Ironwolf 14 – The Forest of Forgotten Souls
“Ironwolf!”
“Ironwolf!” The voice calls my name from the other end of time and space, like the whispered prayers of long dead ancestors.
“Ironwolf!”
-----
We sit in coiling shadows, beneath trees that grow but have never lived. At night, the darkness is a net dragging us towards the yawning void, and in the days, the sunlight flies above us like ragged, washed out banners; frail; ephemeral; pale as a corpse and cold like memories of the dead. And ever the coiling shadows grip us.
The sunlight is the banner of our forgotten hopes and causes, its heat has gone to the world of the living. We are in the world now, but we do not live. We are the prisoners of the Forest, wraiths with tattered spirits. Our voices are the howl of despair and our words are whispers of vengeance unfulfilled. Restless dead.
----
“Ironwolf!” The calling voice is more insistent and the coiled darkness stirs, to assert its possession of my wounded soul.
“You must not leave!” says the son of Gith, as his smog-grey spirit writhes like a cloud of noisome swampwater. “I need you! I need your power!”
I look at him and cannot fully understand what he is saying. What need can he have, and how could I fulfil it. His spirit slips through the shadows to me. “Give me you magic!” he says, with a voice that has no mouth to speak it. The dead outsider's will grapples with me and soon, what little I have left is under assault.
The spirit's attack draws my life from me, drilling deep into my memories and mining out my experiences. It cuts a deep shaft into my being and drains out what it can find. It touches on my youth, a time when Gorion explained to me the nature of the Weave, and then that time is gone, as if the discussion had never been.
There is no pain, just the yawning emptiness, and with every attack I am emptier. The magic is being taken from me and I cannot, do not, stop it happening. The Githzerai spirit is revelling in its destruction of my being. Its voice becomes hotter as it grows in power. “I will be free!” it cries. “I will leave this cesspool and return to our monasteries in Limbo!” There is wild joy, like a berserker bloodlust, and though it has no mouth nor throat, it cackles with glee.
The Gith spirit's attacks draw it close to something else, deeper in my soul. Something hidden beneath the magic and more powerful besides. Like a serpent, toying with a mouse, the Githzerai encircles this deeper power. It has boundaries, like the wall of a fortress made of steel and adamant. The spirit laughs again, and sets to tearing down the wall. In my heart I know that it must not succeed; the wall is necessary, and must remain. But I am worn thin. I have not even enough notion of myself left to remember why the wall must remain.
“Ironwolf!” the far off voice calls, but I do not even remember that it is my name.
----
The Githzerai spirit tightens its grip around the psychic fortress that it has found. Soon, it knows the entrance and with a wrench it breaks down the door. The delight is unmistakable as the serpent prepares to dive into the power it so craves.
Its scream is so dire, even the living would hear it.
For within the walls is my heritage, the power of my father. The walls are not a fortress, to keep assailants out, but a prison, to keep my soul within. And now the door is opened. The serpent recoils as the wolf, with a fiery breath and black, unending hatred grapples it in return. The sound of the Bhaalspawn power coming forth resounds in the shadows of the spirit realm like eruption of a mighty volcano. In an instant, the son of Gith is consumed, and all that was his, as well as all of mine that he stole, it all returns to me afresh.
This time, when the voice calls my name, I am ready to answer, for now I remember much.
----
There is a smell, of wet earth, and mould growing on rotten wood. But it is glorious, for I have not smelt anything for too long.
“Ironwolf!” the voice calls.
I strain to answer, to run to the voice, for I know now that it is the voice of a friend and the sound of it is golden loyalty and great pleasure. The coiled shadows grip me tightly, but they are weaker than they were and they no longer feel like the steely draconic coils that they were. Now they are grainy in texture, and with effort, they yield a little.
For a time I feel that they will still grip me down, in spite of my new found strength. The voice still calls, though, and I hunger to answer it. The hunger drives me on and I claw against my restraints. Slowly I feel my hand break free, then my other hand. Gripping the living world with two hands, I force myself through the surface. As I force the earth to surrender me, the dirt falls away, like water running down the sides of a hill.
I am alive and in the world again. Standing still ankle deep in broken earth, I look about me. Sitting in a circle about me are people I know, people who's loyalty and faithfulness is unquestioned. Imoen, my lifelong friend, Jet'laya, the elf priestess and Jaheira, the Archdruid who despises me because she needs someone to bear the burden of her pain.
“The reincarnation is complete.” says Jaheira, in her sombre tones.
“But this…?” Imoen is aghast, and both the tone of her voice and her expression show this clearly.
“I…it…it is…I!” I struggle to find words, for I have not spoken in the languages of the living for so long. As I speak, my words echo tellingly. I look down and see that my hands and arms are steel, clad in an armour unlike any other. The _golemskin_!
“I warned you,” Jaheira says, and Jet' nods in agreement. “Without his body, there is no telling the form his spirit would return in.”
When Imoen looks back to me, I smile, but then I realise she will be unable to see that through my helmet. For a moment I almost despair. Then I reach up and disconnect the helmet from the gorget. With a swift motion, I pull the mystical iron from my head. Now I smile again and all the sunrises of the world are born again in Imoen's face. With a whoop and a swift leap, she charges towards me, wrapping her arms around me and kissing my cheek, my forehead.
“How long have I been…gone?” I ask.
“A long time!” says Imoen breathlessly. “Too long! Almost a year!”
“Thank you for calling me back.” is the only other thing I can think of to say.
Imoen stares at me for a long time and then says simply, “God's! I missed you!”
