Against the shield barring them from Whisper, the beads were glowing, a writhing snake. A symbol formed, dark beads opposite ashen, drawing the tentacles which bound the prisoner to it. As the feather landed against the shield, the right chain holding Aiden's arm snapped free and lashed toward the beads, pouring out an energy so black that shadows would seem ashen by comparison. The left tentacles broke next, spewing forth a pale power that encompassed every color under the sun. It hit the beads on the opposite side.

Pure, untainted magic filled the room. The stuff of life and death and everything in between. Everything beyond. Even Mesteno, usually so numb to such things could feel it. Rich, heady, creation and destruction both. The Chaos of the Void that darkness had tried to lay claim to before there was ever such a thing as light.

Lexius stood stunned, when beyond where the beads formed the symbol, pale, ghostly wings snapped into existence, spread wide and glorious. And then another, darker set appeared, layering into the first. Both apparitions came from where Aiden knelt on the floor, head thrown back and tattooed arms spread wide.

He held that pose for three long seconds and then began to feed. It was the magic he was after. Every speck of it. He fed upon it ravenously, gathered it to himself and sucked it into his being.

Oh how rapidly Mesteno?s cussing had stopped! It was all the necromancer could do to keep his footing, and he didn't even manage that particularly well. He did succeed, somehow, to bring himself alongside Lexius again as if in some vain hope that they'd have a better chance of survival if they didn't get split up as they had in the maze.

A hand thrown up to shield his eyes, he watched the whole, unstable show with a grimace, and dared not look away. It was when the prisoner blatantly began to feed that a smile ghosted about the edges of the necromancer's mouth, a sickle-slim show of teeth.

Any hope of stealth for the remainder of the mission was futile now. Gongs were rung. Trumpets touted. Creation magic loosed and devoured. And all of it rippled across every single Plane in existence and even across the worlds and dimensions of the Prime. How the beads fit into all of that, though, Lexius had no idea.

The Elf stirred when Mesteno stepped closer, snapped back to reality, certain of the same conviction the Sadist held. To stand together would be better. Together enough, in fact, he closed one hand over his shoulder. A solid, real, physical connection that seemed to stabilize everything for him, at least.

Aiden fed as a man...well, starved! His frame filled out, the film left his eyes and those layered wings (dark on light) became even more brilliant. The beads hovered over it all, shining proudly.

Finally, the sense of magic in the air began to dwindle and the tentacles that had been stretched down from the ceiling were no more than withered husks. The ghostly wings flapped forward and sank into Aiden's flesh, disappearing. It seemed to drive the man down until he caught himself with both hands on the rock. And then he laughed, a vibrant sound full of rich humor and dark intentions.

Lifting his head, he pinned Mesteno and Lexius with a dazzling blue eyes, grinned widely and spoke.

"Who the fuck are you two?" The question seemed to amuse him, because he laughed again.

Mesteno straightened, made a deliberate effort to compose himself, no matter how filthy he looked, and twitched a look across from Whisper to the beads. They had their own agenda, but they'd never have succeeded without their intervention. Another faint twitch of a smile might have indicated approval, but it was there and gone, replaced by a look of gravitas as the laughing Aiden finally turned his attention their way.

"Reluctant pawns. Certain Powers sent us to fetch you out," he told him, so he'd be under no false impressions about their purpose there. "I'm Mesteno. This is Lexius." He angled a nod in the Elf's direction when he offered his name without permission.

Aiden certainly looked a healthier than when they'd first discovered him. He all but vibrated with the power he'd just consumed. If one squinted, they might just see ripples of it rising from his body, like waves of heat drifting from black asphalt under a sweltering sun. Olive toned skin moulded over fit muscles and a lean frame, his back, shoulders and arms still decorated by that glorious angel tattoo. He looked capable of not only walking, but sprinting at top speed to wherever they might go next. Even the Angel itself (what little could be glimpsed of it) looked better, the folded pose of it somehow less...defiled, though a dark line of black now edged not only the outline of the pale body, but threaded through the wings that wrapped themselves around Aiden's arms all the way down to the wrists. He was, all in all, quite the specimen!

His laughter drifted into silence as Mesteno spoke, and sharp blue eyes narrowed as he studied the pair of them in return, focus settling on the Elf for a time. But no recognition sparked in that gaze for the name or the face.

"Alright. That means 'Mes sent you. Got any pants?" He meant Hermes, of course. Rather than stay huddled on the ground, he picked himself right up, unashamed of his nudity.

It was the Elf that spoke next, hand sliding free to delve into the bag at his side.

"You do not know who I am." He stated it as he pulled a pair of old, tattered jeans from the satchel. Apparently, he'd thought of this possibility. Those he tossed to Aiden, who caught them up and tugged them on without delay, drawing his gaze back from inspecting the withered tentacles.

"Nope. I take it I should?" Aiden snapped the jeans closed then narrowed another look at the Elf, answering his own question before Lexius could. "Since you're carrying my pants and all, I probably should." He waved a hand, and with the motion of his arm an after-image of feathers seemed to ripple through the air. "We can talk about it later. We need to get outta here before Mr Lightning-Up-His-Holy-Ass can get down here. Come on, both of you."

With that, Aiden just turned and walked right into the maze like he knew where he was going.

As for the beads, they decided it was time to return to the Elf. At least, they were hanging from his belt again, lazy as you please, as if they'd never left.

The necromancer was puzzled, but beyond a faint frown of confusion angled across at Lexius, he made nothing of it. Koyan would have mentioned him, the pictures... If it hadn't been for the fact that Whisper remembered Hermes, he might have wondered as to the state of his memory! Gaps in his mind were not however, their priority, and the collective urgency they all felt would no doubt see them all hastening elsewhere before they could be cornered.

Mesteno went marching after Whisper, still uncomfortably sodden from the dousing he'd received after fighting the Minotaur, but at least no longer suffering the discomfort of his injuries thanks to the healing. He seemed physically capable of keeping up, and didn't doubt the Elf would be too.

"We're not only here for you, Harper. Y'supposed to help us secure the release of a particular member of the pantheon. Wound up incarcerated a couple of years after you were." Just in case he got any bright ideas about skulking off in the wrong direction. "You got any idea how long they've had you chained up?"

Aiden spared Lexius the need to continue maintaining the shield. He got hit by one, two, three of those arcing bolts as soon as he stepped from beneath the cover of the shield- and he sucked them in like a vacuum. His wings appeared, ghostly and broad, terrible and wonderful, as, flinging both hands forward, he fed the energy back to Dear old Dad in a thickening bolt that blasted the God right back into a wall.

"Psst! Hey! Getcher monkey asses back here!" Sulphur, behind them, tucked beyond a turn in the maze wall. He waved them over urgently with taloned fingers, then shouted past them toward Aiden. "Bald Dick! Let's go!"

Sulphur's arrival was timely. Mesteno had never expected to be glad about seeing a demon, but he wasted no time in reaching to shove Lexius in the scaled bastard's direction. Of them all, he was probably flagging the most, so the Elf had to suffer the indignity of being herded, though not without the shove eliciting a grunt and a flare of bared teeth for the assault. The beads? They were clicking away rather merrily!

As they hastened around the maze corner, they were confronted with a hellish looking gate. Flames licked red and black about an opening just large enough for a Sulphur-sized demon. That very same demon was urging them through it even as he shouted again toward Aiden. "Whispah! S'time t'go!"

Aiden spun around, beaming a wide, shit eating grin at the demon. "Did you fuckin? see that?!" he shouted back, but he was sprinting their way without delay as Zeus pulled himself up, attempting to shake off the daze from being struck by his own damn lightning bolts.

"Quit gloating and come on!" Mesteno roared impatiently when he heard Aiden's ebullient shout.

Lexius was through the Hell Gate first, but the beads snapped out to lash around Mesteno's wrist to tug him along after (as if he might need the extra incentive!) Hot on their heels came Aiden and then Sulphur, breaching the portal together. It fizzled as they passed through, then dissolved into nothing.

The rumbling ceased. The ground stopped shaking. Stale, underground air was replaced by the fresher air of outdoors.

And they did seem to be outside, standing on a wide, rough wooden plank of some sort that stretched far, far away to east and west. Above and below, but far distant, were more of the rounded shapes of those planks. And sprouting from them were...leaves. They were in a tree. A massive, massive tree.

Mesteno had emerged stumbling, eyes at a half-squint as if he was expecting the flare of flames to worsen the sunspots he already had floating about across his vision. When there was nothing immediately attacking them, and the worst he had to weather was a near collision with the Elf thanks to the beads (the brakes went on just in time!) he was understandably suspicious.

They were in a tree. Trees had birds - things that lived up in the branches that might decide they looked edible. Or apes, some arboreal nasty they needed to be ready to defend against... Yet he saw nothing. His wide ranging gaze made a sweep of the branches stretching below them, and then above. The immensity of them took a moment to dawn on his flustered mind, but by the time he'd calmed, seen the demon and the ex-prisoner emerge through the portal, he was beginning to suspect their whereabouts.

"Yggdrasil?" he asked, a wondering murmur of a question for any with a mind to answer. "Are we in Yggdrasil?"

The beads let Mesteno go, and commenced to snickering amongst themselves where they hung from the Elf's belt and swayed by his thigh.

Lexius himself was sweeping a look about and trying to contain a full-fledged scowl. It was precisely where they needed to go, of course, he just hadn't quite expected to get here the way they had and the Elf certainly didn't seem all that pleased with the route despite the timing. He turned a brief look back to Mesteno, blue-violet eyes snapping hotly, then swept his gaze toward Aiden

The man was bent over, hands braced to thighs and the ghostly wings spread out behind him still as he laughed and tried to catch his breath.

Sulphur was waving at those ethereal wings, trying to bat them away like pesky gnats as he railed.

"Put dem stupid, fluffy things away, ya giant fairy, and stop dat girly wailin'!" And then the demon spun Mesteno's way to verbally assault him. "We aint in d'stupid tree, monkey breath, we're on it! Ya aint got eyes in ya head??

"In the branches, fuck-wit." Mesteno snapped right back at the agitated demon, who was rapidly reminding him why he'd disliked him on their first meeting, and losing any points he may have earned for providing them with a handy escape route from the maze.

?Will ya shut ya mouth?!" Sulphur bellowed.

The last of course, was directed back at Aiden, who was dashing away tears from his too bright eyes. He looked up...then choked on his next laugh and held up his hands. But he wasn't looking at Sulphur, he was looking at Lexius who was stalking toward him with what might be deadly intent.

"No, no, no." Aiden assured, pushing his hands against the air as if that might push Lexius back. His wings immediately snapped back into his body, propelling him forward one step before he caught himself. "It's all good, Elf Man. Swear it."

"For him ya put dem away?" Sulphur complained, completely disgusted. He pointed a taloned finger at the Elf's beads and sneered. "He's holy." The demon said it like it was the vilest thing in the word. Then he swung that jabbing claw Mesteno's way. "Dat one's more our style. I bet we could..."

"Don't drag me into this mess." A sharp tongued warning for the demon from the angry necromancer.

The demon got no further than that before something slammed into him and send him sailing off to the left, through a thick patch of leaves, to disappear who knew where. Aiden held his hands up higher and choked down another laugh.

"Don't. Don't!" He insisted. "You need me." And the Elf paused a few feet away from the guy who was trying out his most charming grin. "You had my pants, right?" Aiden reasoned. "You must like me."

"Calm!" Mesteno growled at the Elf, using the word Lexius tended to apply whenever he thought a situation, or individual required it. "He's not wrong, we need him. And you!" He shot a dark look (no small feat with eyes which flashed as wildly as his) at Aiden, "Don't push you luck. He's here doin' people favours, not 'cause he owes you anything. Y'might wanna say ?thank you? to 'im, or you'd still be stuck in there lookin' like a scarecrow."

Aiden never took his gaze off Lexius, but he was nod, nod, nodding right along with Mesteno's chastising words, hands still held up as if the Elf had him at gunpoint.

Lexius maintained some measure of calm, perhaps because Mesteno (Mesteno!) advised it or perhaps because he was building up to something truly devastating. Whichever the case, Aiden was taking the threat implicit in the Elf's gaze, his body language, his actions, seriously.

"Yeah. You're absolutely right. Thank you. Thank you both." He really was trying for sincere, but the amusement and the sheer amount of energy still coursing through him made vibrate in place and would not let his grin die. "Even with 'Mes' help, I know that couldn't have been easy. But I really need to move or I might explode." He was quivering where he stood, muscles rippling beneath his skin and bare toes bunching and relaxing repeatedly against the rough wood of the tree bar beneath their feet.

The Elf gave a low, soft snort and turned away from him to stalk toward Mesteno again. He spoke just a few soft, clipped words to the Sadist. "I must rest. Fifteen minutes." With that, he stepped further along the branch and folded himself down abruptly into that posture he often took to meditate, leaving the Sadist to deal with the nutcase.

As for Aiden, the Elf turning away was enough to free him from his immobility. He bounced in place for a moment then began to rapidly pace back and forth, rubbing his hands together briskly. "Ok, ok. Tell me what's what, Necro-Man. We got time. Mr High and Mighty can't walk the tree."

"I don't know how to wield titan horn,? Mesteno retorted. ?When y'boss asked us to retrieve it, we were told under no uncertain circumstances should we handle it. That touching any part of it would probably kill us. There was some kind of cloth it had to be wrapped in, and I don't think that was amongst the shit we were given." At least it hadn't been on the table with the other items they?d examined at Lexius' home. Another thing they?d need to figure out on the move.

Arms folded, he eyed Aiden with some concern. The fugitive was far too relaxed, the grin irritatingly self-assured. But then he'd just been let loose, so he cut him some slack and simply put it down to a freedom high.

"You'll see." Was Aiden's cryptic remark on the horn, before he peered Lexius' way again. "You think he's done yet? We should get movin'. Got a ways to go. In fact," he pointed further along the branch, "I'll scout toward the trunk, just that way. I'll meet you guys there." And off he went at a trot.

?I'll check in on him in a couple of minutes," Mesteno assured as he left.

True to his word, with Aiden out of sight on his energetic scouting mission, Mesteno loitered in typically stealthy silence until he assumed the allotted time had passed. He crouched beside Lexius with a tell-tale crunch from his battered old knees when it was over.

"Gave you a minute extra," he murmured, a knee to the ground and arms folded loosely one atop the other. "How you holdin' up?"

Lexius took that extra minute, but immediately shifted his attention from a distant point in space directly to Mesteno as he crouched beside him. He seemed much more himself. Distant, impassive, controlled. A touch thinner, perhaps; he'd spent quite a bit of energy fending off Zeus' eagles and lightning bolts.

"Well enough." He offered, a certain grimness to his tone. "He is right. We should go." He?d been listening. Unfolding from the ground, he studied Mesteno much as Aiden had. "We shall not sleep from here forward." He advised. "We are close to the base and will soon be in Niflheim."

"T'be honest, I doubt I'd be able to sleep anyway. Not with his mouth goin' a mile a minute and all that pacin' 'round. He's like me come autumn. Maybe worse." How wry Mesteno sounded! Truth be told, he'd probably, in better circumstances, have found Aiden's vitality infectious. Likely have thrived in his company with the opportunity to trade insults and banter. Given all they'd been through though, and all they were expecting, it only served to remind him of his own mounting weariness.

"My thanks...for your assistance." Lexius stated.

There he went, thanking Mesteno again. Twice in one lifetime! He didn't linger over it at least, or ask after the Sadist's health. Instead he turned to walk toward the trunk on the same path Aiden had gone, the beads clicking quietly at his side.

Mesteno only nodded for the thanks, accepting them without ceremony, and didn't lag as they set off in pursuit.

Lexius dug out his last three crystals from the satchel at his side and set them to hovering around waist level where they maintained their position as obediently as pets. Stretching his stride long (but not quite trotting) the Elf travelled at a demanding pace along the thick tree limb. There was not a breath of movement that could be attributed to local wildlife to draw their eyes, and Lexius did not initiate any further conversation. The miles passed swiftly.

When at last they reached the point where the branch met the massive curve of what could only be Yggdrasil?s trunk, they spotted Aiden. Quite as expected, only save for the fact he was standing on the trunk, perpendicular to the branch Lexius and Mesteno were still on, seeming to defy gravity.

Something went scampering away from he stood, scuttling farther around the bend of the trunk, and Aiden turned and waved their way, offering a sideways (literally!) grin.

"Be careful of that first step! It's a doozy!" Funny guy, that Aiden. "The ratatosk said the trunk is clear all the way down. Follow the feathers!" And that said, Aiden hightailed it down the side of the tree toward what must be the ground somewhere way, way, way below.

The Elf shook his head, murmuring absently. "Not everything has changed about him." Thereafter he looked back at Mesteno. "Gravity is always toward the center of what you walk upon. Have a care when you step from the branch to the trunk."

"I was beginning to think he just expected us to be able to defy physics or some sh-- oh fuck me..."

Mesteno had taken that first step without really paying heed to Lexius' warning. Or Aiden's for that matter! It had just looked so easy, and instead he wound up with his spine protesting and what felt like a mild case of whiplash as his body arched over. By a small miracle he didn't overcorrect and end up smacking his jaw into the great tree's bark. He had the good grace to look a little sheepish.

"Don't say anything, I know," he mumbled as he put himself to rights, gesturing Lexius to move ahead as he had before.

Mesteno?s flawed first step seemed to lighten the Elf's mood just a hair. He didn't smile or say anything, but he did watch the Sadist for some few seconds looking like he just might want to say something despite himself. The Elf made the transition more smoothly, as if he'd done it before. He had in fact, though not in this particular location.

The creature that had scuttled away from Aiden was still in the branches above them, peering down with big, dark eyes. It looked somewhat like a flying squirrel...if they grew them about four and a half feet tall. Apparently they got that big here.

"Was he always so... exuberant?" Mesteno asked of Aiden as they descended.

The Elf gave Mesteno one of those mild snorts. "Exuberant is putting it mildly. It is directly related to the type and quantity of energy he has consumed. That some of his memories are gone may be an effect of how they were keeping him prisoner."

"His memories do seem kinda fucked up," Mesteno remarked, frowning severely over those gaps. Having his own experience with mental blanks, he could empathise with anyone experiencing the same, though Aiden appeared disconcertingly unconcerned. "As for the energy, there's big enough shit ahead of us for him to exert a little. I've had a couple of occasions where I had to shed some excess after eating a little too well. Until y'do it's a bit like a kid on a sugar high."

The Elf nodded his agreement with Mesteno's assessment of Aiden's disposition, speaking over his shoulder without turning his gaze from ahead of them. "Yes. It is much like that." Mesteno seemed to understand it perfectly. Which meant he had a couple of things in common with the spastic demi-god!

Lexius pondered things quietly for several minutes when he finally made a confession.

"At the bottom of the tree is a dragon. I am uncertain if we shall have to face it, or can avoid it or its young. It seemed he knows the way, at least."

Mesteno eyed the Elf, then set to peering beyond him in an effort to get a glimpse of said beast before they came upon it. "It's not of the sort that can be reasoned with then? Lexius, how come you forgot to mention there was gonna be a dragon?" Because really, of all the things to forget!

[Continued...}

Two hours on the trail, passing through the outer layers of the tree where the gnarled cavern had permitted entry. The pair passed most of it in weary silence, with Aiden so far ahead they never once caught a glimpse of his rangy frame. Nothing accosted them, though not a great distance from Garm?s lair they came across evidence of the battle which must have left the overgrown dog with its wounds. Body parts mostly. Splintered scales and entrails. Gouges carved deep into the flesh of the tree, the blood of Garm?s victims ingrained. One severed tail tip still writhed, snake-like.

When at last they caught up to Aiden again, he was paused at the exit of the cavern. Here, one massive root sprouted off from the base of the tree trunk. But everything was shrouded in thick grey mist that cut visibility down to just a couple of hundred feet. The air was stale and lifeless, the silence oppressive and complete.

?This'll lead us down to the ground. But keep a sharp ear out for the serpents. They can't gnaw the tree, so they hop on anything that passes along the path. Do not veer from this branch." he warned, waiting until he had a nod from the Elf, then looking expectantly at Mesteno. "And you be careful with your spells, alright?"

The necromancer?s upper lip twitched as if he wanted to snarl, but he schooled his features, albeit inexpertly, into something less savage when he answered. "What happens if I use my spells? And if I can't use 'em, are bullets of any use, or are the scales gonna send 'em ricocheting our way?"

The beads that had been so silent, so long, finally reached out all on their own to thwack the back of Mesteno's hand. Thwack! They startled him (like he hadn't been jumpy enough already) and he actually side-stepped away from Lexius until he realised the cause of the sudden, stinging contact. That was one way to break him from his introspective daze.

It happened just as Aiden was stepping toward the necromancer, which caused Lexius to narrow his eyes fractionally. It was either the Elf's look or the very obvious and independent action of the beads that stopped the demi-god in his tracks to blink at the pair of them rather curiously.

"You guys," he finally said, pointing a finger at each in turn, "so need to tell me your story. But later. Bullets should work. But remember, anything you ?raise? here is pretty independent. It's the nature of the Plane. Once we get to the ground, I know some Nightmares that might help us. But you," he pointed at Lexius this time, "will need to tuck those," his finger swung toward the now lax beads, "away while we ride them. Follow the feathers." And off the man went!

"Nightmares y'say?" For the first time in hours Mesteno seemed to find something worthy of attention beyond not falling off the walkway. Aiden had moved on again though with no time for answers, leaving them to follow the breadcrumb-feather trail into the mists. He turned to Lexius instead. "Didn't you used to hang out with a nightmare at the old tavern?" It was one of the few memories he had of the Elf that wasn't connected to the incident at Alvaka with the Draeden. A clear recollection of a large, anthracite black stallion of the Friesian build.

Lexius watched Aiden go a moment before turning to look Mesteno over, expression grave and gaze probing. He kept his commentary to himself, fairly sure whatever he said at this point would be the wrong thing. "Yes." He confirmed as they travelled. "It would visit from time to time." He did glance back briefly then, but only enough to catch a glimpse of Mesteno before he concentrated on the path once more. "Or perhaps you mean Daisy?" He knew two Nightmares! "She is Pharlen's." And he'd known Pharlen since the beginning of time. Close enough, anyway.

They sank into the mist swiftly, and though Aiden wasn't completely out of sight, he was barely more than an outline ahead interrupting the path. Mesteno found the mists uncomfortably oppressive, and the lack of visible space oddly claustrophobic. He skulked, in the manner of a feline intending to remain unseen.

The root crossed others, wound and twisted about as it descended until they were surrounded by dozens of them branching out in every direction. Visibility remained poor, but the feathers Aiden somehow etched into the correct root were easy to see and follow. Nothing bothered them until they?d just begun to see the tops of grey pine trees jutting from the mist below.

When the attack came it was without a single shred of warning.

The serpent was doing a damn good job mimicking the roots it was twisted amongst. Though it had allowed Aiden to pass unmolested, it pounced on the Elf and the Sadist like they were just too juicy and tempting to resist. Scales the same colour as the roots it had been masquerading as, it uncoiled toward Lexius, gaping maw spread wide and body writhing as if it wanted to bite Lexius? head and wrap him up in its coils all at the same time.

Mesteno veered sharply sideways to avoid collision, with Lexius leaping smoothly out of range at the same instant. The Elf wasn?t finished there though, and he thrust his will out toward the serpent, which had it abruptly slamming into an invisible wall of air. The creature slid down the root on impact, tail thrashing outward and straight into Lexius? ankle before he could stave off the assault.

The Elf slid straight off the branch and out of sight into the mists.

Mesteno was intent on the serpent, had his gun already pulled, muzzle tracking the whip-like writhing faithfully as he waited for a clear shot. He hadn?t expected Lexius to get quite that far out of the way, but he didn?t hesitate to pull the trigger as soon as he was. The crack of it was mist-muffled, unsatisfying.

"Lexius!" Panic stricken and wide eyed. Yet he couldn?t get to the edge! The serpent was still between him and the drop, maddened now.

Furious, he aimed a sharp-eyed shot at the base of the serpent's skull where it joined the spinal column, with a second and third in the same region where the first had penetrated to make damn sure. Glaser rounds left big, gory holes, and great chunks of meat flew as they impacted.

Mesteno made no attempt to wield any of his more preternatural talents, having been warned off the idea, and loath to waste any bullets when he'd only one magazine left at his belt, he went bounding across to the edge where he'd seen Lexius vanish.

A heavy exhale coupled with a groan of relief.

The Elf was levitating, just atop the few grey pine trees poking their head above the mists and looking mildly displeased. Distantly, Aiden?s barefoot, slapping sprint was audible as he headed back their way, alerted by the gunfire.

Lexius looked up toward the Sadist and gestured. "Go down. Find Aiden." He snapped, before drifting to the left and out of view.

"Deo gratias," Mesteno murmured, though only when the Elf was gone and wouldn?t hear such a thing spoken. After all, the Gods hadn't done much to deserve their thanks of late!

Alarmingly, above any other noise, there was a new sound. A gibbering coming from the tangle of roots somewhere high above which sounded gratingly baboon-like. Whatever it was, it was descending, and starting to shriek. Loudly.

"Oh fuck." Aiden as he arrived, ears catching upon the same sound. "C'mon. Where's the Elf? We have to go now."

One palm pressed to the branch, Mesteno shoved himself onto hands and knees. "He went over the side, but don't worry he-hnn!"

Something large, hairy and fanged dropped down from the roots above straight toward Mesteno's head. The baboon resemblance was as physiologically obvious as the sound it made, though a pair of broad, leathery bat-like wings arched over the hunched back, and the tail it stabbed down at its target looked distinctly scorpion.

As ever there was logic to Lexius? choices, and taking the rear guard position hadn?t been on a whim. It kept Mesteno ahead of him, and as the most vulnerable of their party he?d determined every opportunity be sought to keep his mind from succumbing to the lassitude inflicted by the Wastes. Ill equipped to distract him with small talk, he?d decided Aiden more competent for the task, and himself hung back, his presence marked by a soft, muted click from the beads.

That small noise allowed Mesteno to keep track of his position, a clattering just for him, and sounding more obviously every time he glanced back ? which he did frequently, to assure himself Lexius hadn?t been picked off by stragglers from up in the tree.

Aiden (thankfully) kept his voice pitched low as they moved along. The mist muffled sound as it was, so their conversation never carried too far.

"I think we landed on the swamp side." he confided, keeping his pace brisk but not outright jogging. "That means we'll have to make it past some viper trees and maybe some diakk. They're like...part humanoid, part bird. Not friendly." He shrugged nonchalantly though. Just about everything they might run across fit that definition. "Maybe a couple hours to get through the swamp. Then we try and call the Nightmares. We should get through the swamp before we rest."

"Everything down here sounds delightful," Mesteno muttered, sounding distinctly resigned. Even his sarcasm was sub-par.

"Welcome to the Gloom." Aiden bandied back, trying to keep up the good cheer, but even his boundless vivacity was starting to dim given their current surroundings. "It wouldn't be the 'Most Evil Plane in Existence'," yeah, that sounded like a title, "if there were unicorns and puppies. Even the butterflies here have teeth." And didn't look anything at all like butterflies.

Mesteno snapped a look up from where he was setting his feet to eye the back of Aiden's head. "Why d'you think nightmares are gonna help you anyway? You got some previous association with them?"

Aiden nodded. "Yeah. We got a few herd members working in the Harbinger and Firetaker divisions." And then he caught himself, almost frowning. But he rolled his shoulders in another shrug, trying to shake it off. "Anyway, Spiriko retired back down here. He'll remember me. The trick is, calling him."

Not for the first time since learning about the Powers and their odd management structure, Mesteno found himself wondering why they'd chosen to mimic the more mundane planes, but it seemed pointless asking. His curiosity simply wasn't strong enough to string the words together, and that, he realised with a sigh, was probably because of where they were. Apathy was the last thing he wanted to be feeling, the last thing he wanted to be presenting to the others - dragging them all down with his own gloom was unacceptable.

"Well I got faith you'll manage to call him somehow," he told Aiden, squinting into curtaining branches that could've been hiding any number of unpleasant surprises. "S'about the only thing I got to look forward to in this place, so no pressure." It was intended to carry a note of humour, but it was lacking a little something.

"Bring it on, Necro Man." Aiden shot Mesteno a toothy grin over his shoulder as he spoke. "I rock under pressure. When I get it right the first time, you'll owe me a little somethin' somethin'." He waggled his eyebrows lasciviously at the Sadist and gave him a sweeping look of approval despite his bedraggled appearance before looking ahead again.

Mesteno had been about to inform him that he wasn't carrying any money, until he registered the waggle of brows. That alone might not have been enough to arouse suspicion, but the once over he was given afterwards he'd have had to be blind to miss. Fully aware of the fact that he was in haggard and filthy, he assumed it jest verging on mockery, and did nothing more than snort, since the creeping apathy had efficiently drained him of the capacity to offer worthwhile repartee.

Aiden glanced back over his shoulder toward Mesteno and the Elf. "I know it ain?t good to sleep here, but we'll need to rest."

"Not sure I'm gonna be able to," Mesteno warned him. "Lexius mentioned it?s possible to start seein' and hearin' things that aren't supposed t'be here. Not exactly conducive to rest." He needed it. He knew he did, and yet he wasn't about to take it for granted that the Elf was going to help him sink into Morpheus' arms. He sure as hell wasn't comfortable with the idea of a stranger like Aiden watching him sleep, but in this kind of situation, he wasn't fool enough to think he'd get by without making concessions.

"We have to rest." Aiden insisted. "Even shitty rest is better than no rest. I know this place can suck donkey balls when it comes to memories and hallucinations, but if we go in to where I think they're holding the Boss only sucking on fumes, none of us will get out of it. Even your chipper, elven buddy." he jerked a thumb back over his shoulder toward the Elf, as if Mesteno might think he meant someone else.

Mesteno gave Lexius a sharp, assessing sweep of a look. Studied him long enough to take measure of how much the place had managed to seep into him. He'd as little to be happy about, after all, and there was no one making an effort to cheer him up, the way Aiden seemed intent on doing with him. "He'll meditate," he told Aiden after a moment, because he knew Lexius had the common sense not to argue a rest stop.

Aiden paused atop an outcropping of rock that sloped down and away into a minor ravine. The pines and the underbrush beneath them gave way here, and the trees glimpsed at the bottom of the ravine looked different. Willow-like, maybe, with long limbs that draped down toward the ground. The mist layered thickly, shrouding the terrain from easy view. Aiden actually grimaced. "Watch out for the larva here. And if you see a really ugly looking chick with wild hair, just go the opposite direction. The hags collect the larva."

Coming up alongside their guide atop the outcropping, Mesteno lowered himself to a crouch to better see through the soup-thick fog. The air tasted anything but fresh, and he paused to pull a canteen from his hip for a sip of water gone stale. Things even seemed to taste grey! "Let me guess, the larva find ways to burrow into you and make you go nuts or some shit."

Aiden chuckled quietly.

"Naw, naw. The larva are the souls here. They look like big...well, larva. But they got humanoid faces. When your soul comes here, you become a larva and the Hags become your keepers if they find you. They use them like currency. If they're really unlucky, they use them in other, less fun ways. Anyway, a hag has a good chance of turning a body into a larva if she gets pissed off enough." He reached out then, and clapped a companionable hand to Mesteno's shoulder.

"We'll be alright." he promised. Mr Optimism! "The Nightmares are going to love you."

Aiden rose, and slipped down to head into the swamp. Whilst there was no obvious danger poised to assault them, it was full of alien sounds emanating from further in. Croaks, groans and whispers of unidentifiable origin. Strange, noxious smells. The place was alive, but completely warped.

The necromancer descended after Aiden, listening for the bead click to make sure Lexius followed. They hadn't gone too far when he slipped up. It wasn't a deliberate error, more a case of apathy taking root, making him less vigilant of his sentient passenger. Instinctively drawn to limitless source of it sensed, it had begun to slither out unheeded with the intent to taste, incautions of the hags overseeing the collection of the damned souls.

Mesteno was already succumbing. Small things began to seem pointless, and the longer they trekked through the swamp, the greater the 'why bother' mentality ingraining itself. Spirit and will leeched away as surely as colour.

There were exceptions in the Wastes of course. Tiny places where bodies banded together and rallied around the guttering spark of some nebulous kind of hope. But such places were few and far between and nowhere near where the three of them walked.

The click of Lexius beads sounded a little closer, the Elf had closing the gap between them. It was he who caught Mesteno's energy wandering first. He who encouraged him mind to mind with a calm Mesteno. Be attentive. The reminder reached a mind which was swayed not with hasty regret, but simply did as it was told - because why not?

Such simple compliance was far from normal, and through the swamp the best Mesteno could manage was not to lag. That alone took a stupendous effort, and not because of the uneven footing, or the ground which sucked at the soles of his armoured boots. There was a certain seduction in the Grey Wastes, the temptation just to sit and do nothing, a drag at the momentum as if he were bound up in a multitude of microscopic webs. Alone they might have done nothing, but the further they went, the more the webs gathered, seizing him up like rust on an engine. It wasn?t entirely different to the comforting numbness a blizzard could cause, tempting a slumber a man might never wake from.

"We do need a distraction. The Hags will attack Aiden and I on sight." Lexius agreed at last, while Aiden nodded confirmation and offered a semi-apologetic shrug for the fact. Some things he couldn't help! "But you..." The Elf went on, letting the thought trail a moment. "You, they just might bargain with for a few souls."

Aiden smothered a chortle. "That's sneaky. I like it."

Mesteno slanted a resigned look at the Elf. Of course he was going to have to go out there. ?It's not like I'm walkin' in there wearin' a sign that says 'Necromancer, free admittance to the party'." Yet he narrowed a look on the nearest of the Hags, trying to deduce how easy it might be to dispatch one based on speed of movement, reach. It was worth a try. "Whatever, I'll do it." He jabbed a finger towards a mound just off to their right where there seemed to be a smaller concentration of Hags. "You guys head on over that way once I have their attention. What do you think they'll accept for currency?"

The endeavour should have daunted. That it didn't probably wasn't a great sign, but at least the Hags wouldn't be able to detect any nervousness since it wasn't there to begin with. Aiden patted Mesteno's shoulder for good luck then began carefully moving toward the position pointed out. The necromancer watched him go, only belatedly noting that Lexius didn't seem to be in any haste to follow. He frowned, barely a furrow etched into an otherwise dispassionate, impassive seeming face.

When Lexius spoke to him, it was mind to mind.

Here, what is inside you is not something that can be hidden from certain eyes. Lexius knew his soul's dark, death seeking energy would be especially interesting to the Hags who dealt in soul currency. Do not try to hide it from them. But do not take until the deal is struck. Be as strong as you are, Mesteno. They will only respect that. You will trade information. The son of a god has been released and now rampages across the Planes. And this.

From that satchel at his side the Elf withdrew a small bundle of muslin. It held some sort of long, slender rod made of pale blue crystal. He only gave the Sadist a glimpse of the contents so he could see what it was before folding the cloth back over it.

It is a dorje crystal. This one will allow the viewing of others at a distance. The Hags would certainly prize it. I will be here. He meant in Mesteno's head.

You don't need t'be concerned, came the smooth reply - Mesteno was starting to sound as if he were channelling Lexius' serenity! - before he reached for the muslin wrapped crystal. I can handle a Hag or two.

He didn't bother to unwrap the item again to better examine it, but instead opened up a slim, rigid leather container at his belt, nestling it inside. You can show me how to make those when we get back, he told him, as if he'd a right to it, and good cause to go snooping on others via its use.

Lexius moved away to join Aiden then, leaving Mesteno to tackle the Hags. So far they hadn't detected them.

Mesteno waited until Lexius had put a fair distance between them, before he pushed through the grasses to approach the nauseating mounds and the creatures tending them. Unhurried, unconcerned, he did so in plain sight so that they'd know he had no intent to flee from them. In fact he made straight for one overseeing new arrivals, footfalls deliberately audible.

That quality the others seemed so sure would buy him some protection, the dark energy of his soul, he let ripple like rising flood waters, spreading through every miniscule thread of flesh until it lay teeming just under the surface of his skin. It was bored, un-primed, and to begin with he kept it that way. It was only as he neared the maggot heap that he let it filter like dark vapour through that thin barrier, just to introduce it to what it hungered for.

The moment he unleashed it, he earned the attention of the Hags.

The one by the mound pierced him with a red eyed look, crusty lips peeling back from fanged teeth. She raised a clawed hand, and energy danced between her fingers, a spell ready for release.

"What do we have here?" She asked with obvious displeasure, the rasp of her voice a terrible thing. "Who let this creature through?!" She swung her gaze toward the diakks, which cowered away from her and the energy coiled in her hand. She didn't blast them into smithereens, but swung her look back to Mesteno. The stork creatures scattered. "What do you want, filthy carp?"

Wolf's gold eyes made a lazy examination of the energy playing between the Hag's clawed fingers, but Mesteno made no move to reach for a weapon of his own, and his energy made no assault on her, or the cowering diakks fleeing her irritation. Instead he kept right on walking, and stopped alongside her to draw her eyes away from any peripheral view of scurrying, furtive figures.

"You have so many of them," he remarked simply, studying the human-faced pile of teeming filth she'd been attending. Of course he offered no answers to her questions. "You don't need them all, surely? One or two can't be worth much to you."

Out came his energy, prodding and poking towards the maggots and the souls trapped in their greasy, pale flesh. Those individuals seemed to make a deliberate attempt to burrow back under their fellows and away from him, as if they could already sense something foul awaited.

"I'm hungry." He told the Hag, bluntly, at last turning his eyes back her way, and letting a little of what he spoke, that voracious appetite, register in his features. Not difficult when there wasn't anything else there.

The Hag was even more hideous up close than she had been from a distance, liquid dripping from her fangs. She continued to stare at Mesteno for several long seconds, hand poised and the energy still sparking between her fingertips. Only one other Hag paused to eye the pair of them when the diakk's went scattering. It wasn't concern as much as rivalry. Why should she get a customer, even one as unexpected as this one?

Finally, the Hag lowered the threat of the spell. While she didn't become more personable, at least she wasn't going to crisp him at any second.
"What do you offer, carp?" She raked her eyes over his body, as filthy a feeling as if she'd done it with her hands. More penetrating, too. She was looking at that energy as much as she was looking at him. "Tut! Don't be getting greedy, necromancer. They're not your souls yet." She rubbed her hands together, warming to the idea of a sale.

The Hag?s attention had the energy which had been busily occupied with tormenting the maggots turning her way, cool and dark and threatening as if it disliked her attention and meant to swat her away.

She sensed it. Grew cautious.

Mesteno narrowed his eyes faintly, the warning plain, but he said nothing to back it up. Words would add nothing, when the reflex reaction had spoken so eloquently for him.

"I'm aware of that, but since you're willing to trade... What would you take for two?" He nudged one specimen with the toe of his swamp-filthy boot. "Is knowledge of worth to you? I've news of terrible mishaps that the Powers are furious about. Things so fresh you'd be waiting weeks to hear, all the way down here."

"Only two? Surely that is not enough to ease your hunger. It is sharp, is it not?" As if she could feel it for herself. Mesteno's offer had her eyes narrowing into fine red slits and her fangs dripping a little more copiously, as if she was drooling over the prospect of the information he offered. But she flicked a clawed hand, almost negligent. "What do I care of the Powers? They play their own games and come to me when they have need." As if the Powers bent to her! Oh, she was full of herself, this one.

"It's always sharp," he told her dully. "But like any vicious thing, it?s easier to control if I feed it sparingly. Too much and it wants for nothing, cooperates only when it's inclined to. Let it beg for scraps."

Have a care. Came the Elf's voice. A mere whisper of sound in Mesteno's mind.

One of the other Hags was suddenly moving their way and the first hissed at her. "This carp is mine."

Mesteno angled a look at the new Hag, and this one he flashed a smile for, one that was vicious and never once touched his glinting, golden eyes.

"Perhaps if you've no interest in what I have to trade, your compatriot might be," he told the Hag he'd been attempting to deal with. "After all, if you're so important that you care nothing for what the Powers are struggling to deal with," oh yes, now they're struggling, he was making the story a little juicier! "She?d welcome the chance to climb the ranks instead."

Stepping away insouciantly towards Hag number two, he listened for protest from the first, buying the others time as best he could. "You'd like to trade with me, wouldn't you? There's such interesting things going on in the planes above."

The Hags stared at each other, lips peeled back from fangs and hisses of some other language exchanged. Hag number one moved a little closer to Mesteno, possessively, even as he stepped toward the second. Whatever they said between them was a mystery, but both of them remained when the first swung back around to face him fully.

"Let us hear this information you think is so important." She demanded. "Then we will decide if it is worthy of a soul." Suddenly they were down to one soul? Or maybe one from each, since they were now both hanging close to him. More diakk's had arrived to drop off maggots, but they hung back, fearful of disturbing a transaction.

And finally, finally, Lexius did murmur more than a warning in his mind. We are clear.

'Bout time, was all Mesteno offered in reply.

Inevitably Evander. The very person he'd been afraid might appear born of the Wastes. The only person capable of crumbling the final steely wall of his will as if it were rot-brittle wood, flaking to naught but splinters. His presence risked the shattering of his sense of purpose ? how useless might he leave him?

Mesteno?s initial reaction was to scramble upright, warily watching the smiling figment as if he thought it might attack him, but he didn't reach for a weapon. Didn't even think he could attack an image of his old lover, come to think of it. So he stared instead, with his heart rattling about noisily behind his ribcage, squeezing like someone were trying to wring it dry of blood between grasping fingers.

It was hard not to stare at Evander with every scrap of longing he still harboured, and he failed entirely when desire surfaced. He'd felt so little for too long, thanks to the wastes, that it hit him fiercely, seized him up and held fast. He only hoped Aiden wasn't in there still, to see him staring like that with such carnal intent.

The hallucination was a combined effect of what Lexius had done to Mesteno's mind and how viciously he?d been supressing everything he felt for the man whose image now stood before him. The Waste dealt in things one wanted most, offering it out temptingly before snatching it away. Mesteno might have seen those images in his mind if not for the mental manipulation, instead of seeing them outside it, but Lexius had blocked his subconscious mind off with the net. When he'd unravelled that barrier, it had all come flooding forward to resolve itself in the image he now faced.

But there were inconsistencies. Evander was not six foot five. Nor did he dress in distinctly desert style shirts, as he appeared to Mesteno there in the cave. There should have been a Varvatos leather jacket, clothes that made him sharp as sin. Why were his feet bare and filthy, instead of clad in the many-buckled boots he preferred?

Aiden was there, of course. He didn't realize what Mesteno was seeing wasn't him. He didn?t mind being stared at as if the necromancer wanted to eat him from the top down. It was a plan he could get on board with.

"I like that look." Evander seemed to say in a growling tone of voice not his own.

He stepped in closer.

"Ah fuck. Why'd you have to..?" Mesteno faltered. He was supposed to call on Lexius if this happened. He made a half-hearted attempt for attention, something like a mental nudge that didn't want to happen.

Aiden paused a moment, confused over his words, the conflicting way he stared. "Are you alright?" He asked, reaching out a hand to grasp Mesteno's shoulder.

Lexius responded immediately, even though the nudge had been vague. What is it? Came his voice, strong and clear. But he could already detect the daze and tangle of the Sadist's mind. Feel the sharp, hard edge of his want. Mesteno! He snapped it, not quite sure what was happening, but the necromancer had reached out to him however reluctantly, which implied he wasn't liking whatever it was.

Hallucinations couldn't touch. Mesteno could feel this one, the contact solid and warm against his shoulder even through the layers of clothing. Of what import were the inconsistencies?

He clamped a hand over the back of Evander-Aiden's forearm, but said nothing, the blunt edges of his nails biting into skin. The other hand had flattened up against his chest, just south of his collar bone, and found shirt to twist fingers into. Pull him nearer or shove him away? Mesteno couldn't quite shirk that starved look, even if it did look brute vicious, and not the kind of thing any sane man would consider appealing to get near to.

Aiden didn?t find it a turn-off.

"Shut up." Mesteno snapped at him. Maybe if he just tasted him for a moment he'd know. The hand in Aiden?s collar pulled him low.

The inward lean had the Greek convinced, and his free hand found its way to Mesteno?s hip, pulling as he bent towards a seemingly wanton mouth.

Instead, his lean took him straight into snarling, snapping teeth, and a fist right behind them. The hand in the shirt was twisting chokingly tight. For a man so lean, Mesteno hit like a damn truck when he was angry.
It was not the kind of savaging Aiden had expected.

Completely off-guard as Mesteno switched from 'fuck me' mode to 'fuck you' mode in less than the blink of an eye, the first punch broke his nose, sent blood spattering violently across the offending fist, the second landing square in his face.

Shoving backwards, stumbling, Aiden cursed up a storm as the illusion abruptly shattered. "What the fuckin' hell?!"

Lexius tapped in to Mesteno's eyes just in time to see him punching Aiden in the face, though he didn't see the hallucination himself. There might have been the hint of a snarl in his mental voice when he spoke again. Do not try to eat him. He didn't say Mesteno should stop hitting him, though! I am close.

Aiden?s defensive shoving had sent Mesteno back stepping, unbalanced but not dissuaded, and for a moment it had looked like he might renew his attack until the illusion shattered.

Oh. Oh shit.

He stopped a couple of feet away, his bloodied fist raised and ready to lash out again, but his eyes seemed to have lost that killer intensity, replaced by a clarity and sharpening pupils that suggested he hadn't been quite right a moment before. Subtle things. Aiden was likely too busy cursing over his broken nose to pay attention to them.

Mesteno offered no explanation for what he'd done, not initially. Instead he was fumbling for the labradorite tucked away beneath his shirt as if he thought it might work to guard him if he got his bloody fingers around it.
Lexius' voice served to reassure, fend off his muddled panic. Don't eat him? He wasn't even thinking about trying to gorge on his soul. There was blood on his face, and it smelled good in all the wrong ways. He was watching where it dripped over the demi-god's upper lip with a predatory sort of fascination.

Of course for Aiden it was the worst of mixed signals. Mesteno really needed to stop looking at him like that, then hitting him!

He caught himself on the far wall of the cave, covering his nose with one hand and raising the other up in a clear 'stop' gesture as he sputtered out some nasally words. "Fuckin' stop already, ya god damn whippet. I get it. No means no." And he?d said ?no? with his fist, sure as shit. Aiden remained coiled and tense, ready to defend himself should Mesteno attack again as the bruising bloomed swiftly across his half covered nose and cheeks.

There was a terrible cracking sound as he wrenched his nose back into alignment, another bright burst of blood spilling from his nostrils, though it slowed quickly and stopped, leaving his mouth and chin scarlet. Those sounds and sights that kept Mesteno?s eyes trained on his face for all the wrong reasons, and had him moving another step in pursuit.

Before Aiden could say anything else that might make the situation better or worse, a barrier slammed down between the two of them. Not quite invisible, but solid enough when it clipped Aiden's outstretched hand that he pulled it back with a brief yelp. "Ow. Fuck! I wasn't fuckin' touching him!"

That to the Elf who was now at the entrance of the cave, taking in the scene with blue-violet eyes that snapped hotly with power. He tried to silence Aiden with a sharp cut of one hand, his gaze on Mesteno.

"Mesteno." No snarl in his verbal voice. But there was a vague question in there somewhere.

Lexius preferred to climb. Lexius enjoyed climbing, in fact. Well, he once had. Slipping the beads back into place around his belt, he took the wall with ease, but didn?t outpace the others, reaching the pinnacle last.

Behind them was the forest of grey pine trees they'd left, only the upper portion of the trees visible now given the thickness of the mist. There was no sign at all of the distant swamp. Ahead of them the ground was sloping and stony, a descent giving way to grey grass and weeds that covered a series of rolling hills. They swept away from the cliff as far as the mist allowed them to see.

All had seemed quiet, until the Elf was crested the cliff and pulled himself to his feet.

Below from somewhere amidst the pines, rose a loud, hackle raising howl. And then another. And then five more until the pack of what must surely be wolves was in full voice...and moving toward the cliff.

Aiden winced. "Dire wolves." He said. And then he seemed to brighten, as if struck by a wonderful idea. "Let's go for a jog!" He didn?t waste time in heading for the hills.

"Well they can't climb up after us, right?? Mesteno asked, frowning, though he set off after Aiden without argument, glancing back to make sure Lexius wasn't lingering behind for any mysterious reason before really extending his stride to close any distance between them and the demi-god.

New howls soon answered their cousins from the forest. Just a handful of mournful voices rising from their left. And then another, separate group added their full throated, eerie song from somewhere to their right. The mist played havoc with the sound, one moment far away, the next near upon them.

"Fuckin' demon balls." Aiden cursed, and promptly picked up the pace. "Come on, Whippet. Let's show that desert snake how it?s done."

Mesteno angled a look back, foolishly, and thanks to the uneven ground, stumbled badly enough he very nearly ended up flat on his face for his concern. It was Aiden's fault of course, so Mesteno snarled a reply while he was getting over the blunder he only felt vaguely sheepish about. "Y'talk about speed and here you are holdin' up traffic like some granny driver."

The terrain was not on their side. The hills became steeper and seemed endless, the thick grass and weeds tangling around their boots as they ran. From time to time the soil went unexpectedly loose and rocky, threatening to twist an ankle if one didn't have a care for how they stepped.

In ten minutes, the first of the horse-sized wolves began to appear from the mists, their red eyes burning demonically. Those eyes were the only distinct things about them. Grey coats blended into the surroundings far too well, and the howls ceased as the creatures came close enough to lunge.

The first one came from the front for Aiden as he crested the top of the next hill, meeting him there with snapping fangs and burning paws. At the same time, two more came from the right, rushing toward Mesteno and the Elf from out of the mist.

"All that ground shakin' and we got shit," Mesteno muttered bitterly when no rescue from the nightmares seemed imminent. It was his scimitar he drew, rather than the Colt with its precious, remaining rounds. It would take too many to put down a creature as large as those dire wolves.

He waited until the last minute, the gaping maw of one of the determined creatures near enough that he felt the hot sting of its breath, then neatly turned, stepping sideways to let it lunge past. Matador tactics, making the thing look clumsy so that he could aim a clean swing at one back leg to maim it, leave it hobbling around on three instead. Silent, and with no hasty rushing about, Mesteno seemed inclined to reserve his energy. Each step was economical, light. No extraneous movements and eyes shrewd, cunning as the half-starved wolf he so often resembled.

He followed up first blood with second when he slunk low to the ground and thrust his sword neatly into its throat, up under the jaw and into the skull. Like a wasp's sting, the blade was in and out before the animal could even slump its weight onto the weapon, and its wielder was turning to face the next attacker with the steel dripping darkly.

Aiden's wings flared to life and a wolf snarl became a wolf yelp as the ghostly appendages flashed light and dark around him at the top of the hill. The air crisped with lightning as he drove the animal back more fully.

Lexius was closer to the base of the hill and the wolf that tried to pounce him found itself shoved off balance mid-leap. He danced aside to avoid its flailing legs and when it landed on the ground, the grey grass came to life and started to twist around its struggling form.

But more wolves took the place of the first three. And then a sharp howl came from the right, marking the second pack's arrival on the scene. Two more of the beasts came at Mesteno from different direction, another joining the first where Aiden stood above them and a whole damn pack of five was coming up from the rear where the Elf was positioning.

"Up! Get up the hill." Called Lexius right about the same time Aiden called down to them. "Bring it together, ladies!"

One of the wolves had come near enough for Mesteno to see it off with a warning slice, opening up one side of its face from the corner of its mouth to its ear, and it bought him enough time to sprint up the hill before it could think twice. The other seemed to hang back, cautious after its pack-mate?s high pitched yelp of pain, and so he made the top of the hill without getting mauled, rising through the ubiquitous mists.

The scent of burnt ozone was stronger up there at the top of the hill, the charge in the air enough to raise the hair along arms and the back of the neck. Two crisped wolves now lay on the other side of the hill. His back to Aiden, Mesteno was unlucky enough to be brushed by one of those vaporous wings and with it came the sensation of feathers caressing skin and a hot shot of something that was equal parts holy and profane, a wild mix of divinity in all its aspects. Not unlike Lexius' beads. Something in the necromancer recoiled from it violently, repulsed, yet just as strongly his soul yearned towards it, as if craving something it knew full well could kill it. It had him arching away, snarling and wide-eyed over the sensation, to broaden the distance between them until those wings no longer posed a threat.

The Elf was moving more slowly. He had energy daggers in his hands, was backing up the hill with a sea of writhing grass now between him and the pack behind him. When Mesteno's second Dire wolf decided he might be an easier target than the human with the wicked fang, it learned to its dismay he was absolutely not. The Elf could dance those blades like he'd been born to do it. More wolf blood stained the grass and the creature fell with its head nearly completely severed at the neck.

"Oh, fuck me runnin'!" Aiden suddenly cursed, because behind them now, on the other side of the hill, a third pack closing in.

"Don't lose your fucking nerve, we're fine!" Mesteno snapped at him, and he glanced from Aiden to Lexius, hoping to see similar determination in the Elf's sharp features, rather than an apathy he'd begun to fear might override his usual serenity.

Before the wolves could decide to charge and leap and rend and tear, there came another sound.

Thunder growled in the misty sky and a thousand burning sparks came showering from the murky heavens. A streak of hellish flames burned away the mist as it circled the base of their hill, revealing the inky shapes of the Nightmares racing in a ring around the perimeter of the wolves. The steeds roared rather than neighed and the wolves cowered as sparks caught and ignited their coats, spreading the flame from the heavens to the pack in a rush that had the smell of burnt meat soon rising up the hill.

It was amazing to Mesteno, how heartening such a small thing as warmth and colour could be, totally dissimilar to the colours of the putrid Hags. He eased a little, scimitar still at the ready, but no longer poised to defend. The nightmares didn't need their help. The dire wolves were outmatched.

"Jus' when I thought all that noise 'n shake earlier hadn't worked," he murmured, his admiration for the nightmares carelessly undisguised.

The majority of the wolves were cowed enough to scatter and run, but it was a panicked retreat that sent a good number of the flaming beasts loping toward the three of them rather than away. The dire wolves really weren't looking where they were going, they were just running from the Nightmares! Snarling and snapping at anything in their path, driven by fear and pain, a handful of them come charging up the hill. The fight was not completely over yet.

Lexius met the first couple of wolves with those daggers and some precisely applied power, but more moved past him toward Aiden and Mesteno. "Heads up!" Came the demi-god's voice before more lightning sparked through the air.

The Nightmares were magnificent indeed. Each one was dark as the next, with flaming, crimson hooves and glowing red eyes. At first look it was difficult to tell one from another, but their manes and tails seemed distinctive to each. The lead beast had purple streaks decorating a mane that fell nearly to the ground and it galloped several feet above the burning grass with dark lips peeled back from its sharp, carnivorous teeth, chasing the wolves toward the trio as if to test their prowess.

Mesteno adjusted fluidly back into a swordsman's stance, standing his ground until the last moment before delivering precise, swift blows with the aged sword, only crippling them where he couldn't be sure of an outright kill, and then finishing the injured beasts off with surprisingly swift mercy for a sadist. It was not, after all, beasts he liked the screams of. He dealt with it all sans any real vigour, alas for nightmares wanting a show. Partly, this was the Grey Wastes denying him the kill-thrill, but it was equally as much because no slayer's high could compete with his interest in the nightmares.

Between Lexius twinned blades and Aiden's lightning (Mesteno voiced complaint somewhere beneath the din of roaring the static and fleeing lupines about someone being theatrical) it was more of a massacre than a battle.

Aiden was still chuckling when the last of the wolves fell or disappeared into the distance. He had one quick reply for Mesteno's complaining. "Drama's in my blood."

The necromancer snorted, busy picking out the herd?s leader and wiping his scimitar off on the back of his sleeve for lack of anything easier to hand to clean it with.

"Spiriko?" He asked whomever felt inclined to answer him.

Spiriko approached, bringing with him two slightly smaller versions of himself. Both were male, one with a shortly cropped mane and tail and the other with zigzags of blue worked through its mane. "These two." He announced. Funnily he didn't choose himself.

Turning from his companions towards Spiriko and his cohorts, Mesteno tipped the gems from the pouch into the open palm of his glove to let them make their selections. "Are they your sons?" he asked.

It was the bob tailed Nightmare who answered Mesteno's question.

"We ain?t his daughters, that's for sure." The voice was almost a perfect match for Spiriko's, though the glibness of the response removed any doubt that it was the younger Nightmare that answered. His companion shoved him in the shoulder with his own, but remained silent. "Vesper wants the sapphire. And I want the onyx. Where you gonna put these, Elf Man?" He used Aiden's name for Lexius and the Elf didn't both to correct him.

"Your ears."

Spiriko flattened his own ears at that, but the younger Nightmare just bobbed his head. "Good idea. Let's get on with it."

He stepped forward, and the Elf plucked the onyx from Mesteno?s palm and moved in with the wire. It took all of five seconds to pierce an ear (Nightmare blood was hot!) and set the gem in place. Lexius' fingers remained unburnt. He set the sapphire with the silver wire into Vesper's ear next and though the Nightmare bared his fangs for the procedure, still said nothing.

The Elf?s last crystal died and splintered somewhere in the middle of that second placement, and Mesteno?s lips thinned critically. He'd been half expecting it, but it?s failing felt ominous.

Lexius stepped back as the younger stallion spoke again. "You can ride Vesper, Elf Man. I want this guy." He nudged Mesteno's shoulder with his nose. "You got some wicked energy."

"Enough." Boomed Spiriko, striding toward Aiden. His threat was levelled at the Elf. "We will cross Planes and time to find you should this not work, Elf. And I will risk indigestion to grind your bones between my teeth."

Lexius took the threat calmly enough, merely inclining his head.

"Let's mount up!" Aiden tried to lighten the mood and clapped his hands, rubbing them together as he eyed the older stallion. "Oh, this is gonna be a LOT of fun."

Vesper and Lexius eyed each other in silence while Aiden and Spiriko bantered. It ended with the silent Nightmare giving himself a full body shake before stepping closer to the Elf, who mounted smoothly.

Reaching up, Mesteno clapped a palm over his nightmare?s withers, a companionable gesture, rather than the well-meant patting he'd have offered a horse. "Didn't catch your name." He sprang up onto his back with surprising ease. "You faster than those two?" Maybe there was a little challenge left in him despite the wastes.

"You can call me Nox." The beast was eyeing him as he settled, head swung around to look back. The young stallion bared his impressive teeth. "You bet your bony tail I am. Better hang on tight."

"For 'night'. How suitable," Mesteno mused, pleased to hear his own tongue spoken.

"What do they call you?" Nox asked, as he leapt to take to the sky.

Mesteno moved fluidly with the stallion's motions, at no disadvantage due to a lack of saddle or reins to grip. Riding came naturally. "I'm Mesteno," he replied simply, and did not offer its meaning.

Spiriko was less amiable with Aiden. "I should leave you to rot." The nightmare grumbled.

Of course Aiden laughed, clapping his hand to the big Nightmare's shoulder. "You already did that. Just like everyone else."

The stallion's ears flattened again. "You know..." the stallion began hotly, smoke streaming from his flared nostrils.

"Yeah, yeah." Aiden interrupted him, deftly stepping around the smoke to scramble onto Spiriko's back. "I know. No hard feelings. Now giddyup!" And he dug his heels into the stallion's sides as if he wished he had some spurs.

Spiriko bore Aiden's cruelty, became airborne, surging ahead of his too eager son with a snapping of teeth that got Nox snorting fire back at him.

"Hey, hey! Careful. Some of that flies back here," Mesteno reminded Nox as the nightmare slowed, positioning himself just behind his sire?s shoulder.

"Where are we going, Angel Boy?" Spiriko asked.

"The Obelisk." Was Aiden's cheerful response. Spiriko actually seemed to trip on air. Even Nox hiccupped a bit, which had Vesper passing them both, lazy as you please.

"What?!" Boomed Spiriko. "You never said..."

But Aiden cut him off again. "Deal's a deal, Horse Face. Off we go!"

"What's so bad about The Obelisk?" Mesteno asked, unafraid to let his ignorance show on this occasion.

It seemed the Elf, too, might have heard their destination. There was a subtle hint of grimness suddenly tickling across the mental ties he still maintained between himself and Mesteno. The necromancer was privy to his emotions again, sure sign Lexius was scaling back the amount of power he used to keep certain things hidden. It didn?t aid Mesteno?s confidence, and he turned a deeply concerned look his way. After all, there wasn't a great deal that could shake the Elf.

Nox pulled back, farther away from Aiden and Spiriko, who began to have a rousing argument about their objective. They was a lot of cursing going on in that third of the sky. At first Nox tried to answer Mesteno mind to mind, but when he found that way blocked, he had to resort to projecting his voice again.

"That's a nice shield you got." The nightmare admitted.

"Yeah, skilled maker." Mesteno?s reply was a little absent thanks to the distraction. His hand had gone creeping back to the rune marked labradorite tucked under armour and shirt, the way a religious man might clutch at a cross. He didn't seem aware he did so.

Nox got down to explaining, and didn?t sound enthused. "No one really knows what The Obelisk is, but that feeling you get when you're on the ground? It's twenty times worse close to the Obelisk. Even we can feel it there."

Lexius added his own two cents on the matter moments later, mind to mind. Some think it the source of the apathy. Some believe it feeds on all other emotions from any who exist on the Plane. I have read that it pulses, sometimes with hope and sometimes with despair. And they were going to go visit it.

Between his nightmare mount and Lexius, Mesteno was left caught somewhere between dull shock and dread. Finally, mirthless laughter, grated harshly in his throat and shook his shoulders. ?The worst is done?, they'd been telling each other. And now this. There was no music left in his head for such a place, nothing he could fathom which might have a hope in Hell of seeing him through it without succumbing. Perhaps he'd just sit down in there somewhere and never budge another inch until he withered and died in there. Morbid thoughts ran thick.

"Shit, why are they still arguing? I can't wait!" No, he didn't sound hysterical, he sounded like a man who figured he was dead and might as well get on with it.

The Nightmares carried them above the perpetual mist, so that the world below was one big grey bank of fog stretching endlessly away, to a disturbing horizon where it was hard to tell where the sky ended and the ground began. But off in that distance was a vague smudge of blackness bisecting one half of their world view from the other, as if the Powers had drawn a line from the sky to the ground with dark charcoal. Despite all the arguing still going on between Spiriko and Aiden, that line slowly grew closer.

Behind them, the rest of the herd abandoned the three to their goal, sent away by a swift mental command from Spiriko. The verbal battle had finally ceased, though, and the lead stallion boomed out a reply to Mesteno?s exclamation. "Onward then, until night devours the day!" Maybe it was some kind of Nightmare battle cry. Aiden looked back to Mesteno and Lexius and raised one arm above his head, hand clasped in a fist. He still seemed somewhat chipper!

The Nightmares proved to be a smooth ride and though the air remained stale and tepid, the brush of it against the skin lent a certain refreshing coolness that balanced the heat seeping from the dark hides of their mounts.

Nox peppered Mesteno with questions about where he was from, and though the necromancer made a half-hearted effort to answer, was a miserable conversational companion. Lexius remained mostly silent, but he remembered the music Mesteno had apparently misplaced and he hummed it along the link, strengthening those sensations of warm sun, arid wind and the scents of the sand in the Mesteno?s mind.

They drew a quiet mental sigh from the necromancer. It was not disdain, and certainly not dismissal. If anything there was the strange sensation that he leaned towards it wearily, a tired man slumping shoulder to shoulder against someone beside him. He caught himself when he realised he was doing it, too prideful a creature even out there to lean upon someone else so heavily. Being anyone else's burden was inexcusable, entirely against his morals.

You don't have to, came his voice, light as the beating of moth wings, edged with a certain distance that was nothing personal, just unguarded lethargy. I'm fine. Watch over yourself.

The music didn't cease though, and the suggestion of desert sensation remained unchanged despite the assurances. The Elf answered him, his voice layered quietly atop the other distractions. You are correct. He agreed mildly. I don't have to. And that was all he said on the matter.

Mesteno froze, confused.

He'd no bed in the waking world, nothing more than a mattress on the floor, more for the sake of lovers over the years than personal preferences. Yet now he stood at its foot, where a single, tangled sheet had been restlessly kicked aside. The ache and sting of pleasure were gone, he'd been robbed of it by the dark haired woman who'd just as surely snatched Evander, sleek and perverse and corrupted.

Something ruptured in him, a crack like a haemorrhage through which the jealousy erupted like a geyser. Sickening. Crippling. It didn't matter that he'd watched Evander thrust the knife into her chest, right alongside Bjorn and the Alfar. Part of her had survived, in Evander more than the things she'd left behind perhaps. Even with the evidence written in the pristes' own hand, a confession of verboten magic, he'd been convinced the love between them had been genuine.

You can't. You can't do this to me. You can't want me to believe it was all a lie, all those years, everything I did in her name... Evander's words. He couldn't bear to hear the name Niamh spoken, so protective was his old lover of that past.

Mesteno couldn't watch, couldn't act. Instead he turned, and walked numbly away from the bedroom and towards the doorway. The sounds of pleasured groans behind him were a torment.

"I win." Came Niamh's mocking voice, the feel of it licking across his spine as he withdrew.

Some might call him foolish for not fighting for a lover should their interests turn to another. Mesteno had always been the type of man who'd walk through Hell or high water to keep one safe, but never lift a finger if competition threatened. Perhaps that was pride, too. Then again, it might merely have been the feelings of inadequacy most men could be susceptible to if it seemed they were no longer all their loved one needed.

His breathing was ragged in his throat, and the world seemed about ready to tip on its side and throw him to his hands and knees.

When instead he found himself wading through sand, he trudged to a stop, his knuckles kneading into his sternum as if the heartache were so severe he meant to grind right through the bone and tear the useless, haphazardly beating thing right from his chest. What need had he of it? It was nothing but a thorn in his side, a target for cupid's unwanted barb.

The cabin was gone. The morning had become noon. And he was now in an endless sea of sand dunes that rolled away, away, away forever. And there off to the right, lay a skeletal beast the fossilised remains of which the necromancer had once seen encased in a cliff, its burning eyes focused on what lay at the bottom of the dune.

The sun was a blinding, merciless disc in the clear blue sky above him and the dune sloped down toward a clear patch of sand where a crucifix had been erected. Nailed in place to the crossed wood was Samiel, his skin charred red and cracked, blistering for the severity of the burns. He was shivering with fear, grovelling where he?d been nailed, for terror of the beast that was eyeing him hungrily.

This was something else entirely. Mesteno meant to scrub at his eyes as if he feared he were misjudging the sleek, copper-skinned features, but he very nearly jabbed the right one out with something in his hand. It was the fragment of titan horn, jutting from amongst the muslin wrap and wickedly sharp little slivers of glass. He'd only avoided slicing his hand to pieces because of the gloves he wore. Gloves? Why was he wearing those in the desert? And why was Samiel, fire made flesh, so burned from the sun?

Samiel lifted his head when the sand came trickling down the side of the dune and pinned the Sadist with a wide, accusing look, croaking out raspy words.

"You never came for me, Mesteno. Why didn't you come? I needed you!" Blood spilled past his cracked lips when the last, weak shout and the monster moved in to devour him.

In Samiel, Mesteno had known a contentment he'd never known with anyone before him, a meeting of minds so similarly inclined he'd been convinced he was a soulmate. It wasn't easy to disregard what he saw, to shake off the guilt he felt at the accusation from parched lips. There was something so wrong with the vision, wrong with the symbolism of the cross, and the placement of the sea thing with its gargantuan skull though, that he faltered in moving to aid him, struggled to rationalise and not be implored to.

"It's not real," he croaked hoarsely, sinking towards his knees and gripping tight to the horn fragment. "Not real, not real..." he made it a mantra and closed his eyes, praying that when he opened them again it would all be gone.

The sand did not go away. The heat of the sun did not relent. But the whisper of boots suddenly disturbed the grains just in front of him and a shadow fell over his form, bringing just a hint of coolness.

He dared open his eyes. When he recognised Lexius? boots, he foolishly thought himself returned to reality, and shuddered violently as if it were too sweet for words. But why the sand? He squeezed tight to the horn fragment and looked up warily, sitting back on his heels to look into blue-violet eyes.

There was nothing but disappointment in Lexius? usually serene expression. The Elf looked precisely as he always looked but for that look and seemed as real as he had been when they'd clasped arms just minutes (hours?) before.

Another nail in the proverbial coffin. Mesteno had never seen Lexius look disgusted by anything before, and that hope he'd dared harbour flickered like a candle-flame guttering in a winter draught. He felt impossibly small under that withering gaze.

Lexius studied him in silence for one, two, three seconds...then spoke in a tone tainted with disgust.

"You are pathetic, Mesteno, and not worth my time." And so saying, the Elf turned to walk away, leaving him to the untender mercy of the wasteland that now surrounded him.

"Wait!" Mesteno?s voice cracked on that single word as everything compiled, the pressure mounting until a single grain of sand tipped the scales and robbed him of everything. "Lexius please!" And how unlike him was it to beg?

Something tightened around Mesteno's forearm and the world...shook. Then metal (where the hell was the metal?) groaned and clanged in a single beat, like a gong had been rung somewhere distant.

The sensation about his arm draw his eyes with a startled hiss - oh hello, beads. When had they got there? A moment later and the resonant metallic noise was ringing in his ears. He didn't rise though. It seemed safer to stay kneeling there in the sand.

The Elf paused, head canting to one side. But he did not look fully back at the kneeling man, as if he couldn't stand the sight of him. A sneer curled his lips, just barely seen. "You prove my point." He said of the plea, then continued on, the beads now dangling at his side.

Yet those same beads were still strangling the Sadist's arm, constricting blood flow, causing his fingers to go numb. The world shook again, seeming to flicker for a moment. The Elf was gone, perhaps having teleported away before Mesteno could call out to him.

A moment later and Lexius was suddenly standing before him again, poised precisely as before, looking at him in the exact same way for one, two, three seconds before he spoke, tone dripping with disgust.

"You are pathetic, Mesteno, and not worthy of my time." Again he turned away to leave the Sadist alone.

Pathetic. So it was no wonder, really, that Niamh had been chosen over him. No wonder at all that he'd been incapable of finding Samiel out in the Dry. Or, and this was worse, perhaps Lexius had been correct that first time they'd spoken at the inn. Maybe the desert man really had simply walked away from him intentionally. It wasn't a great stretch of the imagination to find some truth in it, to really begin to believe it.

Then once more Lexius stood before Mesteno, disgust distorting his features into something beyond alien. He stared for one, two....

Mesteno said nothing more to the Elf's back, but he did suck in breath sharply between the even lines of hard, white teeth. The beads were throttling his wrist, and had it not been for the fabric barring his skin from sight, he knew he'd have been able to see the veins bulging and distorted due to the dam of the blood flow. He did nothing to try and pry them loose, though it should have been a simple enough thing to do, snapping that length.

Instead he heard Lexius' voice again on repeat, ingraining the words until it was the only voice he heard. There was dejection in every line of his posture, the same exhaustion one might expect to see in an animal so old and wasted it was simply waiting for death to come, waiting with unseeing, glassy eyes.

The world flickered again. A whisper wormed its way through the Sadist's mind, almost a word. ....eno.

It echoed and echoed away into nothing.

Then came another voice from nowhere at all. Not one Mesteno had ever heard before. "He is the path." It said sagely.

The change he was perfectly sure he'd only imagined. He waited for the Elf's words to resume the more familiar rhythm, the chain of words that told the truth. Instead another voice, unfamiliar. What was it doing in his head? Be gone. Simple as that.

"Stop being stubborn." The voice chided reasonably, amused with the trait. "Find the path." It encouraged. And then those strangling beads, much too tightly wound to move at all, rattled out a snickering laugh of sound.

This time the desert came in Mesteno's mind. A blast of arid air. A wave of rippling heat. The coolness of oasis waters on the tongue. And the never ending scent of the sands.

Mesteno didn?t follow Aiden immediately. Lexius' lie was an obvious one, and for that he wore a darkly disapproving look as he took stock of his shrunken frame and over-bright eyes. A faint flash of teeth, a grimace somewhere behind all the dust, then he reached to seize the Elf by the arm.

"Take the ink back," he told him firmly. "The one you gave me before, when we were stuck in that damn maze. Use it if you can, you're failing faster physically than I am."

Lexius did nothing to deter the grabbing of his arm, but he did give Mesteno a hard look made all the more fierce by the cutting sharpness of his features. His voice was still rough and gritty when he spoke with patience.

"The power cannot be reclaimed once it is inscribed in the ink. It can only serve the purpose of the pattern." Though abjectly thin, he was still functional and this was not a state he seemed unfamiliar with. "It will be well." He added, as firmly as Mesteno did. "Now walk. It is close and you are still needed."

"Get your asses moving, Ladies!" That from Aiden somewhere up ahead.

Mesteno relented grudgingly, and released Lexius' arm so that he could set off after Aiden with distinctly less fluidity to his usual prowl. It appeared that on this matter at least, he believed the Elf. "Don't fall behind," he commanded him (because he could pull off that tone when he felt like it!) with a glance backward.

Lexius actually growled at him.

Pursuing Aiden down the ill-lit walkway, Mesteno did his damnedest not to reflect on the Obelisk induced hallucination. It's sharp, deliberate targeting had been one of the cruellest things he'd ever suffered, and still he struggled to shake its effects. The grip he had on the horn fragment was vicious, the edges of it digging into his palm through his glove as if he thought he might be able to crush it.

Lexius made no sound at all, and simply followed in Mesteno's footsteps down the walk. It was a little bit like walking through the depths of space without the pesky lack of atmosphere to slow them down. Boots sounded and felt like they impacted stone, yet they didn't seem to be making any progress.

Aiden kept on ahead of them, heading toward a particular point of light, but when it seemed to get no closer for their walking, he paused, waiting for Mesteno and Lexius to catch up with him.

"Ok, walking isn't going to work." He pointed toward the light he had in mind then back at the pair. "See that one? It's kind of red and amber?" The star he indicated was directly ahead and a little up.

"I see it," Mesteno began, but Aiden cut him off.

"We need to get there." His gaze fell heavy on Mesteno and the horn he still gripped tightly. "Only the Titans had the ability to defeat them. If they're holding him, it?s with that sort of energy. And that means the horn will be drawn to it." Aiden reached out and clamped his hand on the Sadist's shoulder, grinning. Like Mesteno was supposed to know what to do now!

Lexius, thankfully, added some speculation of his own. "Will, I think." He did love his will. "You must will the pair to connect." The Elf didn't clasp Mesteno's shoulder, but he did touch fingertips lightly to his spine, just under that messy braid of hair.

Mesteno looked from demi-god to Elf and then back down at the fragment. Of course he'd have to be the one to do it. He didn't protest it, merely looked resigned as he was left to figure out how to Will himself from one point to another and take the others with him.

"Fine," he muttered, "but don't expect me to get this straight away. I'm not used to this Will business." An understatement.

Fixing his eyes on the red-amber star, and keeping the horn fragment between his palms, he concentrated. Wanting to be there wasn't enough. Trying to imagine them there wasn't enough. His tongue darted nervously across a dry lower lip (there was some pressure on him after all!) and as the silence grew uncomfortable he tried to feel out some link between the horn, what he stared at, and that taint the titan had left in him that made the others so sure it had to be him using it. He hit a brick wall on that, because he'd never been able to detect it the way Lexius ad Aiden had. "Oh come on you stupid fucking piece of--"

It wasn't the cursing, it was the drive, sudden and surprising which did it. One moment they'd been forever away and coming no closer, the next, he'd done it.

Aiden had been on the verge of saying something, when everything moved around them. Mesteno's drive drew the star to them, though it seemed as if they were the ones suddenly zipping across the distance toward the destination. All those others lights turned into brief, rainbow streaks of colour and then snapped back into distant points of illumination.

"This fuckin' thing should come with an instruction manual," Mesteno declared hotly as the strange sense of momentum ceased. He'd swayed briefly on stopping, but set his feet apart just enough to help balance himself.

Lexius splayed his hand wide across Mesteno's spine as if to further assist him in keeping his balance. It might have been to help maintain his own, as well. Strangely, though, he did not pull that touch away even after everything had stabilized.

Their star was actually a smooth, glittering sphere of something glass-like, transparent. Within the sphere, chained to a rock with manacles about its throat and legs, was the ugliest looking Vulture ever created, easily man sized and looking beyond miserable in its confinement. What remained of its mottled feathers were grey and black and stained with some reddish black liquid that seeped from the gashes all across its body. It seemed to have an endless supply of blood, and the rock it sprawled across was completely coated in the gore of it. Its savage beak was cracked and half falling apart and it had no talons left on its ugly feet. The creature drooped under the weight of the chains, splayed lifelessly across the top of the rocks, dull eyes turned their way but showing no recognition whatsoever.

Aiden hissed in a sharp breath at the sight and lifted a fist.

"I would not." The Elf grated calmly, preventing the man was slamming his fist against the sphere.

"Will the horn work?" Mesteno asked quietly, intending to stand back rather than potentially get in Aiden's way if he had some other plan.

Aiden?s hands were clenched into fists at his sides at he stared at what had become of Ares. The vulture always had been his bird. That's he'd been trapped inside its body was another twisted bit of mocking cruelty from whomever had put him there.

"It better fucking work." Was Aiden's snapped answer. "Slam that gods-be-damned thing in there." He was the one tossing out orders now!

The Elf, after studying the bound creature briefly, turned his attention to the demi-god instead. "Step back." he told Aiden. The demi-god grudgingly did so and nodded to Mesteno to get on with it. Only then did Lexius move away as well, his look shifting to Mesteno. "You will be well." He assured, already weaving more threads as his hand slipped away from the Sadist's spine. He joined Aiden to watch.

"Well it's worked on everything else, right?" Mesteno asked Aiden, hoping the words sounding reassuring as he'd intended. Christ it was good to feel anything again! More than despair at least.

Once the others had backed off, he held the horn as close to one end as he was able. Teeth clenched, he raised the horn up and back as if he intended on a violent stabbing, then slammed it down with every scrap of force he could muster into the shield trapping the Ares-vulture, keeping his eyes open to barely a squint.

Light exploded around him. Every other star in their vicinity pulsed once, hotly, as the prison before him shattered with the sound of glass raining down onto stone. Mesteno bore the brunt of that explosion, but would have done so no matter where he stood. He was the one with the Titan's taint, he was the wielder of the horn. He was the one that got a sudden, vivid image in the falling fragments of seeming glass, of an enormous humanoid with wild wind swirling around it. It turned to look straight toward him.

Whatever the Elf had done to help kept the necromancer from getting blown off his feet, at least!

It only lasted a moment, then the flashy display was over and there was nothing between them and the sprawled the human form of the god himself. Ares looked no better than the vulture had. Still bound in chains, still seeping what might be blood (such potent, powerful, delectable smelling blood), still looking completely wrecked. But he was blinking his black, hawkish eyes slowly, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing was real. Who was this dark souled mortal, this alien elf, this...

"Aiden." Ares croaked, a vicious smile starting to curl his lips and fire sparking darkly in his glassy, ebony gaze.

"You sister-fuckin'--" The demi-god got no farther than that. It hadn't sounded precisely angry, but there really was no telling what mood the demi-god was in other than shocked. His forward progress had been halted and he was trapped by something that kept him from moving forward and drowned out whatever the hell he was saying.

Lexius' eyes were burning brightly once more, and he had pressed one hand to his chest, tapping one of the few tattoos he had left in order to confine Aiden in place. He had eyes only for Ares who was suddenly studying both the Elf and Mesteno wide-eyed.

Mesteno had been as surprised as Aiden when that forward momentum was halted, and if it hadn't been for the brilliance of Lexius' stare, he'd have thought it a sign some trap had been triggered. Then he remembered it was time. Time to negotiate. He studied the Elf for a moment as if trying to decide whether he was up to the job when he was so fatigued (and obviously foul of mood) and who could blame him? In the end he decided Lexius was far wiser than he, and far more diplomatic even now, so he stood playing the silent observer, doing his best to ignore the blood.

Lexius reached out and slid his hand back along the Sadist's spine, urging him right along with as he prowled toward Ares. He looked like a very well preserved elven lich in that moment with his gaunt face and those over-bright, colourful eyes.

Ares had narrowed his own look on the pair and he seemed to struggle against the binding chains with no success whatsoever.

"They will come." He rasped the warning. And he wasn't lying. The breaking of the prison had surely set off certain alarms and there would be those that came to investigate.

The Elf looked unconcerned. "And I will let them have all of us." Lexius didn't sound like he was bluffing in the slightest! "Unless you agree to extend your protection unconditionally over this mortal."

If Mesteno had been a fearful man, the colour might have drained from his face at Hermes statement. Not over? He was struck with a sudden impulse to slam his knuckles into those pretty, white teeth, but why add to the hold up?

"No. I'm done with all of you. Next one comes calling gets the finger and that's it," he informed Hermes blandly.

"Enough, 'Mes." All that laughing, winking, positive, happy energy the demi-god usually spouted was gone. For a second there, Aiden actually looked dangerous. No wings needed!

Hermes lifted his hands in surrender and stepped aside. The elegant gesture turned into a magician's flourish though, and he held forth a little pouch. "This grateful." He said it to Lexius specifically, but his gaze shifted to include Mesteno as he continued. "So grateful, you now have two sponsors." Aiden snatched the bag from his fingers and Hermes clasped his hands behind his back and further removed himself from their path. "You should probably run along now before my Uncle creates a scene. And Aiden?" This time he spoke directly to the demi-god. "We'll expect you back soon. We have so much to discuss."

Hermes moved away, but watched long enough to give Mesteno an exaggerated wink. Then (as if already fulfilling his promise!) the God put himself right between Mesteno and Hades, who was staring balefully at the necromancer. Hermes moved to intercept his fellow deity and do some distracting of his own. The other Gods, but for one, were doting over Ares, who seemed to have completely forgotten Lexius, Mesteno and Aiden even existed! Artemis was the hold out. She lounged on a couch, absently stroking the head of a large brown hunting hound that was sprawled on the ground beside her divan. She was watching the three of them with something less than boredom.

Aiden watched Hermes go, eyes narrowed, but then he was gesturing to the Elf and the Sadist. "Sulphur will build a gate for you. Come on."
The demon had flattened himself behind the pillar again when Hermes appeared, but he peeked around again and hissed toward them.
"C'mon! Move y'monkey asses!" As personable as ever that demon.

"Where the Hell do you intend on going?" Mesteno asked Aiden as he moved wearily down the steps. "Are you planning on telling any old friends you're back?"

He did not specifically state Koyan of course. The man seemed to be lacking in sharp memories of the Turk, and perhaps for Lexius' sake, he didn't want to instigate any awkwardness. Mesteno asked because he needed to know ahead of time whether his return was a secret. He was good at holding his tongue.

Aiden ushered the Elf and the Necromancer along to the stairs, passing the pouch Hermes had produced to Lexius when the Elf nailed him with a look and held out his hand. He didn't want to know what was in it. Neither did Lexius it seemed, for he simply tucked that pouch away into his satchel and followed the three as the demi-god answered Mesteno.

"Naw. I aint going anywhere. It's tempting," Aiden admitted, shrugging his broad shoulders, "but they'll find me. And there's still work to do." Whatever the hell that meant! He went right on, gaze turned to them both. "Look, I'll do my best to keep them off your backs, but 'Mes was right. It ain?t finished. There's a lot going on down here. A lot I have to catch up on. But sure as shit you two are going to be known about in Olympus. What we're doing should be enough to keep any of the others occupied." He laughed a bit. "It's not like they can stuff us back into the bottle now. Just do whatever it is your guys normally do and I'll stay out of the way."

At the bottom of the stairs Sulphur had cleared out a spot and had already erected one of those hellish gates they'd been through before. But before they could hop through it, Aiden thrust out one hand and got serious. It was a strange look on him. "I owe you both. More than I can ever repay. Thank you for pulling my nuts out of that particular fire."

"No offense, but your release was a necessary step on the way to gettin' your boss out," Mesteno told him bluntly. "Don't get me wrong, it was worthwhile 'n y'seem a decent sort, but don't go feeling grateful for it when y'were just a cog in the wheel. Tell me though," he went on, his dark auburn brows pinching close together above the bridge of a sharp sculpted nose, "is the taint gone? Will it ever be gone?"

Aiden...laughed. Well then. So much for a heartfelt thanks. He pulled his hand back when it didn't appear the Elf would be shaking it either, waving shortly toward Sulphur, who'd turned a particularly ugly shade of puce, and took a step back.

"Naw. It's still in there. Sorry." He shrugged apologetically, then pulled off the shirt Lexius had lent him, once again revealing the wing tattoos curling over his shoulders and along his arms. "Once you fuck with a Titan, you stay fucked." He handed the shirt back to Lexius, who inclined his head toward the portal.

"Where does the portal lead?" he was starting to sound as bad as he looked. Aiden glanced to Sulphur and it was the demon that answered.

"Da stables." And that seemed good enough for Lexius. He nudged Mesteno back into motion.

Mesteno hesitated, despite nudging, and eyed Aiden with blatant indecision. It was probably foolish, definitely risky, but? "Listen, I'm not about to tell you how to find me, but if you ever need to get word to me you can leave word at the Red Dragon. Find the Grand Marnier on the shelf behind the bar 'n just tuck it under the bottle. No one else drinks the stuff. I'll find it." Because whilst he hadn't been up for shaking hands and heartfelt thanks, he felt a little sorry for Aiden. And it never hurt to have a link in the city if one couldn't spend much time there themselves. "Vale," his final word of parting, and he turned to go striding through Sulphur's portal.

Aiden grinned and dropped Mesteno a lascivious wink. "Sure thing, Whippet. Great ta meetcha." Mr Happy and Carefree and Bawdy once again, though he didn't go so far as to tease the Elf in the same manner. To him, he just offered the grin and a nod. "Take care, Elf Man. Thanks for findin' my pants." He patted the jeans and watched them vanish unescorted step through the portal.

They stepped out into evening gloom and near silence. The stalls were occupied, but there seemed to be no one awake on the premises to see them emerge into the central square in front of the stable building proper. Pleasant to be back amongst the rustle of trees stood tall along the private drive leading to the property, the air full of the scent of clean straw and well-kept leather.

The Hell Gate winked out of existence leaving only a dark char mark on the ground where it had been. By morning, even that would be gone. The beads clicked softly (out loud and in Mesteno's head!) as Lexius shifted from sweeping a hard look across their surroundings to inspecting Mesteno critically. He was still on his feet, but he wouldn't be going much farther. The stables, perhaps. A dark corner behind a stack of hay bales where he could meditate just long enough to draw the energy he needed to get back to the desert. But first...Mesteno.

"You can get home from here?" His voice was still rough, his reserves all but empty, but he still stretched out a thread along with the verbal question, as if to check one last time Mesteno was well and whole.

While the Elf inspected him, Mesteno gave him lengthy consideration in return, and did nothing to try and bump that searching thread from his mind. It went further to sweep across his physical form, cataloguing all those aches and pains. It made Lexius? already grim express go even more ghastly. But there wasn't anything he could do about it.

"It's a few miles walk, and I'm not feelin' ready to try the Shadow Lands so soon," Mesteno confessed without a scrap of shame. "I got a place here I can go but you..." He knew without asking that Lexius was probably going to collapse the moment he found a good spot. He wouldn't be vanishing in the usual swirl of arid desert winds. "Come with me? We got a cot here f'when one of us needs to sleep over if we got a mare ready to drop. They usually do it in the middle of the night." Wryly added. Typical awkward female creatures.

He took a step towards the stable building, a tall, two storey structure with a single central corridor that led between the individual stalls. There were rooms at the far end for equipment storage, tack and tall feed bins, but there was that promised cot too, tucked away next to the large, empty stall kept immaculately clean for when a mare needed a little extra space to stretch out in her labour pains.

"Use the tattoo." Lexius bid the Sadist, only then allowing a trace of the weariness inside him to seep into his voice. "It will help with the physical, at the very least." And there was no reason Mesteno should suffer any more than he had. Into the stables was where he would have gone anyway, yet the Elf hesitated a moment longer, the thread dissolving away. But finally, he gave a nod. "Very well." And stepped into motion. He lacked the usual grace and quiet, almost trudging.

"I just will it to work, right?" Mesteno asked of the tattoo, tucking his gloves in his belt and rolling up his sleeve so that he could get a good look at the blue ink. He wasn't arguing. If he was going to sleep he wanted to be comfortable.

He led the way with no more grace than the Elf, and certainly none of the usual deliberate quiet. A couple of the animals poked their noses over the stall doors to watch them as they made their way down the central aisle, a roman nosed Friesian who the necromancer seemed to assume would tolerate him smelling odd, if the bare brush of gloved fingers across its velvet muzzle was any indication - oh and a familiar looking Arabian locked up across from him, who flattened his ears and snorted disgust, throwing in a sound kick against the stall door for good measure.

"Yes. Just press your hand to the pattern and Will it to work,? Lexius instructed. ?Your Will is strong, Mesteno. You did well."

There were no keys for the rooms at the end of their short walk. Just key codes, and Mesteno hit the buttons with clumsy jabs before opening up the room he meant for Lexius. There was the promised cot, decent enough for snatching a few hours of sleep on with a small desk beside it. There was a monitor perched on it, presumably hooked up to a camera overlooking the brood mares? stall when it was required, though it wasn't running presently.

"Oh," Mesteno added as if he'd just remembered something important, then turned and pointed to a shelf at the foot of the cot. "Kettle." In case he was in need of that spiced coffee when he woke.

The Elf examined the room briefly before he stepped into it. He did not move to lay down on the cot. Instead, he folded his legs with slow deliberation and took a seat on the floor in front of it. Success! He did not topple over. He did lean his spine against the edge of the cot, though, to ensure he stayed somewhat upright, looking up to Mesteno from the floor. He was already winding the beads through his fingers. Finally, he closed his eyes and went still. "I will check on you in a few days." He murmured then. It wasn't exactly negotiable. "Contact me sooner if there is need."

The Elf choice to park himself on the floor earned him a mildly baffled look, and then something that might have been a smile... or just the ghost of one.

"I'm sure the cot would be more comfortable to meditate on," Mesteno told him simply, but he didn't insist. Instead he returned that lingering look when Lexius tilted it his way as if there were words lurking behind his tongue. Maybe a thank you. Perhaps an apology that he'd suffered through so much with him. In the end, he suspected he already knew thanks to the mental link, and he'd never find a way to eloquently put it into a sentence anyway.

"Stay out of trouble," was all he told him, before slipping away and heading back down the aisle to trudge outside. In the end he wouldn't be all that far away at all, but Mesteno wasn't about to admit he preferred sleeping outdoors anyway. A night beneath the trees under familiar Heavens was more than enough for him.

By morning, the Elf was gone without a trace of him left to prove he'd existed at all.