stood. Light from a lantern came around the
corner, joining the light of Cahsn's fog. Meuric, the lantern
bearer, exchanged sneaky satisfied smiles with Cahsn.

"What did Red need?" Darmf asked.

"Nothin."

"Then what took you so long?"

"Mating."

"Oh. I see."

"Jealous?"

"No but like, that makes sense for you, actually."

Meuric went at a canter to the door, and began turning the wheel
that opened it.

"So does the human side of you close his eyes, or?"

"Nah, we're both into it."

"I'll pretend to be surprised."

With a final turn, the bolt of the metal door was fully released.
Meuric pulled the door open, and invited Cahsn and Darmf to lead
the way.

The three began into the ruins of the old city, creeping through
brick passageways that by all rights should have fully collapsed
long ago--a good amount of the place certainly already had.

It was not somewhere that one would want to get comfortable in. At
some point most days, one would hear all of the old pipes begin to
creak--as soon as the noise began, one would want to be leaving.
Ten minutes from the creaking beginning, one's eyes would begin to
tear up, and their nose would begin to run, and their lips and
throat would feel dry and irritated. Another ten minutes from the
irritation beginning, and the yellow gas seeping through the old
pipes would be accumulated enough to be visible across the old
cobbled floors, and even the toughest would be reduced to a
blinded coughing and rasping on the floor, and ultimately a death
of suffocation.

The entrance to the library--a collapsed wall in a section on
agriculture--was a thirteen minute walk into the city from the
fortified entrance in the mines. This made an escape under ten
minutes doable, if one could hoof it.

By lanternlight and luminescent fog, the three made it to the
library.

"You wanted to show us something?" Cahsn prompted.

"Yes!" Darmf said. "Second basement. It's in a section of the
stacks that seems to be for books that are damaged or incompleted,
I guess enough so that they couldn't be categorized any other
way."

"Esoteric," Cahsn noted.

"I think mostly a librarian would put something there and forget
about it forever. Most of what I've poked through there is really
dull."

"Exciting," Cahsn remarked.

"Lead the way," Meuric said, and offered the lantern out.

Darmf took it, and did lead the way over to the stairs, down two
floors, and into a cold, echoey recess of the library. Eventually,
the three came upon a pile of books blocking their passage down
the aisle--it was a common enough thing to see, unfortunate as it
felt.

"This is it," Darmf said, and took a step up onto the slope of
books. Continuing to walk forward onto them, he said, "I was
grabbing something out of here when the whole area came down. I
was TERRIFIED at first, thinking, this is it, this gas is going to
start right while I'm buried under here, and I'm not going to make
it in time. But, I did get myself unburied, and I found this."

Arriving at the crest of the pile, Darmf held the lantern down to
light up the top of a rectangular opening in the wall.

"A door!" Meuric remarked. "We have those in town too, actually."

"Shut the fuck up," Darmf remarked. "Come on, I think it's pretty
interesting. This is the only door into here, hidden behind a wall
of books."

With that, Darmf slid down into the doorway, into the room beyond.

With a moment to themselves, Cahsn cupped a hand to Meuric's ear,
and whispered extremely quietly, "That felt like a good time, with
Red."

Meuric shivered, and nuzzled Cahsn's forehead.

Cahsn added, "We should follow after Darmf."

Meuric nodded, and led the way, stepping onto the pile of books
and then crawling on his chest down the slope that had fallen into
the room beyond; Cahsn followed closely after.

The room beyond was a study. Besides being notably free of
cobwebs, the study had a desk, a private bookshelf, and plenty of
space to pace around.

Cahsn commented, "If it weren't for being in a place that I'm
terrified of relaxing in, this would be a very nice place to sit
down and read. Do you suppose they remodeled and just left the
room inaccessible instead of bothering to destroy it?"

"I'm not sure," Darmf said. Meandering over to the bookshelf, he
said, "I haven't had time to read any of them fully, obviously,
but a lot of these books are on the lower planes, and magic
associated with that."

Cahsn felt shivers down their spine. With some reluctance, they
made the old elven hand sign for listening. The sensations that
came about across their fingernails were all a mess speaking over
each other: the symbol for knowledge hummed; the symbol for love
seemed almost to recoil, as though the nail was grating against a
chalk board; the symbol for divinity, written on Cahsn's thumb,
felt as though a red hot brand was being held to it, and Cahsn
shouted profanity as they quickly dismissed the hand sign.

With the hand sign gone, all of the sensations subsided--examining
their thumb, there was no actual damage done, it seemed. But they
suddenly liked this place quite a good deal less.

"You okay?" Darmf asked.

"Fine," Cahsn answered. "Do you know if this study belonged to
anyone in particular?"

"No, I'm not sure. There's a drawer in this desk that I was
interested in, but there's a lock on it."

Meuric went over to the desk, squared up with it, and kicked the
face off of the drawer. Reaching into the open mouth of the
drawer, he retrieved a book and handed it to Darmf.

Cahsn quickly stole the book out of Darmf's hands, before he could
open it. "If I may, quickly," Cahsn said, feeling a magical force
from the book as soon as they had caught even a passing glance of
it.

"Y-yeah. Please."

Cahsn set the book on the desk, and placed a flat hand over the
front cover of it. With their other hand, they made the sign for
vision.

All sight of the room was put off to some vague periphery, and,
without drawing open the covers, Cahsn saw the writing on the
first page of the book:

"Any child of man who bears witness to the words in this tome, in
my name be struck blinded and mute. - Vermilion Von Scaldis."

Cahsn gasped, and raised their hands away from the book; sight of
the room flooded back in. Two things had very urgently struck
them. Most alarming was the name: the druid who beset the town,
demanding sacrifices of them from his solitary castle on the hill,
bore the same name as the signer of the page. The second thing
which struck them was that this inscription they had read was
indeed highly charged with magic, and by all rights should have
gone off when they read the inscription alone, even if it had been
read by a proxy of magic rather than by direct sight.

"It belongs to the druid," Cahsn reported.

"Cahsn," Meuric said in a grave tone. "Step back. Let's leave it
alone."

"He's right," Darmf added. "I don't want to be here anymore
either, anyways. We should go."

The two were not wrong. To stick one's nose any further into this
was insanity. And yet. They could not help but recall quite a lot,
even in the last day alone. The hardship of the miners, working
all their waking hours today to extract the spectracite for the
daily ritual required by Scaldis. Their own fear at what would
become of them if the second channeler they made was also
unsuitable, and the sacrifice could not be made that day, to
Scaldis. The sensation of putting on the melding necklace, and
feeling how deathly sore the day's work at the farm had left
Meuric, who was hardier than most who worked those fields.

"Let me look at one more thing," Cahsn said, and placed their hand
on the cover of the book once more.

"Cahsn," Meuric tried again. "Whatever it is, isn't worth it."

Maybe not. But the way the town was being worked could not go on
forever. If they were going to die, they would rather it was while
risking liberation rather than being thrown into a pit in the
ground and struck by silent lightning.

Cahsn made the hand sign for vision, and once more examined the
first page. Being that the inscription was magically charged, and
to quite an extreme degree for that matter, anyone who was not
utterly blind to magic could sense that each word bore a meaning,
each of which fed into the other words, to create the terms of the
spell itself, chiefly the spell's trigger and the spell's effect.
The effect, it seemed, was more than clear: whosoever effected by
the spell would be struck blinded and mute. Clearly, though, that
had not happened to them, which made them very, very curious about
the trigger.

Any child of man who bears witness to the words in this tome, in
my name be struck blinded and mute. - Vermilion Von Scaldis.

They crept their way around each word, examining the corners and
edges of each word's meaning.

Though it took some passes to spot it, the answer was found near
to the start of the passage: when using the term "child of man,"
it seemed that Scaldis had only envisioned a human. It was beyond
Cahsn how such a mistake could be made by a druid of all people,
who were supposed to see the wisdom in the non-human world.

Cahsn was uncertain as to whether Meuric would be safe in reading
the book. And, unfortunately, "bear witness" did include hearing
of the words in the book, it seemed, and so they would not be safe
to relay the book's contents to Meuric and Darmf. But after some
long minutes of intensive focus, they were positive that they
understood the scope of at least this inscription at the front,
which was the only part of the book charged with magical energy.
They were confident that they would be safe to proceed into the
book for themselves.

They withdrew their hands from the book, and stood and hugged
Meuric.

Meuric hugged them back.

Cahsn noticed, then, that he had taken off his necklace. A wise
choice, and Cahsn themselves felt foolish for not having thought
to mention it. They took their necklace off too, and stowed it in
a pocket.

"Can we go now, please?" Darmf asked.

"I'd like to stay and read the book a while longer," Cahsn said.
"There is a magical inscription at the front which would make the
volume unsafe for human eyes, though it seems..."

They trailed off, as around them, the sounds of the pipes creaking
began.

"Well, it seems we have no choice anyways." Cahsn stowed the book
in their satchel.

"Is that wise to take?" Meuric asked.

"Perhaps so or perhaps not, but for a certainty it would now be
unwise to stand around any longer deliberating on it."

"Agreed," Meuric conceded.

Without further discussion, the three of them began at once out of
the secluded study, making a jog to the stairwell, up the stairs,
out through the library's collapsed wall; the eyes of all three of
them were beginning to water as they progressed through the final
passages; by the time they made it out into the mines and sealed
the door shut behind themselves, there was a tickle in Cahsn's
throat, and they noticed Meuric and Darmf each had a bit of a
cough.

"Too close," Cahsn said with something of a relieved smile.

Meuric hugged Cahsn, and clung there for a while.

Eventually the three made their way up out of the mine. "See you
two around," Darmf said, and then gave a little wave, and headed
off alone down a trail that more directly led to his family's
dwelling.

Cahsn snuggled up against Meuric, standing there with their temple
buried in the soft fabric of his shirt which covered his muscular
chest. "Spend the night with me?" they asked.

Meuric locked his arms around them, and held them securely. "Of
course."

When they were ready to go, Meuric picked Cahsn up and gave them a
piggy back ride back into town. Had they still had the melding
necklaces on, Cahsn would have realized the man was still as sore
as he was earlier and wouldn't have allowed themselves to be
carried by him, but as it was, he bore it nonchalantly enough to
get away with it, and he was, in fact, happy to bear it.

Meuric set Cahsn down outside of Filra's workshop, and the two
climbed up the stairs to Cahsn's quarters on the third floor.

"I gotta get to bed," Meuric said.

Cahsn nodded. "I'll be after you in a while."

Meuric kissed Cahsn, and stole the druid's book out of their hands
while they were distracted. "Be careful," he emphasized, and
offered the book back to them.

They nodded. "I have no intention of doing otherwise."

The two of them shared another kiss, and then Meuric did proceed
to bed, and within the minute was snoring.

Cahsn sat down on the couch, took a deep, mindful breath, and then
opened the druid's journal.

The eighth elf learned many things in their reading, but chief
among them was that it was, in essence, all a charade. Many times
they had to put the book down in tears as they learned that
Vermilion Von Scaldis was nothing of a druid, and was, in fact,
merely a lord among men who had made a pact with a lord among
demons: Scaldis would supply the demon with regular sacrifice--the
crop yields, the blood yields when crop was not enough--and in
turn, the demon would allow a vein of the powers of the many hells
to flow through Scaldis's gnarled fingers. The spirits which beset
the town were conjured when a sacrifice wasn't made, not warded
when a sacrifice did occur. The eighth elf's entire life's work
was, more or less, a trick.

--

Every night, Meuric dreamt. They never knew until waking up that
they had been dreaming, although there were a great many things
that should have made it seem obvious, were one lucid to such
things at the time. For Meuric, the most stark difference between
dream and reality was that in reality his two spirits occupied one
body, whereas in his dreams, almost without fail the two spirits
were divided again. Curiously, Amadric was not always a human, and
Mu was not always a horse: sometimes they were inverted, or both
horses, or both men.

In their present dream, Amadric was his old human self, younger in
years than he was now, and Mu was his old horse self. It was a
pleasant day; Amadric had the day off from working in the
cobblery, it was a holiday in the old city, and so he had all the
hours he could want to tend to his horse. The man and the horse
stood in the small stable behind the cobblery, though at present
the stable was located in a wide open field, with mountains far
off in the distance, and mountainous clouds overhead, and a strong
wind blowing in the scents of diced apples and freshly baked
bread.

"I am dreaming," Amadric and Mu both realized, and then Amadric
stopped the work he was doing on Mu's saddle, Mu stopped sniffing
curiously at the smell of apples in the air, and the man and the
horse both looked at one another. "We know that we are dreaming,"
they said, and then said as well, "How do we know this? We never
know this."

From the mountains came a distant, echoing scream. Amadric and Mu
both turned their heads to face it. The voice had called out but
one word, which was the man and the horse's shared name: "Meuric!"

That voice. That voice was not from here. It was from later.
Somehow, it was from later, a time that had not yet come, there in
the stables, Amadric and Mu living as two separate bodies.

The voice called again, "Meuric! Help!"

Mu realized first who the voice belonged to: "Cahsn."

At the name, Amadric felt icy fingers creeping upon him, at
knowing that they were calling for help, but that he was so very
far away.

Mu continued, "We are dreaming. We must awaken and help them."

With a hideous gasp, Meuric shot open his eyes and sat bolt
upright on the bed.

What he awakened to seemed more like a dream than what he had
awakened from. He sat upright in a cold sweat on Cahsn's bed, in
the dead of night. No sound was present anywhere at all: even when
he had gasped when waking up, the sound of it was stolen, muted
immediately by the very air around him. The bedsheets fluttered,
and some papers blew about the room. In the living room, in place
of the floor, there was a swirling red vortex: Cahsn clung to the
doorway to the bedroom, staring pleadingly--no, apologetically--at
Meuric.

"I love you," they mouthed, and then the door frame broke apart,
and Cahsn was sucked backwards into the vortex, and was swallowed
by it.

Before it could have any chance to close, Meuric dove forward in
after them, and was swallowed by the vortex as well.

Meuric tumbled out of the vortex into a long, dark, grand room. He
found his balance and leapt to his feet. To his left and right,
the walls were covered in bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and
underfoot was a thick red carpet set over a stone floor. The hall
was dark, and Meuric could not see through the darkness to the
wall behind him or ahead of him. All light came from five flames,
each the size of a candle flame, though redder, and with no
visible source; the five flames circled slowly around a snarling
man in a crimson robe, whose gnarled hands were clutched around a
staff, the top of the staff adorned with a human skull.

Cahsn found their footing as well, and stood up beside Meuric, the
two partners facing the robed man. Meuric and Cahsn stood
unclothed--the vortex, it seemed, had only transported their
bodies.

The robed man spoke: "You fools shall regret stealing from your
master."

Cahsn retorted, "On my life, you'll regret that you brought us
here." They seemed very aware of the accuracy of 'on my life,' and
gave a small, helpless laugh.

"What magic is this about you?" Scaldis asked, looking down to the
blue aura which hung in the place of Cahsn's genitals. "A strange
choice of perversion; I sense that you have elven blood within
you, but I cannot sense whether you are man or woman. Do you think
this gives you some form of protection from my hexes?"

"I might now that you've told me as much."

"Fah. It protects you from nothing. But I will find you out all
the same."

Scaldis waved his staff through the circling flames, catching one
flame on the staff's skull; the skull became engulfed in the red
fire. Scaldis muttered hexes, causing the fire to become a
chromatic swirling of pink and blue. When the magic was prepared,
Scaldis swung his staff, sending the ball of pink and blue lights
racing towards the eighth elf. Meuric pushed the eighth elf out of
the way, and took the blow himself.

The magic of the lights took an immediate hold of Meuric, and he
found himself growing taller, and his stance growing more sure.
The magic cast upon him by Scaldis was magic that would reveal the
true form of any who was struck by the pink and blue lights; in
short seconds, Meuric found himself with the head, arms, and chest
of a man, and the four legged body of a stallion.

Wasting no time in the opportunity of this surprise, Meuric
stampeded forward towards the wide-eyed Scaldis, toppled the
gnarled man over with fierce hooves, and wrestled from the warlock
his staff; this he threw to Cahsn, who caught it and ran forward
into the struggle. From the ground Scaldis snatched at another of
his circling flames, made a gesture, and in his hands the flame
grew into a flickering scimitar. Meuric reared at the sight of it,
and Scaldis got to his feet. The warlock took a swing towards
Meuric, but found the back of his head struck in by his very own
staff.

Scaldis collapsed, and his ring of flames went out, leaving total
darkness to reign over the quiet hall.

Cahsn made the old elven hand sign for light. Around their feet, a
radiant fog began to sweep over the red carpeted floor.

For good measure, they made the old elven hand sign for axes, and
with the conjured tool, beheaded Vermilion Von Scaldis where he
lay, putting a definitive end to his reign over the town.

With this done, they picked up the warlock's staff once more, and
with it in hand, turned to face their partner, whose body now
reflected his spirits.

"You look amazing," Cahsn commented.

Meuric smiled, flicked his tail, and offered out a hand. Cahsn
took it, and accepted the help up onto Meuric's back. Meuric
walked them slowly forward, seeking an exit from this dark
chamber.

"It would have done nothing to me, his magic," Cahsn mentioned.
"The same magic he invoked to try to reveal my true form is the
exact magic I used long ago to attain this very way that I appear
now. All the same, I'm happy that you got in the way." They gave
Meuric's equine body a hearty pat on the flank.

The eighth elf and the first centaur found their way back into
town, and informed the people that they were free.