Holy Opposites 46

	I sat on my chair and reclined into the cushions.  I winced as pain set in and then faded.  “Agh… still stings like mad,” I grumbled.

	Axio sat on the chair beside me and laced his fingers with mine.  “You’ll be alright, Cavria.  I promise.”  He whispered the words of a spell, and I felt a wave of soothing power wash through me, reducing the swelling and pain a little more.

	“Ahhh… thank you, Axio,” I purred.  “Much better.”

	Solen sat down across from us, examining the large bags of treasure on the table between the two of us and him.  “And the Watch did not claim this?” he asked.

	“No.  I think they know we can only really spend it here,” Axio said.  “With this much money, though, we can afford to improve our equipment substantially.”

	“So you can.  Did Luanea promise her aid?”

	Axio smiled.  “Bless her heart, she did.”

	“Good.  Where is Embersson?”

	“We let him go back to his apartment.  The Watch is keeping an eye on the place,” Axio said.

	Solen sighed.  “Do you think he could not evade them if he wanted?”

	“Of course he could, but I think he knows better,” Axio said.  He shifted as he remembered the details of the spy’s confession to him in the chapel after returning from the bookstore’s portal.  “I think he won’t run.”

	His grandfather peered at him.  “So was my suspicion correct?”

	Axio nodded solemnly.  “So be it then,” Solen said.  “Moving on to other things, Cavria, how is your back?  Will you be able to fight in a few days?”

	“I believe I will,” I said.  “I’m healing as fast as I could expect.”

	“Good.”

	“Grandfather, should we wait for Embersson, do you think?” Axio asked.  “The ritual may be ongoing, even now.”

	“I know,” Solen said sadly.  The old cleric rubbed his weary eyes.  “But there’s nothing we can do, save pray to Ryaire and wait.  Even if we were prepared at this very moment, where would we go?”

	“Wait.  We go?” Axio asked.  “Are you going to accompany us?”

	My eyes widened at the thought of the mighty old cleric joining us in person, but he shook his head.  “No, my days of field battles are long over,” he admitted.  “I will stay here and protect the place as best I can.”

	Axio nodded and rose, sensing the dismissal.  “Time to go, then.  I need to have new armor commissioned.”

	“Me too.  Help me up,” I said, raising my arms.  He effortlessly lifted me to my feet, and we walked out together.


	I stretched awkwardly when we reached the hallway.  “Okay… armor for me, and you,” I said with a yawn.

	He noticed.  “Not sleeping well, still?” Axio asked sympathetically.

	“Very well, actually.  I cast the spell properly this time.  I slept like a baby,” I said.  “Yourself?”

	Axio grimaced.  “I’ve begun dreaming of disasters.”

	“Disaster?”

	“I keep seeing us fail, in my mind,” he admitted heavily.  “Over and over, and in different ways.  The details are always different, and they always flee with the sunrise, but it’s still happening.”

	“Maybe Ryaire can help,” I suggested.  “Ask her, when you lie down.”

	He looked vulnerable for a moment as his weariness peeked through his normally cheerful demeanor.  “I should,” he said quietly.

	I hesitated as Solen closed the door to his private study.  We were alone.  “Axio…” I asked, “when we were in the temple…”

	“Hmm?”

	“Why did you kiss me?”

	He stared.  That had not been the question he had been expecting.  “Er… I felt like I should,” he said.  He blushed as the memory returned.  “The children were scared of you, so I thought… that was how I should show you were a friend… I didn’t make you uncomfortable, did I?”

	“Well, no, I was just so stunned, I wasn’t ready,” I admitted.  “I didn’t mind at all.”

	“Okay.  I’m sorry if I surprised you,” he said sheepishly.  Seeing the armored, angelic killing machine fumble around girls and kissing was oddly endearing, and I had to hide a smile at his clumsiness.  “Uh, anything else you wanted to discuss?”

	“Nope, stallion, I’m fine,” I giggled.

	To my surprise, he frowned and looked away.  “Good.”

	“Uh…”

	“I’m not good with women, all right?” he said grumpily.  “I know it.  You don’t need to laugh.”

	“Axio, I wasn’t-”

	He whipped his head back to glare at me.  I stopped mid-sentence.  “Sorry.”

	He harrumphed.  “My parents forced me into military clergy training at the twelve.  I’d not even held a woman’s hand until two years ago.  I’ve barely had even the most basic physical interactions with women.  If what I did in the temple surprised you, I’m sorry, but-”

	I put my hands up.  “Axio!  Slow down!  I said I was sorry!  I didn’t know it was a sore point.”

	He flushed again, this time in embarrassment.  “Right.  Right.  Sorry.  I just get… pissed off about this stuff.  You know, I’ve had male visitors at the Temple in peacetime say things like ‘man, a guy like you must be swimming in pussy,’” he said, making air quotes with his fingers, “and all I could do was shake my head.  How much of a presumptuous asshole…” he trailed off as he reined in his temper.  “Anyway.  I’ll see you later.  Come find me if you need more help with your back.”  He barely acknowledged my nod as he walked off in a huff.

	“Well, that wasn’t my intention,” I muttered under my breath.  In the back of my mind, I wondered if perhaps he was more aware of Luanea’s affection for him than I had thought.


	Axio lay back on his bed that night, holy badge clasped in his hands.  He closed his eyes and extended his thoughts to his sacred patroness, calming his mind and body.

	‘Lady Ryaire, I ask now for your advice,’ he thought to her.  ‘Since returning from the Undermountain excursion, I find myself plagued with nightmares of failure.  Each night, I lie down and dream of horrid death, of vast rooms filled with the bodies of children, and worse.  I ask for your aid.  Nightmares are not the stuff of my dreams, my Lady, nor does the fact that the details differ so much bode well.  Please, aid me with your insight.’

	He set his badge aside and pulled up the covers.  If his previous attempts bore a pattern, there would be a dream again tonight, and hopefully one of his patroness, not a vision of disaster.


	Sure enough, he felt himself awake in seconds.  He was kneeling on the soft grass and patchwork moss of the edge of the pit in the Arbor.  He instantly felt better as he watched the dim structure below swarm with petitioners.

	“I thought you may have wanted to see the good you’ve done,” Ryaire’s divine voice said from behind him.  Axio bowed his head without turning.

	“Yes, your Ladyship, it does,” he said.  “Thank you for showing me.”

	Ryaire sat beside him, a surprisingly humble gesture from the demigoddess.  “Your nightmares interest me, Axio,” she said directly.  “Please describe them, if you can.”

	Axio unhooked his knees and sat, feet dangling over the edge of the mossy pit walls.  “Well, the first one was the worst,” he said heavily.  “I dreamed of a huge church of some sort I had never seen before exploding, collapsing and killing hundreds.  That was the night I came back from Undermountain.  The next night, I saw our party of adventurers being killed by a great monster of some sort, I couldn’t tell what.  The night after that, it was Cavria and myself kicking down a door and charging into battle… surrounded by thousands of infant corpses,” he said.  He teared up.  “Disasters, over and over.”

	Ryaire rested a hand on his back, and he felt her endless wellspring of power open to him.  His pain and sorrow washed away in a heartbeat.  “There, there, my dear Chosen,” Ryaire said softly.  “I’m sorry if it hurts, but I must know.  Has this ever happened before?”

	“No,” Axio told her.  “I’ve never had dreams this lurid and horrifying.”

	His ancestor nodded.  “I see.  And your eyes, this is recent as well?”

	He put a hand to his face.  “Yes.  Grandfather Solen says it was the result of me becoming more like the angels who serve you.”

	“True and irrelevant,” Ryaire said, surprising him.  “My son is mistaken.  You are starting to look like an angel, but not because I have angels in my service.  You are starting to look more like an angel because you are fated to become an exarch in death, like some Chosen do.  Your appearance is coming to reflect your inner alignment with the planes as your soul attunes to them.”  She smiled at the startled Aasimar.  “You will become an exarch of mine in death, and your future power is bleeding into you now.  It is not unprecedented.  Certain Chosen of Tymora and Eilistraee, Lolth and Gond, and even some Sigil residents who spend too much time wandering the plane to which they will go in death before they actually die, have had the same thing happen.  I am sorry it is causing you distress.  I wish I could say I wanted to stop it, but I don’t.”

	“You don’t?” Axio asked, hurt.

	“No, Axiopistos, I do not.  Do you guess why?  It is making you a stronger instrument of my will, and a greater force for good in the world,” she said, cutting through the Gordian knot of politeness as she sometimes chose to do.  “Besides, Axio, this nightmare prophecy will eventually resolve into a tool you can exploit.  It’s random now, showing only possible failures, but eventually it will crystalize in your mind and become the most likely failure.  How many folk in the worlds can avert their own fates?”

	“Few.”