Title-- The Demon-God of Jubagh (part thirty-one)
Rating and Warnings-- G; mild language.
Cast-- Rai Gerring, defected black magician (human man); Brandon Styhan, exiled paladin-warrior (human man); Lhafa Softstep, blind voodoo warrior (baghan woman); two knight exemplars [Arista Reenla, Erick Glessen], two paladins [Gary Hallin, Theo Doreck], a young priest [Father Joshua Krein], a berserker [Keeper Michael Arugin], and the captain of the Light's Hammer (human men and women).
Previously-- Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen, Part Sixteen, Part Seventeen, Part Eighteen, Part Nineteen, Part Twenty, Part Twenty-One, Part Twenty-Two, Part Twenty-Three, Part Twenty-Four, Part Twenty-Five, Part Twenty-Six, Part Twenty-Seven, Part Twenty-Eight, Part Twenty-Nine, Part Thirty.



After an hour of shielding faces from cold winds, the group of nine reached the warship of the Light. The wingless serpent came to rest gently on the clean wooden deck of the Light's Hammer, coiling low as its passengers unstrapped and climbed down the short rope ladders. Even when its shimmering length was pressed to the deck, the serpent's spine rose well above Brandon's head, making use of the ladders a necessity for Lightworkers in heavy platemail.

Lhafa and Brandon ignored the ladders; Brandon slid down the serpent's smooth flank, and the baghan simply leapt from her saddle-like seat to land gracefully on the deck. To her credit, she didn't stagger, but she did tap a cloven hoof on the wooden plank in surprise. "Where are we now?" she queried, face angling towards the sound of feet on the deck.

Rai was escorted down his ladder, sighing at the necessity of having a paladin monitor him so closely, and answered her once he was down. "On a very large ship. Have you ever seen the ships in the sky? Or do baghans have boats that go on water?" He was unsure of the words for 'ship' and 'boat' in her language, but he made a good guess.

"We have small boats for one or two people. They are used on streams or to fish in lakes," she replied, puzzled. She tapped the deck again. "This feels unnatural. It is too flat and firm."

"Well, Softstep," Brandon interjected, joining her and ignoring the glare from his warden, "it is unnatural. Lots of trees died to make a wooden floor. There are levels to this ship, too - rooms and hallways and balconies all in its belly. They're gonna lock us in a room, so you won't have to worry about getting used to much else." He half-grinned, but his brows were drawn. "Never thought I'd stand on a warship again," he muttered.

Rai gave the paladin on his arm a withering glare and shrugged off the gauntlet, moving to stand near Brandon and Lhafa. "Never thought I'd be going to the Source of Light," the magician countered, smiling thinly. "And I bet Lhafa never thought she'd leave Jubagh." He turned a sympathetic look on the blind woman.

She smiled faintly. "It had not crossed my mind," she admitted, breathing deeply. "The air tastes strange. Pale. Why is that?"

"Hells, I hadn't even noticed," Brandon muttered. "Uh, see, we're pretty high up, away from Jubagh. The air gets thin up here, and even thinner when we're going between worlds. It practically disappears when we go between suns. And... that's what we're doing, headin' to another sun. We'll be stuck in our room, but there'll be air to breathe there, at least."

"How will we breathe? Won't we use up all the air?" She sounded more curious than concerned.

"The ship has a wind inside it," Rai explained simplistically. "The whole belly of the ship is filled with plants who share their air with us. It'll be enough to last us until we reach the next sun." He paused. "We're going to be in one room for two weeks, Lhafa. Will you be okay with not moving for so long?"

Her head cocked to the side, thoughtful. "I have no choice," she decided. "I will be well."

Brandon suddenly laughed, a grin lighting his face. "Hells, Rai! Two weeks! We can teach her quite a bit about magic in the meantime, can't we?" He chuckled. "Get her well and prepared for .. whatever the hells we're doing on Sivef."

"Enough chit-chat," Arista interrupted, looking annoyed at Brandon's wide smile. It delighted him that she didn't speak the baghan tongue and had no idea what they'd been saying. "You'll be shown to your room and food will be brought shortly. Come along."

"I hope there are wash-basins there," Rai muttered in baghan, looking at the soot and blood on his robes. He shuffled along, annoyed at the paladin falling into step beside him, as Arista led them into the heart of the ship.

"Well, this is... pleasant," Rai commented, keeping to the baghan language as he glanced around at their spacious-yet-bare room. Their two paladin escorts ushered them inside, readying the deadbolt and shutting the heavy door as soon as Rai's robes passed the threshold. The lock clicked into place smoothly. "Nicest prison cell I've ever seen." He eyed the wooden walls and noted the thin, high vents that cycled air through the room; there were no windows. "Secure."

"Softstep, if you walk straight ahead, you'll find a bed for ya," Brandon pointed out. "We all need some rest, some food, and... well, then we get to train a new magician." He grinned wolfishly, then glanced at the one corner of the room that had no bed; it was curtained off. "Guess that's our... hells, I don't know the baghan word for it. Place to piss."

Lhafa lifted a slim shoulder in a shrug. "There is no word for a place inside a room where one relieves oneself. We do not have such things." She paused, sniffed, and found her way to the washbasin on the floor next to her bed with her tailtuft sweeping the floor in front of her hooves. "I will be glad to learn how to use this power," she added quietly as she removed the strip of cloth around her head and carefully cleaned her face and hands, then the band itself. Methodically, she squeezed the water from the cloth and the parts of her mane that had gotten damp, then replaced the strip securely. She didn't let either man see the damage done to her eyes.

"...it occurs to me that there's no light in here," Rai suddenly noticed, looking around. "Just the light from Lhafa's talisman."

Brandon chuckled. "Is the black magician complaining about darkness now?" He shot his companion a mocking grin, laughing as Rai rolled his eyes expressively and sighed. "Alright, alright. Let's crash. Arista will have to file a long report with the ship's captain, so she'll forget about feeding us for another few hours." He claimed the bed closest to the door, splashed enough water on his skin to remove most of the filth, and fell noisily onto the thick mattress. Rai washed as well, then settled on the bed farthest from the door and pulled the heavy blanket over him; Lhafa's bed was between his and Brandon's, and he couldn't shake the feeling that they were her guardians.

Well, not for much longer. Soon, she'd have enough training to be formidable in her own right, even against well-schooled magicians and Lightworkers. He hoped she'd learn quickly.

The captain of the Light's Hammer was not pleased when Arista informed him that a native of Jubagh and a black mage were additional passengers, but she assured him that they would be cooperative prisoners. He didn't believe her, of course, but he merely nodded and placed responsibility for them both on her head.

The trip was unnervingly peaceful. The prisoners were glad to be fed and seemed to entertain themselves with conversing in the language she couldn't understand. Two weeks passed by with aching slowness as the warship moved further away from Jubagh's sun and the air became too choking to survive above-deck; every waking hour, Arista wondered if the mage would try to escape, or try to somehow break the ship and kill them all. She fretted and paced, but no hint of shadow-magic ever arose from the prisoners' cell.

When the Source of Light was in shining view through thick panes of glass in the bow of the ship, she rejoiced to see its cluster of hovering worlds that danced in slow rhythm around their sun.