"Into Baali´s Embrace" by Maya R. Hirschman

Jhahala lay in the arms of his favourite prostitute, a human lass by the name of Krista. Sleep was one of those things that, while not strictly necessary for an elf, he generally enjoyed and, short of eating, drinking, gambling and sex, he partook of more than any other occupation. Krista was, in the manner of humans, sound asleep and snoring softly into the nape of his neck. Unlike her, Jhahala was not sleeping comfortably. Indeed, his was a deeply troubled slumber.

* * * * *
She came to him in a dream; the beautiful lady of his youth for whom he would have died if given half the chance. Her name was Hierna. She had been his betrothed, his love’s ambition. She appeared to him no older than the day she broke his heart and just as he had been all those centuries before, he was powerless to resist her now.

Hierna extended her arm; the touch of her fingertips upon his cheek was as real as it ever was when they had lain beneath the bows of the silverleaf tree in his father’s gardens. When she beckoned to him to follow he could not refuse. “Hierna,” he whispered, but she silenced him with a finger to her lips.

Thick brown tresses fell curling around her shoulders and her eyes, bright but cold as a frosty dawn, twinkled with merry pleasure. Those eyes; the pain Jhahala felt looking into them was never reflected back, as if she was oblivious, but neither could he look away nor did he want to. He could lose himself in them, and he wanted nothing more. Her hips swayed beneath the delicate pleats of her gown, hips he had caressed, kissed. He could feel them now, in this dream where he followed her in silence.

Even as he trailed her, like a puppy after its mistress, he could feel the undercurrent of anger welling up in him, the familiar pangs of jealousy were awakened. It was one reason why he rarely allowed himself to think of his past. Like a deep keening, carried on the wind through dark mountains, the emotions swept over him.

Hierna led him through the Temple labyrinth, a place he knew well and where he had come to know her even better. The tall hedges wound their way around corners that even centuries later he could still walk blindfolded. Even as he followed, yearning to speak to her, to touch her, he could not keep the bitter memory of rejection from tainting his thoughts with darkness. Had he not always desired her? Even after all that had passed between them he knew he still wanted her.

Taking his hand, as she had that glorious afternoon when in pledges of love she had given herself to him, Hierna drew the knight to her. She kissed him, held him and the feel of her awoke in him a lust that had been as deeply buried as the pain. Jhahala took her now as he had then only this time they moved together without the awkwardness or confusion of innocence. Dream though it might be, his senses told him it was real and he believed them utterly, forgetting for the moment the hurt she had caused him and recalling only how much he had adored her.

When it was over and they lay entwined, slick with perspiration, she spoke. “How much you must hate me to love me as you do.” Her voice was rich and soft as velvet, but sharply edged and cold. Her words surprised him and drew him out of his reverie.

“How long have you ached to have me again, my precious ‘Hala?”

“Since the day you swore you would never leave me,” he answered in honesty, voice constricted by a tight throat. Hierna ran her fingers over his naked flesh, through his thick black hair.

“Since the day it all fell down on you? That is a long time.”

The chill of her tone caused him to sit up and he spoke to her over his shoulder. “I have never wanted another so much as you.” It was true, although there had been others, even a wedding to the sweet, carefree Rukha.

“What was it? Ten generations since the last heir to the Seat of Rone had failed to be elevated, was it not?” Jhahala had been the heir, the burden that fell to the second son of the Fourth House. “That must have been a disappointing day for House Monmahat.”

Jhahala clenched his jaw and scowled, his eyes like a storm-swept sea. “Yes. You know it was. Why must you speak of it, Hierna? What pain did I ever cause you that you should remind me of those days?” As when she bayed him follow, he was now unable to keep from answering.

“You lost much that day.” She drew herself up and laid a falsely kind hand upon his shoulder, which he immediately shrugged off. “Tell me what you lost.”

“Everything.”

“Tell me.”

“I lost my place – the Seat on the Council. I lost my priesthood. I lost the respect of my family.” He trembled slightly with anger and drew a deep breath to compose himself. “I lost my betrothed wife. You; I lost you.”

Her laughter cut him like a knife, opening the ancient scars of his heart. Half crawling, half rising to his feet, Jhahala moved away from her.

The solution had been, so he thought, to take up Holy Orders as a Paladin, donning the Star of Rone and serving Him regardless. The theological training was there and he preferred the sword and mace to Council conferences, but it was not enough to appease his parents, nor was it enough to solidify a betrothal based on his expected rank in society.

“You might have been a good paladin,” Hierna spoke, reading his mind as only one can in dreams.

“I was a good paladin.” He glared at her, crossed his arms over his bare chest. She rose to stand before him and despite how cruel her words, or cold her demeanour, he could not help but perceive her beauty. That, too, was a spiteful slap.

“You might have been,” she repeated, ignoring him, “had you been able to keep your Vows. All those ladies – painted and otherwise – and games; you were always such a gambler. Too bad your luck got used up on dicing, my dear.” That was true. For all the lies she may have whispered in their flirtatious youth, now she spoke nothing but the bitter truth. Jhahala clenched his fists and dug his knuckles into his thighs, face flushing with fury and embarrassment.

“Your popularity in taverns and pleasure halls increased, certainly, but what did it get you in the end?”

“There was Rukha.” He spoke flatly and Hierna paused.

“Oh, I forgot about that dear thing. Yes, you did clean up your act then. That must have been hard work for her, building you up, showing you how good you really were. You even worked yourself into the favour of Tari Graelynia and her High Council, didn’t you? You had them all quite convinced of your good qualities as much as your noble bloodlines.”

He had loved Rukha. They had been happy.

“After your father disowned you for marrying a commoner – what ever happened to her?”

Jhahala stood in silence, hot tears of humiliation, hatred and sorrow threatened to spill down his cheeks. How could he have believed in Hierna’s sweet return to him? How could it have been so utterly replaced by this nightmare? He closed his eyes, blotting out Hierna’s perfect face, and whispered, “Malicious viper.”

“You never did find her body, did you? I wonder, did she run off with another?”

“No.”

“No; of course not. Should I tell you, ‘Hala? Should I give you the graphic account of her death at the hands – I mean claws – of her kin and clan?” Hierna clearly took pleasure from tormenting him and she grinned with cruel humour, approaching him.

Jhahala rounded, hand raised to strike, “Stop it!”

“Oh where has your chivalry gone, my sweet paladin? What gentle knight raises his hand to a lady?” His hand twitched, poised, the conflict filling his troubled eyes. “That’s right, I forgot. You lost your faith, haven’t you? Fallen from the Light; and, well, you haven’t lived like a gentleman in many moons.”

Hitting her, feeling the tender flesh of her rosy cheek break beneath his clenched fist, was the greatest relief he had ever experienced. The second time he struck her, knocking her backward, he felt the crunch as her cheekbone shattered. Yet, Hierna seemed unfazed by it.

“And just look how far you’ve fallen, Jhahala Monmahat. Your family would be so proud if they knew.” She rose up as she spoke, poised and calm as befitted the first daughter of the Second House.

“Light!” he swore, backing away, frightened by her lack of distress despite how her face was swelling.

How far had he fallen, indeed? He had failed at everything he had ever attempted, except at the vices that plagued him. And now he had struck a lady. One he had once worshiped and adored. What was he? What had he become?

She stretched out her hands to him, “No, you are quite far from what is Light.”

“Get away from me!” Jhahala scrambled backward, ducking a low-hanging branch, toward his discarded clothing and the tools of his calling.

“You loved me once. Can you not love me again? I can show you back to what was lost.” Her fingers curled, beckoning to him, her pulped and bloody face smiling at him.

“Monster!”

“Lover.”

“No!” he cried, rejecting her as he lunged for his weapons.

She laughed at him, mocking, “Strike me down; strike the monster down! That is what you do, what you are meant to do. Rid the world of my Evil, Jhahala, with your mundane mace and tarnished sword!” No longer the beauty he adored, her image was revolting to him as blood dripped from her chin and ran down her neck.

“I will!” he shouted in defiance, brandishing the mace in his strong hands.

“Bludgeon me to death then. That weapon holds no special Light-granted powers now.”

“No, it doesn’t,” came the silken-voiced reply. Jhahala wheeled to locate the speaker. Hierna, too, stopped her advance and turned, suddenly confused. “But it can.”

Jhahala found himself staring at a simply garbed figure of mixed ancestry, a graceful lute slung over his shoulder. “Rihn?” The fallen paladin had not thought of his one-time closest companion in many years; another half-forgotten, half-buried painful memory. Another of his failings had stolen the talented bard away and Jhahala had been powerless to stop it.

The figure, although shorter than the pair of elves, commanded great presence and nodded. “Take them up, Jhahala. Cut down this treacherous creature you mistake for another.”

The fallen paladin looked from Rihn to Hierna, who for the first time showed fear in her battered face. He had struck her, twice, in anger. Now, tears cut channels in the congealing blood on her cheeks, and once more she stretched out her hands to him, this time in pleading desperation.

“She is toying with you. Where was the vulnerable damsel in distress moments ago?” The voice was not as Jhahala remembered it to be when Rihn was alive, but he did not question its sincerity. “Has she not always played you like a game? Did she not lead you here under false pretences? Take up your arms and cut her down!”

Jhahala moved toward her, raising the mace once again.

“No, Jhahala, don’t do it!” Hierna was screaming now, pleading. It was a convincing display and he hesitated. “You love me, Jhahala!”

“Rihn,” he croaked, feeling very much that this was all wrong. Rihn was dead. Hierna had not been a part of his life in centuries. “How can you ask me to? I loved her.”

“But does she love you?” Hierna was nodding vigourously, frantically. “Has she ever?”

The lady fell to her knees before the conflicted knight, begging, tears streaking the face that he had injured.

“Fine, then. Do not. You are beholden, even now, to a cruel, deceitful memory. An evil memory.” Rihn stepped back, shrugging faintly. “One that would not and did not hesitate to destroy you, but do as you wish.”

Cold, clammy, trembling fingers closed over his ankles, clutching at him and Jhahala leapt back from her, pushing her back with his foot. “No!” he cried. “Haunt me no more! I despise you!”

In a single, fluid motion that spoke of years of hard training and commitment to the art of war, Jhahala turned, repositioned his mace and swung. Saliva, blood and flesh sprayed from his quarry’s face as the bulb of the weapon smashed her jaw. “Let me sleep in peace, Hierna, failure that I am!”

She screamed and collapsed backward, still reaching for him, but Jhahala clubbed her again and a third time, shattering her slender hands, crushing the side of her head. As the lady crumpled under the weight of the fourth and final blow, a wave of darkness rippled out from the impact. A shock reverberated up his arm, not from the blow but from an enormous power he was unable to control.

He dropped the weapon as blinding agony raced through his frame, contorting him in spasm and pulsing behind his eyes. His whole body writhing in pain, he clutched his head and wailed.

“Welcome, child, to the Baali,” whispered the other figure, the apparition of a lost friend, as it faded from view.

Jhahala was left curled up, weeping in the damp, dead grass of his dreamed labyrinth beneath a ruined and crumbling temple to Rone.

* * * * *

When the authorities found the prostitute’s maimed corpse in the Inn bedroom she had shared with an elfin knight, her companion was no where to be found. It was deemed that he had been abducted, or otherwise removed, for his clothing and packs remained where they had been dropped. His horse was still stabled below. That his sword and mace were gone seemed logical enough; what abductor would pass up finely forged weapons? A warrant was put out, but after a time, the human magistrate lost interest. After all, an elf was not of their ilk and Krista was but a prostitute.