[Hlaeth] Ch 39 - A Marid’s Bargain

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            Needless to say, that did not do wonders for the morale or discipline of the raiding force there, especially just as the defenders crashed into them.

            I could probably have killed everything here in melee combat, sure. Arcane fire cracked as I focused on the one area that had drawn up spears and shields, Mortus Dius sweeping over and smashing the clustered spears out of the way, blasting them apart in fiery explosions and breaking the line. Kord thundered right into the middle of them, his Axe a bloody arc of vengeance, and as their hastily-drawn short blades tinked off his Force Armor and Goldskin, steel screamed as it was cut through, and the men wearing it screamed even louder.

            The quivering marid, his face buried in the sand, did not move an inch despite all of the fighting, the aghast raiders looking at him shaking there in terror and realizing that this had all gone very, very bad, indeed.

            Hano’s greatsword split the commanding officer’s helm open, and the skull beneath it, ripping wide with greater speed and power than he’d ever known to take out the aides to either side of the man.

            I had a flight of Shards up, and I dispensed icefire Healing to any of the locals who were wounded, instantly bringing them back up to full strength and quite a bit more as they received a Temporary Health Buff from the excess of the Healing effect.

            They were here to fight or die, and I would not let them die.

---

            The calls for quarter were ignored, and the raiders died where they stood.

            “There is a second force coming down from the hillside where they took out the watchtower!” Mortus Dius gleamed, lights lit up in the eyes of everyone, and they all turned to look up the hillside to where an Invisible force of men was coming rapidly down the hillside. “Greet them properly!”

            “Free men and women of the North!” Minstrel Qwid called out in a firm tenor, and promptly led the screaming horde of defenders in that direction, shining weapons all up and ready for the fight.

            A Motion spell settled over them, both picking up their speed marvelously and making sure they’d not arrive at the fight winded.

            +60 Temp Health to all of them would get them through a lot, too. There was a spellcaster up there, probably helped get the flanking force to the towers, but he was going to receive a rude surprise, too.

            I turned my gaze on the marid, who could totally feel it coming to rest on him, and he quivered from head to toe.

            “PITY ON YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT, GREAT MASTER!” he begged without raising his head. “I DID NOT KNOW THIS PLACE OF MORTALS WAS UNDER YOUR PROTECTION!”

            I just looked at him sourly. “Of all the genies, it is the marids who know best that ignorance is no excuse,” I replied to him in excellent Aquan, and he shuddered again, knowing that he was standing upon the edge of an abyss. The deaths of his kind towered over me, upon me, and he could feel them all!

            I would crush him with no more hesitation than I had them, and he had been engaged in the exact same kind of activities as they, the subjugation and slaughter of mortals!

            “I am a Servant of Heaven, genie.” I didn’t even honor him by calling him a marid. “I do not know what others claim of that title here, and doubtless you have heard it prattled on empty and vain tongues that do not have any comprehension of what that means.

            “I think you can tell that I am quite the real thing, and not some fool playing at something they are not.”

            “You spoke Words of a Thunder I could not even understand, Great Master,” the marid burbled into the sands. “You are not one of the deluded fools who claim to represent the gods of Good and instead pursue their own self-serving blasphemies,” he declared into a deep and knowing voice, any slyness failing as he realized such an observation wasn’t going to gain any sympathy when he’d gone right along with them deluding themselves.

            “You have innocent blood upon your hands, genie.”

            His head turned slightly, just enough to see his right hand, and he twitched in horror when he saw the crimson dripping from it, staining the sands there, and I could hear him sigh as the abyss opened wider beneath him. “The ambitions of my masters were unclean, it is true, Great Master. But I slew only in war and battle, and war is, as always, heavy upon the innocent.”

            “This is true,” I agreed, and hope flickered in him for a brief second. “It is also true that one takes responsibility for one’s own actions, and being ordered to do an immoral duty does not absolve one of the responsibility of doing it, much as Chaos might choose to argue otherwise.”

            He could not deny that, having brought War into the picture attempting to offset his sins. “If I may serve the wishes of Heaven and earn absolution, you only have to give the command, Great Master!” the genie uttered with as much sincerity as he could.

            “You are bowing to power, not to Virtue, genie,” I replied coolly, and the marid squirmed. “Absolution is not something I can grant you. Do you think I desire your power or service? You are of the waters and Chaos, as free and temperamental as a storm. You will resent your service even as you bow your head to me, certain no mortal is worthy of commanding you even as I consider you a complete waste of my time. What use has Heaven for the untamed spirit of a marid? You cannot even control yourself properly, of what Good are you?”

            He squirmed again, because it was all true, stabbing him with knives of judgment he thought himself above, and which were going to collapse on him now, because he did not have the power to defy them, as he did the wishes of lesser beings.

            “Then I would seek to buy time until my judgment is due, Great Master,” the marid uttered at the last.

            “I see.” It was an interesting gambit. “You are aware that the judgment of Heaven itself is impartial, and I may not interfere in such a thing?” I inquired of him. “I can certainly judge your actions here and now, whether you choose to serve or to oppose me, but if you choose to serve me until it is time to be Judged, then there is no bargain or deal to be struck when it is time?”

            He trembled again, as something moved past his soul, something vaster and greater than the mightiest of oceans anywhere. “Great Master, I understand,” he agreed hesitantly.

            “Then you will give me your True Name, you will tell me how you are known among mortals, or you will be served up to the Land, wiped from existence as a morsel upon Her lips, and the Mortal World will be rid of another upstart genie who thought himself one of the masters of the world.”

            His great hands clutched at the bloody sands around them, but there was no hesitation whatsoever.

            A sound moved past me, of krill snattering across uncounted miles and the echoes of whalesong changing through the deep. “I am known as the Great Tufan among the mortals of this world, Great Master!” he replied urgently.

            He felt it instantly, the lock upon his soul. I had his True Name, and I could rend him apart with a thought, scatter his name into the Land that the oceans here were only part of, and be rid of him forever.

            I had absolute mastery of him, and he had given it willingly over, for he did not want to die, bowing to strength as was the way of the marid.

            “By your Name, you Sealed and Bound, Great Tufan.” Reality crystallized around my words, and it was done. “By your service and usefulness to me, I will judge your deeds of the now. When it is time, and you wish to leave my service, you will face the Judgment of Heaven upon your own terms. Is that clear to you?”

            “Yes, my Master!” the genie replied urgently, still not daring to raise his head to me.

            “My name is Aelryinth of Heaven, Magos. You will address me as you consider it appropriate to do so. My first command to you is to rise and adopt a social form suitable for interaction with mortals. It should be no more than a head taller than myself, but make it plain that you are not a mortal.”

            Slowly, Tufan pushed himself upright, shrinking and reducing himself down to mortal stature as he did so.

            “Are there more ships of this Rhonidum place not visible from here with the damaged galleon there?” I asked him coolly.

            “Master, two galleys made to transport slaves wait beyond the turn of the bay. They have probably seen the damage to the galleon and are turning about to retreat,” he explained quickly.

            “Remain here for my command,” I ordered the marid, and he simply bowed in acknowledgment of the command.

            I Linejumped out there into into the distance, a crack of lightning following me.

            Yes, there were two more broader-hulled boats, without all the cannons on them, turning about in the sea waters outside the inlet.

            They looked up at me, hanging up there in the sky a quarter-mile away, and I looked back down at them.

            Slavers. The red and purple dripped off their Auras with malice.

            Shards lit up with holy light that stabbed at their eyes. Their screams were just starting to rise when the peal of a great bell broke across them with Thunder, and delivered unto them their reckoning.

            I turned away from the two ships, where all the sailors were now sprawled and Burning away en vivus, with no exceptions. “Great Tufan, take these two galleys under tow and bring them onto the beach. Summon in Elemental help if you need it,” I ordered the marid.

            Way back on the beach, the marid promptly dove back into the waters with all haste to follow my orders, while I flickered in a Sieged Linejump and was suddenly right over top of the galleon that was totally trying to retreat from this fight.

            I came down from on high, making a target of myself to the sailors there, many of whom grabbed at their guns and promptly started shooting at me.

            One cavalcade of ringing bells later, and those sailors were sprawled dead from their own returned shots across two decks of the galleon.

            The survivors, blades suddenly in hand, dropped their pistols and rifles desperately as I came down on the bow, Mortus Dius in both hands, black glasses across my face, and radiating Light that was stabbing at their eyes with their sins.

            The captain of the ship still seemed to be alive, back on the aft deck with the wheel, although she had left off it to step out from behind it, an ornate pistol in one hand and a gleaming mithral saber in the other. Her apparel seemed very much like a British or French admiralty attire from the great age of sail, favoring reds and blacks instead of blues and whites, and she even wore a tricorn to indicate her rank and position. A towering urukhar bodyguard was standing next to her, scarred and brutally muscled, armored up and plainly ready to die for her, what with the messing that had been done with his heart and mind.

            She was plainly infuriated, and at the same time calculating as I set down on the listing ship, none of the crew daring to get anywhere close to me.

            I glanced at the fires ravaging the heart of her ship, nowhere near to being under control, and they simply guttered out and died as an icy wind stole across the ship and coated every surface in frost.

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