Tagaern -It was just a moment of time. One second I was swinging my sword and the next the patchwork of construct warriors were upon me, claws gouging into me and I was falling. It was honestly so fast that I felt no pain. I opened my eyes and found myself in a large campaign tent. Around me were all the trappings of a high ranking officer’s tent, perhaps a general or even a King's. Vassals and squires attended to the lords that milled about. Low chatter hung in the air. There was a feeling, like I was waiting for a general or King to enter and set things into motion…it was reflected in the posture of all those around me.
Everything and everyone around me seemed strange and yet familiar at once. I noticed what appeared to me at first to be a medicine woman or perhaps a healer making her way through the crowd. As she drew nearer, her features sharpened and she became more tangible than the others in the tent. Her clothing was the one thing about her that remained in constant flux. At times, she appeared to have a white gown flowing around her and a shadowy black companion who wore feathers for a cape. In the next moment, she was wearing the feathered cape. No one around me seemed to take notice of her and her sometimes present companion. Her face was alabaster white and her eyes were dark pools. When she casts her gaze on me it felt as if I had no secrets before her. Her bird-like movements were unsettling at first, but they softened when she started to speak to me.
“Tagaern Ünser,” she said my name as though a question, as though my form was perhaps as transient as hers. I was forming thoughts to speak, but no words could come from my lips. She nodded as if she could understand me and my situation, my thoughts.
Her face became more human and her form settled to be that of a woman in her early forties. She was fair complected with worry lines decorating her empathetic eyes. She said she was a messenger from the material world and explained that I could remain here, and that I would soon be called to the next place, or that I could follow her and return to the material world. Somehow her words were at once a realization and a confirmation to me. Beyond the white light that was just past the tent flap was the immaterial. I knew my father, Stott Ünser, had gone there and so many of my Red Shields too. She said my friends had marshaled their resources to allow me to continue my journey and I could feel the gratitude within me well up. And I thought of the young Hakaar who I’d left all too soon. There was still too much to do, I thought.
"The Goddess Dulari bids you return if you feel you have unfinished business,” the messenger continued. "She also says that you have earned your place here and the next place would welcome you with open arms."
As she awaited my answer she solidified further in my mind. Her black hair showed threads of silver, owing to her age. Her voice became crisp like a fall wind. “I will take you home. You need but take my hand and will it so.”
I reached out, affirming my intent to return and the companion in black now became more visible—a crow the size of two men unfolded his wings blacking out the tent and all others in it. The woman pulled me into the black and his wings enfolded around me. Points of light began to sparkle and I found myself floating through a vast night sky, the woman leading the way before me.
Then a crack of light appeared ahead, splitting wider and forming the shape of a horseshoe with the open end facing down. Then it split once more revealing a dimly lit room beyond... White marble pillars set in a circle around a stone table lay beyond. I entered the space floating across a reflecting pool until I came to a rest beside the stone table. There before me lay my material vessel. It appeared as cold and lifeless as the table it lay upon. So strange to see it, naked and newly washed, feeling alien and looking heavy to live inside. The scars earned in service of my trade were evident. A talisman of Qinnah rested in my folded hands.
The messenger stood across from me by the vessel. She seems to be fully a part of the material world now. “Lie down and we shall finish your journey.”
When next I opened my eyes, they felt dry, and the chamber looked the same yet strangely different…earthly. The ceremony had brought me back and I gazed up the marble pillars to see at the landing above my brothers in trade watching. Weakly, as though I was just learning again what it was like to move my body, I raised my hand in greetings and simultaneous thanks as the priestesses on either side draped me in cloth, the talisman of Qinnah clasped in the other. There was more to do this day and this life to be sure.
