Aengellania found herself walking alongside the Wight, their pace bringing them side by side. The Wight had been reticent throughout the entire journey so far, only speaking rarely to give out warnings and advice in the heat of battle. She doesn’t even know his name. Only the odd stirring of soulfire linking them, bringing with it echoes of emotion, made it difficult to think of him as an undead automaton.
As no one else, not even the ever-sanguine sir Hrantinel, had made a real effort to talk to the Wight, Aengellania felt that it fell to her to do so.
She smiles at him and holds out a hand.
“My apologies, I believe I have left it rather late to introduce myself. I am Aengellania Tearworn, but please, call me Aenge.”
The Wight doesn’t even slow as he slowly turns his head and looks down at her hand, not taking it.
“Karl… Vimeric.” His tongueless voice whispers.
Aengellania bows her head in respect, quickly pulling back her hand.
“Pleased to meet you, Karl Vimeric. Might I ask how you joined our band?”
Karl looks back forward and continues walking on in silence. Only after half-a-dozen steps did he speak again.
“Purpose.”
Up ahead Eresh’s head twitches, in annoyance Aenellania guesses, but the Soulmason doesn’t say anything yet.
“Any purpose in specific?”
“Any.”
“To stop yourself from falling into catatonia?”
Karl’s head jerks around back to Aengellania.
“You… Know?”
“That Wights need purpose, just as the living need air?”
Aengellania nods.
“I do. I spent some time in Shyish during the Age of Chaos, and more often than not I found myself relying on Grave Guard and Black Knights to keep me safe. It was an illuminating experience, travelling with them or taking refuge in the sites that they guard.”
Eresh turns her head around enough to shoot an irritated glare at Aengellania and Karl.
“They need only one purpose, just the same as anyone else; serving Nagash.”
Karl’s eyes briefly blaze bright with spectral fires through the bars of his visor, but Aengellania cuts off any argument before it can begin.
“Karl, how did you become a Wight, then? If that isn’t too personal a question.”
“Hm.”
Karl grips his spear more tightly.
“Was… Servant… Of… Law.”
He opens up a pouch and takes out a battered and old badge.
“City… Guard.”
“Were you killed in the line of duty?”
Karl nods, running the badge through his fingers.
“Yes. Knife in… Dark. Thrown… Drowned in river.”
“Did they find your body afterwards?”
Karl shakes his head.
“Walked… Out myself. Needed to… Catch… Murderers.”
“And did you?”
Karl grins at her; not that he truly has a choice, but this time she feels that he means it.
“Gave them… Fright of their… Lives… When I identified… Them.”
Aengellania chuckles despite herself, but quickly silences herself with a few fingers covering up her mouth.
“My apologies, I shouldn’t make light of your death.”
“It was… Supposed… To be funny.”
Karl looks down at his badge, a wistful sigh easing from between his teeth.
“Death… Did not change… Much. Kept serving… Law… And people.”
“That sounds like quite a noble purpose, then.”
“Hrm. It… was.”
Karl turns to look back forward, falling into a silence that would have deterred most from inquiring further.
“So what happened?”
The Wight keeps his silence, but Eresh speaks for him, her voice caustic. It feels to Aengellania like she is addressing Karl just as much as she is Aengellania.
“His city accepted the truth of Nagash and submitted themselves to the Bone Tithe. But this apostate could not realise his true loyalties.”
Karl’s head jerks up, once again his spectral fires alight. His voice raises above his whisper, and comes faster.
“Not apostate. Only served… Law.”
Eresh’s Mortek Throne turns fully, allowing her to confront Karl face-to-face as it plodded on.
“And yet you could not uphold the Bone Tithe?”
“Bone Tithe… Not lawful. Not just. Imposition... Fear. Could not enforce it.”
Aengellania places a hand on Karl’s shoulder and prepares to calm him, but he shrugs off her hand and points his spear at Eresh.
“Law is… Consensus. Serves… People.”
Eresh flicks a hand, dismissing his argument.
“Irrelevant. The only law is Nagash. The only justice is his will.”
“Eresh, Karl, that’s eno-”
Karl raises up his spear, pointing it at Favre floating up above them, heedless in her misery of the argument below them.
“Is that justice?”
Eresh simply calmly nods against his anger.
“Yes.”
Karl lowers his spear and seems prepared to attack Eresh in a fury, until Aengellania brings a hand to his shoulder again.
“Karl, perhaps we scout ahead a little? We should find a place to camp soon.”
Karl holds himself still for a moment, before he raises his spear again and walks brusquely off, barging past Eresh wordlessly. The Soulmason grimaces, preparing another insult, before she catches Aengellania’s look.
“Eresh, I think now is not the time to inflame passions further. Should we not concentrate on the task at hand?”
“Hm. As if I need a living soul-thief to remind me of my duty.”
Eresh nonetheless rotates her throne again to face forwards, allowing its pace to slow a little to let Karl and Aengellania range ahead. Aengellania despairs that she wouldn’t be able to forge a rapprochement with the Ossiarch, but at least this time Eresh hadn’t repudiated her for not using her title.
She hurries to join Karl ahead of the group, and for a while the two walk on in silence. Aengellania knows that he will talk when he’s ready to.
Eventually, Karl bows his head to Aengellania.
“My… Thanks. Temper… Flared.”
“Think nothing of it, Karl.”
Karl shakes his head.
“No… Not nothing. Almost… Sabotaged mission. Put city in… Danger.”
Aengellania almost asks him how he would have done the latter, when she realises what he meant.
“Is your city within a hundred and fifty miles of the Endgate?”
Karl nods.
“Did Katakros…”
He tilts his jaw and makes a coughing sound, liplessly and drily spitting on the ground.
“Threaten you… With extermination too?”
“Something similar, yes.”
They keep walking in silence, until Aengellania breaks it.
“I’m sorry that you’re caught in this position, Karl. It must be awful.”
Karl grunts, for the moment his only acknowledgement of her offered sympathies. Then, he mutters quietly to her.
“Suppose… Won’t know what happens… To it, either… Way.”
Aengellania knows that tone, as faded as it is in Karl’s voice. She had heard it too many times before, sometimes even in her own voice.
“Karl, you can’t lose hope for survival.”
The Wight just shakes his head.
“Will not… Survive. Do not… Intend to. Can feel will… Fade. This duty… All that’s keeping me… Walking. If survive… Fall… Catatonic. Bones… Recycled.”
He throws a glare towards the distant Eresh.
“At least here… Can still spite… Ossiarch.”
“In my experience, spiting others with death rarely has the desired impact.”
“Don’t… Have choice.”
“You might not feel that you do, but you have ways to combat your problems. You feel like you don’t have something to keep you motivated?”
Karl nods, slowly.
“Yes. Law broken… Can’t fix it…”
Aengellania stops and pulls him to the side slightly, after giving the area a quick look over.
“We can camp here. The others will take a while to reach us.”
She looks back to Karl, letting her concern show.
“Can’t you think of any other motivation that you can have?”
“No. Law was… Purpose… Duty… Enough.”
“Have you considered smaller reasons, though?”
Karl looks up at her, surprised.
“Smaller…?”
“Yes, smaller.”
Aengellania kneels down, unpacks her bag and begins rifling through it.
“Did you have any hobbies when you were alive? Such as reading, going on walks. That might provide you with enough of a reason to stay awake until you can find a ‘big’ reason.”
Karl shakes his head, uncertain.
“I… I cannot recall…”
“Well, that’s not much of a setback.”
She takes out a number of items from her pack, spreading them out across the floor; various and diverse pieces of bric-a-brac, books, and miscellaneous tools and equipment, gotten over the past century of travelling the Realms and picking up interests to keep herself occupied and learning from others.
“Do any of these catch your eye or interest you?”
Karl kneels down in front of her, uncertain. He taps his boney chin as his eye sockets pan over the assortment of paraphernalia laid out before him.
Finally, he lowers his finger and taps a paint set, something that Aengellania hadn’t given much thought to until now. She tries to hide the feeling of her heart going cold.
“I… Think painting will be… Interesting.”
“Very well. Would you like to see some examples I made?”
When Karl nods again she takes out a sheaf of papers from a small pack and hands them to him. Karl leafs through the various paintings Aenge had given him, until he stops and focuses on one in particular.
“What did you find?” Aengellania asks him.
He shows it to her, and her heart plummets as she sees the subject depicted in paint.
“That… Is a good… Self-portrait.”
Aengellania lowers her eyes from Karl, focusing on the floor.
“I didn’t paint that one. Gwydain did.”
“Who is… Gwydain?”
“She is… Was… Someone special to me.”
Silence stretches on awkwardly, until Karl slowly sets down the papers.
“I… Am sorry.”
Aengellana shakes her head.
“Don’t be. What happened… That was my fault.”
As they both fall silent again, Aengellania starts putting it all away back into her pack, until she reaches the paint kit. Karl makes no protest as her hand hovers over it, doubtlessly wishing that he hadn’t brought up Gwydain.
It will be painful to open up this part of her past, she suspects. But if that pain would help someone…
She retreats her hand from the paint set, and lets out a deep breath, startling Karl.
“We can start lessons tonight, if you wish.”
“Aenge… Are you… Sure?”
“I am.”
Aengellania lets more conviction show than she feels, covering up her lie that she wouldn’t have accepted from anyone else.
“It’s in the past. It can’t hurt me anymore.”
