“Neither,” Yoshi spat. With a look of controlled hate, the adept speared the thing with the edge of his sword. The amorphous blob was already trying to move away. A high-pitched keening, almost beyond Richter’s hearing range, rang out once Yoshi impaled it. The adept threw it into a small fire the sprites had built. The shroud’s scream faded as it burned away to nothing.
The ten sprites that had been giving their mana to Hisako slumped, exhausted. The Hearth Mother herself had sat down on a nearby boulder. Richter watched the sprite that had been brought back from the dead in amazement. His fellows clapped him on the back, and he gave them a shaky grin. It was clear that the resurrected sprite was weak as a kitten, but he still found the strength to kneel before the Hearth Mother. Words in sprite-speak fell from his lips, “Kona korit’onai to shī wa arata no saichi yaku ro ni sha.”
The sprite words always sounded Asian to Richter’s ears. Back on Earth he had only spoken English and some Spanish, but in The Land, his Gift of Tongues ability easily translated the revived man’s sentiment, ‘This unworthy soul thanks the Mother for his life, and promises it to you anew.”
The man kissed the hem of Hisako’s robe, and she fondly placed her hand on his head. Then he rose and walked away. Other sprite magi cast spells of healing and restoration upon him, and soon he was back to fighting shape. The sprite took his breastplate off, and the sound of hammering filled the glade as he tried to close the rent in his armor.
While this was happening, thoughts continued to spin around Richter’s mind. His emotions swirled, and he slowly shook his head as he dealt with the onslaught. Above all else, however, one word continued to rise to the surface. Petal.
Richter looked at the Hearth Mother. She looked calmly and tiredly back at him, knowing what he was about to say. Emotions played across the chaos seed’s face until he could take it no longer and he cried out, “Why?”
Into that single word was all of his sadness and loss. It also held recrimination towards the Hearth Mother for not saving his people, for not saving her! If she could bring back the dead, then why hadn’t she? Why had she let Petal die? Why had she let them all die? Why had she been amazed at his CPR? His medical skills were nothing compared to this magic! Was she so cruel to mock him while his people lay dead, all to protect this secret? WHY? He was wailing in his own head as Hisako looked back at him in sympathy.
When she spoke, there was no defense in her voice. There was only sympathy, “I know well what is in your heart, my friend. What you feel now is why this is a secret that must be kept. If it was widely known that death did not need to be final, then wars would be fought. Men and women would murder thousands if it meant giving themselves even one more day. What you have just seen is the height of Life magic, and it is not without cost. The root that Yoshi placed on my warrior’s head is rare. It is a special herb that comes from the Hearth Tree itself, and it grows slowly. Only such a pure expression of Life magic can bring the dead back. When your village was attacked, I did not have the necessary spell ingredients to resurrect either your people or mine.”
Richter blinked, a tear escaping from one eye. Emotions he had thought gone had simply been repressed. The chaos seed well remembered holding a grieving mother as she mourned the loss of her child. He nodded for Hisako to continue.
“You cannot stop death, Lord Richter. No being can halt it completely. How would you choose, Lord Richter? If there were only five of the necessary ingredients in your whole village, would you use one to bring a hunter back to life, knowing that it meant you might not be able to revive one of your warriors on the morrow? Could you let your people know that the power of life and death was in your hands, knowing that you must deny the request of a grieving mother to bring a child back one day in the future?” Richter’s heart clenched. It was as if she was looking inside of his soul. She softly added a warning, “I have seen settlements ripped asunder for less.”
The chaos seed wanted to deny her words, but he knew that she spoke the truth. Richter hung his head. Despite the fact that he was proving her very point, he fell to both knees, “Will you save my men, Hearth Mother?” He thought he had hardened his heart against the deaths of his people and the losses he had suffered, but in this one moment, he understood that he had simply been ignoring the pain in hopes that it would fade and disappear.
“I will try,” she agreed wearily, “if you will lend me your magic. And your strength. You must choose, however. This far from the Hearth Tree, I will not be able to bring back anyone that has been dead for more than an hour. I will have the time to save two more of your people, possibly three, but not all six that have fallen. Choose.”
Richter’s heart nearly broke as he looked at the bodies of his six men. Six brave souls that had made the final sacrifice for him. He would reward half by deeming them “less.” He looked at Hisako, anguish clear on his face. She merely looked back, her face now steel, “Such is the weight of leadership. Time grows short, Lord Richter. Choose.”
Hating her, and himself, and the world for putting him in such a position, he pointed at his aeromancer, “Him first.”
More sprites filed in to replace those whose mana pools had been depleted. This time, Richter took his place at the head of one of the lines and placed a hand on Hisako’s shoulder. A prompt filled his vision again.
Hisako, the Hearth Mother, would like to access your mana core. Do you wish to allow this? Yes or No? Alert! Doing this can allow the other party to cause you great and irreparable harm!
He disregarded the warning and chose ‘Yes.’ Gold light once again surrounded her hands, and her chanting filled the air. There was an almost physical sensation of pulling as she drew on his mana. Richter was tempted to resist at first, but by giving into it, though, the “wrongness” of it faded away. It was replaced with the feeling of being part of something greater than himself. A few minutes later, his Air mage sat up and began coughing. The drama of the death shroud played itself out again. It took the caster longer to expel the shroud and when he finally did, it was larger and more mobile than the first. Yoshi quickly placed it in the fire.
His caster looked at Richter, “My lord? My lord, what happened? What was that thing inside of me?” Alarm began to cross the man’s features. His words were questioning as he tried to remember, “I was fighting. I was fighting, and then…”