Lady of Poison_ The Priests - Bruce R. Cordell [116]
Gunggari's wail of agony was as water on the fire of his effort. The force of his gaze winked out immediately. The Daughter, rearing, had caught Gunggari. The Oslander was down. Down, too, came those hideously heavy feet, stamping. Gunggari rolled, but his pain hindered him, and he couldn't roll far enough. The Daughter's foot smashed down upon the tattooed soldier, breaking bones and bursting flesh. The tattooed soldier joined the elf hunter in stillness.
If Gunggari by some miracle retained grasp on life, his bleeding body would soon betray that effort without immediate tending. Marrec didn't waste time thinking about it-he simply ran full out for his friend's side. Where he presumed that Elowen yet survived her contact with the Daughter, he knew his friend would not. He might already be dead.
A geyser of fiery energy poured down upon the flank of the Daughter, distracting it long enough for Marrec to reach Gunggari's side. Ususi was still in the fight and unleashing her most potent spells against the rampaging horror.
The cleric felt for the tattooed warrior's pulse-faint, growing fainter, but still beating. Marrec called joyfully on his renewed link to Lurue and poured healing into his friend, but Gunggari's flesh was grievously wounded. The Oslander opened his eyes but remained prone. He had managed to stabilize Gunggari, stop the bleeding. That would have to be enough.
The Daughter completely ignored Marrec, even though the cleric fairly kneeled at the creature's feet. Furious at the fusillade of spells with which Ususi continued to burn it, the corrupted aspect charged the mage. Ususi cried out, seeing her death approach. She shot a look of apology Marrec's way, touched the Keystone hanging at her breast, and was pulled backward, out of the Rotting Man's court by the power of the amulet. She was gone.
The Daughter, deprived of its intended target, stumbled to a stop, its immense but dreadfully quick legs causing the ground to quake with each and every footfall. Its bulk hid from view both the Rotting Man and… Ash.
Marrec stood and began running in a single action. The creature was between him and his charge. If it killed her, then all their effort was for nothing.
Justlance was in his hand with merely a thought, but what hope did he really believe he had? The creature had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was nigh on unstoppable. What force could hope to breach its bulk and reach its heart?
What physical force… but wait-the beast was born of a gift of the Green Powers. It was a corrupted aspect, but an aspect all the same, and somehow, Lurue was tied up in all of it. Was slaying the creature the answer? Though foul, at heart it must be good. Something that seeks to do good, though it commits evil, can be redeemed, or so Marrec hoped.
The knowledge that was flushed from hiding by the Nentyarch's elixir finally completed its work. Revelation illuminated Marrec, then, like the sun that lifts up from behind a mountain, revealing the plain that was previously dark. Marrec saw a parallel between Ash and himself, and the Daughter and his monstrous gaze. Moreover, he saw an equivalence between any creature that hopes to do good, but through inaction, inattention, poor judgment, or even self-interest, does evil. Does that action, then, condemn such a one to a life of evil thereafter? Does it mean that that one does not deserve a second chance?
Well, no, of course not.
Life is but a brief flicker, and as the saying goes, "What will it matter in one hundred years?" is all too true for most creatures. Life is a short-lived gift. If that gift is not explored in all its dimensions, it is like spurning the gift, setting it aside on a knickknack shelf where other things of little interest accumulate. How else can life be experienced but through decisions? How else can good be judged from evil, if mistakes are not made? That was the secret that revealed itself to Marrec: To err is to live, and to live is to err, but one can only pick oneself up after each mistake, wiser for the experience, and go