Interlude - The other side of hell

“You need to eat something or you’ll turn into a wraith.”

The woman’s voice contained a scrap of annoyance, despite the calm she tried to force on. Her fingers brushed idly through his hair before settling on his shoulder and squeezing a little.

“Or at least talk to me. I cannot start to imagine what happened to you…but I need to hear you…I need you to be…yourself…” A sob nearly swallowed her words. It almost made him turn over and look at her. Niniel Ain’Ethil tear-eyed was as likely as snow on Midsummer Day.

Her anguish was floating distantly across the numbness he lay wrapped in. He was aware of it – and resented that he was making her suffer, yet it did not feel real. There were too many other things, memories of blood and soul chilling screams waiting hungrily at the edges of his mind. They would swarm him in moments should he acknowledge them, so he slumbered, barely keeping them at bay. He would have to face it in the end. Just not yet. Not yet…

“Surely you must be able to do something for him!””

The other voice was sharper and more commanding. Worried too. She spoke to the other man in the room, standing near the tall windows that opened onto a courtyard with roses and fountains…
Home. He was home. The cries wouldn’t go away though. They never would, now.

“I know what is wrong”, the man said calmly. He sounded embarrassed. “Or not wrong…not really…You see, discipline is a very strong teaching among priests of the Holy Light…”

“Get to the point, Father!”

There was obviously no supply of patience left in the woman with the sharp tone. Her emotions skittered around the self –conscious wall, the same as Niniel’s did. He recognized frustration and anger and helplessness.

“A well trained priest can do just that…suppress some part of the connection between body and spirit, to the point where cold or hear or mind wrenching pain can be ignored. This is exactly what happens here. Except that he took it way too far. His body lies there and he may well be able to hear us as we talk – and even understand the meaning of words…but not feel them.” The priest coughed trying to hide he felt really uncomfortable at the moment. “Using suppression for this long and to such a degree is dangerous. If the connection is completely severed…he will die…and there is nothing I can do. No healing would work if he does not choose to come back.”

Two shocked gasps echoed the statement and the hand on his shoulder tensed. He could perceive it in the way one would be aware of two rocks touching each other. His mind acknowledged the contact, yet his senses didn’t. There was no feeling in that emptiness. He could think about Stratholme – about shattering cries and pleas to be spared, the blood soaking his hands and the fire that had consumed the city afterwards like a huge funeral pyre. He could think about it all and not be crushed by the horror of it.

He had paid with his faith. He would never find the strength to touch the Light again… Even that thought seemed bearable as he floated.

“You cannot…” Niniel was truly crying now. “You cannot…” Her hand gripped his shoulder so strong he would have felt his bones crack if he would feel anything at all.
“Pull yourself together!” the other woman snapped. Hot anger radiated from her in waves. “He will not do this to any of us! Not if I have to drown him in the Sunwell first! Do you hear me, Eireannan Sarälondé? You will not –“