The discovery that he was in no particular hurry to reach his objective gave Wurzag's usual mile-eating stride a distinctly relaxed edge. The rolling hills, unbroken greenery, dappled copses and sharp crags held him in comfortable thrall as he made his way ever northward with his friends in tow. The secure feeling of right stayed with him throughout the journey and he frequently found himself smiling aimlessly at nothing or sharing a genial conversation with his companions. Taryn had questioned him incessantly about map magic for a short time after their first day, but the half-orc truly had no idea how the magic worked, only that he had been taught the spell by an old man at a party and that it worked. He had not felt a particular need to elaborate on the identity of his benefactor. They probably would not have believed him anyway.

After that the young man had lapsed into the study of the surrounding flora and fauna with a scholars curiosity and had taken to collecting samples of any that he found particularly interesting. In the evenings he practiced with the mace under the expert eye of Marillie and was gradually beginning to improve. For her part, the young woman often ranged far and wide during the day, often straying from the path for hours at a time to investigate forest and brook. She too gathered spring herbs, but most she used in the cooking of excellent stews and broths that sustained the party on their northward journey. The hint of competition that had developed between his two friends and their culinary delights had become a source of some amusement to the half-orc, but it kept him in good meals so he held his tongue and merely chuckled his approval.

So the leagues disappeared beneath their boots and the days ran into a week and beyond until the fresh, green grass turned tough and hardy and the brisk wind held a hint of ice. Spring was still very much in evidence, but the air had a crystal quality to it and a trace of pine that tantalised the senses. To Wurzag it smelled of old memories and a childhood that felt a lifetime ago yet close enough to touch. He ambled a short way from the dwindling path and stopped amidst the wind-blown grass. He hesitated for a long moment and allowed the sights, sounds and scents of the wild to wash over him. They were a long way from what passed for human civilisation now, far from the trade routes and the clamour of the city. It was inescapably right, and Wurzag could not suppress a grin of excitement.

He turned to face his friends with a look of child-like glee on his face, broad features alight with joy. "I fink dis is it," he said with an expansive gesture, "I fink dis is da old campin' ground!" He shambled a short distance further a stooped to pick up an object that caught his eye. It was a bone, old and weathered and cracked for its marrow but Wurzag knew an orc bone when he saw one and this had once been an orc. A few meters away he found evidence of what might once have been a large fire, though little now remained save a hint of charcoal and stunted vegetation.

There was a tickling at the back of his mind, like words half-remembered and he fished in his pocket for the token he had received from the spirit of Bear. The wooden disc felt warm to his touch and he pulled it out and inspected it in the morning sunlight. At face value it did not appear different, but the incessant feeling that he was missing something continued to grow. He realised after a moment that this was not the first time he had felt this way. Ever since the journey with Curin to the realm of Medlifaron and Nidhrian Wurzag had felt a growing sense of something other, like a voice in the breeze, a whisper in the grass, a word in the streams. That time still held a dream-like quality for him, the night beneath the stars, the drums, the sensation of freedom. It was as if it had opened a doorway within him, behind which waited something incredible if he could only find the way.

He held the little charm up and turned it slowly between his fingers and tried again to listen to that elusive voice that stalked his consciousness. There it was again, like a sigh of wind, a susurration of the grass, only there were words there. His brow furrowed as he strained to listen to what was being said.

"Did yooz 'ear dat?" He asked his companions, "It were like somewun tryin' to say sumfing!"

Marillie laughed long and freely, so that even she realized it came from the heart; snatching the wooden spoon from a wolfishly leering Taryn she dabbed some of the sauce on the mage's nose, and sprang out of the way before he could retaliate. They'd been jostling comfortably over the preparing of the meals for the length of the journey, and it had proved a seemingly endless resource of enjoyment and camaraderie between them. There were times when the clash of their differing ideas turned the air as taught as the moment before a storm; something which perhaps they had both realised, to a degree where they often left their friendship in a state of largely comfortable wordlessness. Perhaps their Wills were too equally fiery, or their desire to really shine, and to be and be seen in their excellence; but then Marillie had to admit, Taryn had a nice touch, seemingly with everything he turned his hand to, even if he did overcook the meat every time it was his turn.
They were enjoying one another's company, and Marillie was surprised to find that she was enjoying teaching Taryn the use of his mace, perhaps especially since he was such a excellent student. Whether he noticed it or not, Taryn was losing much, perhaps even all, of the softness that had defined his appearance since they'd left the city, but then, maybe I just want to think of him that way she mused, still brandishing the wooden-spoon like a sword, daring, just daring Taryn to get his ears rapped, and his knuckles battered.
Satisfied Taryn had taken enough of a beating it was safe to turn her back, Marillie turned to a blithe looking Wurzag.
He had been growing increasingly distant, in a contented way. Sometimes it appeared almost as if he wasn't looking at the world through his eyes, but perhaps increasingly he perceived things through the phenomenal sense that enabled him to conjure the remarkable maps. She had spent entire nights staring at him, at the slow wink of the lights in his dark little eyes- like those of some wise old boar. He seemed increasingly to walk as if in his dreams; but Marillie deemed it was a good thing, and that his peace -bearing in mind the extensive scarring of his gargantuan form- had been hard-won.
He was peering blearily down at a worn token in his hands, now, flipping it idly,"Did yooz 'ear dat?" his voice rolled and thrummed from his muscular chest, but brimming, even now, with the strange musical livliness which sent a shiver running up Marillies spine. She felt, occassionally in Wurzags presence, as she had felt standing before the face of a mountain, or before the vastness of a lake. Queerly, but not uncomfortably, humbled. Reminded of how short her life was, and thusly how precious. She shrugged at him, still smiling from her play-fight with Taryn."It were like somewun tryin' to say sumfing!"

Taryn had always found it easy to fall into easy companionship with people. This was largely in part because he was almost insanely uncomplicated; a man who was all about being no more than himself. There were no complex layers of anxiety or self-consciousness. Of course he had his secrets and he had his fears, but they were minor.

He had enjoyed getting to know Marillie. He had enjoyed the friendly, almost comedic rivalry that had developed between them and he very much enjoyed their little mock-fights that sometimes - only sometimes - veered very close to the edge of becoming something that was no longer 'mock'.

As for his lessons with the mace, he studied with the diligence that he had always applied to learning, demonstrating why it was that he had constantly scored high marks and received words of high praise from his tutors at the college. Taryn was one of those people to whom learning came very easily and this was very apparent in the way his skill was clearly starting to improve. He had once or twice taken his training so seriously that he had stripped to the waist whilst he was practising his moves, exposing to the air and to a stranger for the first time the horrific mass of scarring on his abdomen.

If ever Marillie pushed him too hard, he never once complained, although he lay awake many nights after the other two slept, trying to rub some life back into aching muscles.

His friendship with Wurzag went deeper than the new-found, spring-like friendship with Marillie. The mage and the half-orc had developed the sort of bond that meant they were frequently able to exchange entire conversations via little more than a nod, or a shrug or just a look. Taryn had sensed that the half-orc who he considered as dear to him as a brother was not the same companion who had travelled with him to Dori'ba, the companion who had carried him clear of Death's grasp. But he did not push. He knew Wurzag well enough to know that should the half-orc wish to discuss what was different, then he would do so when the time was right.

Right now he was busy with the meal for the evening, stirring the stew that he had put together from a brace of rabbits caught by Marillie earlier that evening. Fresh off the land, flavoured with a little wild garlic and marjoram, the stew was a little more delicate than Taryn's usual hearty fare.

When Wurzag asked if they could hear something, he had looked up from his work and had tuned his thoughts into whatever it was that the half-orc was listening to. He could hear the occasional 'pop' of the stew as it bubbled behind him, the crackle of the fire, the sound of the wind across the grass, but mostly he could hear the fire.

Troubled thoughts of his promise to a certain Guardian came and went.

"I don't hear anything," he said, after a time, but not dismissively. Taryn rarely dismissed things that others might mock, or jeer at. "What is it?"

Wurzag frowned and paced the length of the weather-worn campsite. There were definitely words, strange, meaningless words and they brushed at the very cusp of his consciousness. The half-orc muttered a few sounds that approximated what little he could hear and pursed his lips in frustration. "Dis is important," he grumbled to Taryn and Marillie as he paced about, "I knows it is, I can feel it in me blood." He paused and gave his friends a plaintive look that begged to be understood. "It's like an itch ye can't scratch!" Then he threw up his arms and resumed his pacing, lips moving in soundless shapes as he tried desperately to make sense of the half-heard message.

As he walked he suddenly recalled a similar incident when he had been haunted by visions and the words of an alien tongue. Deep in the heart of the realm of dreams within the leafy folds of the Misty Forest he had engaged in a battle of wits and blades with the drow warrior Sargtlin Olath. It had been a struggle that had tested him both physically and mentally as peculiar apparitions emerged to challenge him and impart their mystic lore.

And that was where he had heard these words before. They were arcane phrases, the words that would shape a spell and send it forth into the world. If only he could -

"Tuethen be'leafon!" He finished the phrase with an exultant yell. Wurzag turned to his companions with a bright and triumphant smile as the echoes of his cry died away. "I knew I 'ad 'eard dat stuff afore," he rumbled happily. There was a faint buzzing in his ears but he paid it no heed, he was too caught up in his glee. "I dunt fink I ever told ya, der wos dis time wen - "

Then he toppled face down on to the ground and lay still.

A moment later he rolled over and rubbed his head. "Ow," Wurzag grumbled and sat up, "dat really 'urt." Then he blinked, rubbed his eyes and glanced about in confusion. The world had somehow altered considerably. Where a moment ago he had stood on the open plains with the blustery wind playing about him he now stood at the placid heart of a roiling landscape of pandemonium. The patchy brush extended several feet from his position before it transformed into a fluttering ocean of impossibly broad, vivid and astonishingly alive grass. It rolled and fluttered in a wind he could neither hear nor feel, yet its effects were all around him. A short distance away a tree blossomed from the earth, grew to maturity and bloomed all in the space of a few heartbeats. Then its form melted into dazzling crystalline brilliance, burst apart and was carried away on the wind. The sparkling fragments danced and whirled in a stunningly beautiful display of aerobatics before metamorphosing into a spray of riotous butterflies which spiraled away into the indistinct distance. Similar demonstrations of wonder and glory played themselves out unceasingly around him and the half-orc could not begin to grasp the impossible wonder of it all. Graceful, nameless creatures pranced though the grasses and wild birds of every shape and size flitted through the ever-shifting sky.

"Strong-blood," a gruff voice cut through Wurzag's awe, a voice from a lifetime ago. "It's about time." It continued from behind him. The half-orc turned and glared across the plains but could see no sign of the one he expected. "No, no, no," the speaker chided, "dun't look with yer eyes, look with yer mind, think of me as yooz expect to see me."

"Huh?" Wurzag was too overwhelmed to begin to comprehend.

"Fink about 'ow I looked the last time ye saw me ye thick 'eaded grunt!" The voice held a note of strained patience.

"Oh right." Wurzag thought hard about his time in the tribe, many years ago. The boar, the goblins scampering everywhere, his father and -

Without warning the grizzled form of the tribal shaman melted into view before him. "Dats better!" Ratskar grumbled. As the image of the shaman completed itself a larger patch of normality spread from his feet into the surrounding grassland. "Huh," the green-skin grunted, "stoopid romanticised oomie dreams. Dey probbly ain't never set foot in da plains in der life, ain't got no idea wot it's really like." Wurzag opened his mouth to speak but the shaman held up a hand for silence and as he had done so many times as a child, the half-orc held his tongue. "I dunt fink yooz is gonna 'ave much time an I 'ave been waitin' 'ere fer ages already so shuddup an listen, ye can play later. Dis 'ere," he gestured to the surroundings with an expansive sweep of his arms, "is da dreaming."

"Da dreaming?" Wurzag repeated, baffled.

"Yeah," Ratskar snapped, "it is da place wot comes from all da dreams of all da peoples in da whole world, maybe further, who knows. Anyways, da 'ole place is made up ov dreams. Just look at dis place! Shud be a normal lookin' grassland only da dreams of city folk turn it into some fantasy land of flyin' trees an fings like dat!" He pointed to one of the cavorting creatures. "Folks wot live 'ere dunt dream ov 'ere, dey dream ov uvver stuff. Anyways, ye gotta be careful an I ain't got time to explain' everyfing cos der is sumwun yez need to talk to."

Wurzag opened his mouth again to voice one of the hundreds of questions that had occurred, but the shaman was pointing a demanding finger over his shoulder to something behind the half-orc. Wurzag turned slowly to toward the indicated direction to find an old man hobbling toward him. The fellow had a white, wispy beard and hair so fine it looked like threaded silk. His back was stooped with age and he staggered toward the half-orc as if pained. The green-skin stepped forward to assist him but the man waved him away. "No," he said in a cracked voice, "you already do too much, let me be."

When Wurzag looked up again a mist had crept in and clouded the chaos of the dreaming from sight, but figures moved in the mist, a legion of specters that hovered at the fringes of the obscuring vapour. They waited and watched but said nothing and though the half-orc felt no threat from them, their presence held a subtle malevolence. "Who are they?" He quietly asked the old man.

The wizened gentlemen winced, his lined face crumpled as if the question pained him. "They are me," he said in a voice worn thin by time and hardship, "and thus they are you, at least a small part. Look carefully, you may know their faces."

Wurzag obeyed and peered at the silent, half-shadowed assembly. Most were human and were adorned in a variety of garb, from full armour to stately robes though all stood with eyes closed and faces downcast. Among them he spotted the chaos warrior that had almost killed him and a bald sorcerer whom he recalled from the misty forest. The shock of recognition stunned him and as his gaze fell upon the familiar apparition it opened its eyes and fixed him with an angry, red glare. "Wot are dey doin' 'ere?" He breathed once it became clear that the figures would not approach.

"They have come because they must, but for the first time in many generations I am their voice and they are but the observers." Wurzag thought the old man sounded tired, more tired than any man had any right to be.

"But who are you?" The half-orc asked.

"That," the ancient said wearily, "is a tale too long to tell in words and I have not the strength to speak it. Had you not heard my call they would still hold sway and I fear I would remain buried beneath their madness for all time, until I was little more than a memory. You, among all the others paused to listen to my cry and gave me a voice."

Wurzag scratched his head at once moved and intrigued by the fact that he had apparently assisted this strange old man. "But who are you?" The green-skin persisted, "you must 'ave a name." The old man sighed and shook his head.

"I am a spirit, a whisper on the breeze, the pulse of sap in the forest, the gentle chuckle of a woodland brook. The face you see here is the only one that has been mine that has harboured no malice, no ambition. It held only fear and desperation, and yet they were enough to chain me for all time." He sighed and shook his head, "he meant no wrong."

Wurzag felt suddenly light-headed and the dreaming wavered. Then it shuddered and settled back into place. "Wot 'appened der," he said and rubbed his knitted brow.

"Your time grows short," the elder said with a sad nod, "and thus, so does mine and so I must be hasty." He turned and inclined his head toward the lurking assembly of figures half concealed in the encroaching mist. "They are but memories of my former selves, shadows, fragmented legacies, but despite their fractured souls they retain much of the potency they had in life. Theirs is not a power with which you want to meddle however." The man glanced sidelong at the half-orc, "instead, allow me to give you a gift, a first step down the path."

Wurzag nodded hesitently.

"Strong-blood!" A rough voice interjected urgently, "you must hurry, while yooz 'angs around 'ere yer like a ghost in da world, ye mates will be gettin' worried an I dunt want da magiky one messin' wiv da dreamin'." The shaman pressed something thick and heavy into Wurzag's hands, an unadorned leather bound tome, then he shuffled away from the half-orc and gave him a gentle smile. "I chose ye name well," the shaman said softly, in a way Wurzag had never before heard from the hard-edged green-skin, "be true to da path." Then he looked past Wurzag to where the old man stood and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

In response the spirit reached up and placed a withered hand on the half-orc's brow. "Forgive me," it said, and then the pain rushed in. It was not a physical pain, not something that could be defied, Wurzag was familiar with the agonies of the flesh and had long become inured to its many forms. This was anguish of the soul, the culmination of generations of spiritual abuse laid bare and poured directly into the half-orc's unprepared heart.

There was no way he could be its equal.

He gave a ragged gasp and sank to his knees and the world turned over. When it resolved again he could feel the cold north wind biting his flesh, caught the faint scent of pine and felt the tough grass of the plains at his back. He sat up and looked into the concerned faces of his friends. He still had the token held firmly in his grasp.

Then, for the first time in his long and brutish history Wurzag wept.

Taryn, who for the seven years that the lich had dominated his waking moments and haunted his sleep knew well what it was like to have 'an itch that couldn't be scratched' became particularly alert to the half-orc. He had travelled with Wurzag long enough know to have become very sensitive to the moods of his friend and had to admit that this was something entirely new, something he'd not encountered in the half-orc before at all.

When Wurzag went face down into the dirt, Taryn was almost instantly by his side. He turned his friend over carefully and checked vital signs straight away.

"I think," he said, his face looking decidedly perplexed. "I think he's just fainted. He doesn't seem to be hurt, his pulse is strong...would you pass me some water please?" He looked up at Marillie and the concern was evident in his face. He'd told her a little about the bond that had been formed, the unlikely partnership of the young mage and his orcish friend, but he'd never gone into elaborate detail. He'd certainly indicated that whatever it was that had drawn them into such a tight friendship was to do with the mass of scar tissue on his stomach.

Truth be told, Taryn didn't have a clue as to what was wrong with his friend, but recognised all the symptoms of someone who had either collapsed with the falling sickness - although Wurzag was not displaying any signs of pitching a fit - or someone who had been taken what his more 'prophetic' companions at the College referred to as 'beyond'. Personally, Taryn had often thought that being taken 'beyond' sounded like the worst excuse ever to chew on hallucinogenic leaves that were all the rage amongst the young of the city just now - but that had been before his experiences with the Guardians in the Temple of Life.

"Where've you gone, my friend?" he wondered aloud as he accepted a waterskin from Marillie and moistened Wurzag's lips.

He looked up at the young warrior woman and his concern was very plain. "Did he seem sick at all to you? I mean, he's been acting pretty weird these last couple of days..."

It seemed no time at all before without any warning, the half-orc, whose head Taryn had cradled in his lap sat upright and then, rather alarmingly, began to weep.

Taryn blinked, looked up at Marillie, then reached for the hip flask he carried at his waist and which containd a fine brandy. Wordlessly, he offered it to Wurzag. He didn't quite know how to deal with weeping other than to offer his support in the best way he could think of at that particular moment.

He shot Marillie a helpless sort of look.

"Wurzag, it's alright," he tried, anxiously. "It's alright, we're here. What - ah - what happened? Are you hurt?"