The Crimson Calling has arrived at their camp site east of Nodden-Torr, and the rangers are finalizing the details before camp is truly struck. Alexis has wrapped his winter blanket around him. He waits until the four others are near enough that he doesn’t have to raise his voice.
“Good job” Nodding at Gustav, Ca’armine, and Rask. “Before we settle in. A thought gnawing at me since the fire lake. At the time when I spoke with Vorgoth, I was just giving you all my best translations, but I was also distracted by listening to him. He said a few things that require reflection.”
A silver piece starts over his knuckles.
“I’d given him the name Bandesingh, and that he means to bring back Ath and put the world in darkness. He’d never heard of the man in his life.”
“He said: ‘Bandesingh. Another one who mistakes certainty for wisdom.'”
The coin walks.
“Then: ‘So. Shasherak has found another road. The dragon believed he would.'”
He lets that stand a moment.
“A few ways I can take ‘another road’.”
“One. Bandesingh is the road. Plain reading. I asked all of you a while back whether Bandesingh learned his trade from Shasherak or whether two men arrived at the same answer on their own. If Vorgoth’s right, that’s answered.” Alexis shugs as-if a mystery could be checked off his list.
“Two. Another road to a Tear, not to this Tear.” Alexis points to his belt pouch “Bandesingh has two. If what Shasherak wanted was one of these and not our particular one, he got it centuries ago, and we never really thwarted Shasherak.”
“Three. Another road to what he actually wanted, which was to be a god. The Tear in the time-vault was one way. He found a different one.”
“Four.” The coin stops. “‘The dragon believed he would.’ He planned for a man to go around him. Whatever he built in there, he built it knowing it would be walked past, and then he left it to five strangers seven hundred years (or longer) later.” A slight shrug, and a nod off to the side. “There’s a possibility that we were the arrangement the Dragon made for losing.”
He pockets the coin.
“But back to Vorgoth.”
“I handed him the name of Bandesingh, which he had never heard and two lines about a man alive right now. He didn’t ask me a single question. He set him beside Shasherak on the spot.”
“Earlier in that conversation I’d said Raiden. He said, ‘You say Raiden, the last true king. I saw him once in the flames.'”
“Vorgoth has stood in that room since at least some time in the 2nd age. Raiden doesn’t rise until a minimum of one hundred and sixty years after that. He cannot have seen him. Not face-to-face.”
“So. He sees forward in that fire. Or standing outside of time he’s able to see time flow outside the time-vault, which would make that fire room a stranger place than we initially gathered.”
Alexis’ tone shifts to light-hearted, almost joking “Or he has simply met enough men like Bandesingh to know one by the smell.”
The coin starts walking his fingers again and Alexis looks at his companions for any possible insights they might have.
Rask nods thoughtfully as Alexis speaks, he looks to the others as they listen to Alexis, When Alexis looks to the group, Rask waits for a bit and then speaks up:
“So much magic… how the giant gained his insights.. magic.” He shrugs, looks around at the others and back at Alexis as he speaks further:
“You all know more about magic than me, but as far as Sasherak and Bandesing go… The orc-ally thing we talked about Alexis, you pointed out then that there were other possibilities, and you’re right, we don’t know for sure, and you know better than me… but it still feels to me like Bandesing was trying to bring back Sasherak… Not Ath. Shyeeni said he was trying to bring back someone was trying to become a god, not a god…. If Sasherak had already became a god, wouldn’t we know?”
He looks around to the others for a moment before continuing.
“The giant’s words don’t confirm it, but they also don’t change my feeling… Bandsing is… was?”
Rask pauses briefly, a horrified look on his face as a terrible thought occurs to him.
“Erlik’s Balls! What if Bandesing has succeed in bringing Sasherak back? The visions of weathering the storm you all had…”
Alexis pulls the blanket tighter.
“Maybe. Many in the Collegium hold that a god coming into the world doesn’t announce itself, and Shasherak is shadow. If he came back, quiet is what it very-well might look like.”
“We still have no name for Hadonis’s god. We had none for Drayek. We had none for the Abyssal Lords. And none of them were hiding especially hard.”
Alexis looks up past the treeline.
“And the stars are wrong here, Rask. So he might be a god in this timeline and not in the one we left. Or the other way. We need more information. Either way, Bandesingh must be stopped. Praise Raiden.”
Rask nods along and is visibly more at ease thanks to Alexis response.
“Stop Bandesing. Praise Raiden.” Rask respond ritualistically.
“What was that tattoo Tarkus Vell had on his neck? A dark circle and and a skull? What did you say to the Dwarves? The broken circle that devours itself? Does that line up?”
Rask shakes his head, “Not that it matters, who knows what is different now…”
He sighs, and looks up, “Whatever the challenge before us, we will face it together. For humanity. Praise Raiden!”
He is clearly reassuring himself, but Alexis words have comforted him..