7. Immortal

> “For creation to exist, destruction must also exist. Those who cannot be killed also cannot be born, and no Aeseri has been born since the Ascension.” - Aeseri History Text

Athena put her hand to her temple again. There was no mistaking it: it was her blood.

“How is this possible?” Athena asked, noticing that Sekardi’s cheek bore a bruise. Was she not also immortal? Those blows may cause pain, but they should never cause damage.

“You saved me,” Sekardi said, “Thank you.”

Athena barely registered the acknowledgement.

“But I’m bleeding,” she said. And it really hurt. She had felt pain before, but this was sharp. She touched her forehead again and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, smearing red across her skin. “I can’t bleed. I’ve never bled.”

“Sorry, I forgot you’re new to this place,” Sekardi said, “We’re too far from the Citadel’s protection. We can be injured, this far out.”

Athena stared at her in disbelief. She had lived for thousands upon thousands of years and the only blood she had ever seen was from others. This couldn’t be possible.

“We’re immortal,” she said blankly.

“We’re hard to kill,” Sekardi said with a shrug that Athena thought was entirely inappropriate for the severity of the situation, “We’re very hard to kill. Even here. But the further we go out into the Wastelands? Who knows.”

Athena looked around the group. Many were wounded with cuts or bruises. None looked serious, but she had believed all of them to be impervious to physical weapons. What she was seeing was simply impossible.

“Don’t worry,” Sekardi said, “You’ll live.”

“What do you mean: the further we go into the Wastelands?”

“Away from the Citadel. It protects us, somehow. Gives us strength. The further we are from it, the weaker we become.” Sekdardi shrugged. “It’s not that bad: we’re still tough. Just not as immortal as we thought we were.”

Athena knew her wound was trivial, but never before had her mortality been in question. The short-term debilitating effect of pain had meant she avoided being struck in combat, but it had never presented actual danger.

“Caravan! Form up!” Aguel shouted. He gripped the large wooden spear that was lodged into the leading rokkar, leant back and pulled. The creature moaned as the tip tore its thick hide just as much on the way out as it had on the way in, but one of the Aeseri was beside it and administered a kind of thick paste to the wound. It stopped the bleeding and appeared to soothe the creature.

Aguel continued to bark instructions and Engella and Aeseri refastened cargo, treated rokkars, and readied the caravan. Athena stood, still too dumbstruck to even remember that if she didn’t try to escape she could find herself back in a cage.

Aguel approached her. He had a cut across his shoulder that still bled. Again: not fatal, but not pleasant. He acted as if it wasn’t there. Athena now realised why his torso was scarred in the way that it was: he had fought battles out here, and it seemed the Citadel’s protection faded with distance for Engella as much as for Aeseri.

“Well, Greysky,” he said, “I would say your fighting skills have earned you your freedom. Which is just as well as we’re running low on cages.” He looked at the splintered wood that had held her. The rokkar was back on its feet and apparently unconcerned by the treated wound on its side. If only the same could be said for Athena still touching the small cut on her forehead.

“What?” Athena said. Aguel laughed as she stared at the red smear on her fingertips.

“I’d forgotten what a shock it was, the sight of your own blood. But you’ll get used to it.” He slapped her on the arm, partly as a gesture of solidarity and partly to rouse her. He pointed towards the three Orques she had killed. “At least you’re harder to kill than these things.”

She stared at the bodies. She had often thought about what it must be like to be mortal, but she had never really contemplated it as something that applied to her. She had never been anything but an observer of the fragility of life.

“Climb up onto the second rokkar in line,” Aguel told her,”You ride with Sekardi. She will want to thank you for saving her from the Orques.”

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The importance of what she’d done struck her now: Sekardi was not just in danger of kidnapping, it was her very life that was at risk. In all her millenia she had never even thought of an Aeseri facing real danger, but now it seemed death was even a possibility, given enough time.

Aguel turned away to command the caravan.

“Forced march to Kaz’um!” he shouted, “Pick up whatever you can, but make it fast!”

Athena looked down the line of rokkars. Some were wounded but none incapacitated from the attack. Even the rokkar that had carried her cage, which she had thought seriously injured by the spears that toppled it, stood ready to continue the journey. She could see why they were used in the caravans: they were the toughest creatures she’d encountered across the many planets and star systems she’d lived on.

She stood still, looking up at the rokkar, still in shock at what she had just learned. She was mortal. She could die. She had always made choices that affected the lives of thousands, at first, and then millions, and then billions, but she had never been in real danger. Now, as she looked back up and down the caravan, she felt vulnerable for the first time in her life.

What would it take to kill her, she wondered? Would a fall from a rokkar do it? If not here, then perhaps elsewhere, even further from the Citadel? Would a spear kill her? What about a rockfall? How close to death had she just been?

If she had known, would she still have rushed to Sekardi’s aid?

She was shaking, unable to think of anything but the perils she might now encounter.

“Greysky!” Aguel shouted from the lead rokkar, “Mount up! We’re moving. With or without you.”

Athena shook herself from her trance. The caravan had packed up what they could, leaving only a few crates too damaged to remount on a rokkar. Sekardi sat on the rokkar above her and beckoned. Suddenly, the mount looked very high up. What if she slipped as she climbed?

Trembling, she took hold of the rope that trailed from the rokkar’s saddle and pulled herself up the side of the beast. She tried to compose herself as she sat on the leather beside Sekardi.

“Are you okay?” Sekardi asked. It was something no-one had ever needed to ask before. Athena nodded, knowing her voice would betray her if she spoke.

The caravan started into motion and a shiver of fear ran through Athena as the movement unsettled her balance. She grabbed the edge of the saddle to steady herself. Sekardi looked at her and smiled.

“The bleeding has stopped,” her companion said. Athena put her hand to her head feeling the thin line of encrusted blood. “As I told you: we’re still pretty tough, even here.”

“How tough?” Athena asked in a wavering voice. Sekardi shrugged.

“It’ll take more than a spear, I know that.” She lifted up her tunic and showed a scar below her ribs. “That’s what did this. Although that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.”

Athena stared at the scar.

“Will it ever go away?”

Sekardi shrugged again.

“Maybe if I spent more time closer to the Citadel, it might heal completely. But then there’s the Horde, so it’s not worth the risk.” They both shuddered. Athena remembered her brief time in their clutches and had no wish to repeat the experience. “I have no idea if it will totally heal, really. But it’s a reminder to be careful.”

Athena didn’t think she would ever need a reminder that she was mortal.

“And… thanks for saving me from the Orques,” Sekardi continued, “I don’t know what they might have done with me. They’ve never been so bold before… They just raid and take what they can and then leave.” She looked thoughtful for a second. “I’ve never seen them stay and fight like that.”

That explained why the caravan were focussed on defending the cargo when it was clear to Athena that they had a different tactic in mind.

“I’m not going to let one of us be taken by one of… them… whatever they are,” Athena assured her.

The idea of leaving Sekardi had not even crossed her mind at the time. She had leapt into battle without thinking. She thought she would do it again in an instant, but now she knew the danger she faced, would she? Charging headlong at three armed assailants was one thing when you thought yourself invincible, but it was quite another if your life was at risk.

“Where are we going?” Athena asked, “What is… Kaz’um? Was that what Aguel said?”

“Straight ahead,” Sekardi said, although Athena could see no other choice than straight ahead, the cliffs either side of them climbing ever higher. They weren’t even halfway through this mountain range and, despite this increased speed, she couldn’t see them making it out before nightfall. If there were more Orques in the area then they’d attack again, she was sure of it.

“Yes, but what is Kaz’um?” she asked, “Or is it a who?”

“It’s a what. The D’varsha have made a fortress in these mountains.”

Athena stared at her.

“D’varsha? Here?”

Sekardi nodded and smiled.

“Yes. I forgot how new you are. In some ways you seem surprisingly at home already.”

Athena continued to stare. How was it possible? The D’varsha were nearly as old as the Aeseri and had been in the mortal plane before the Ascension. Yet they had never been able to cross the divide to the astral plane, not to Athena’s knowledge at least.

“Have the D’varsha ascended?” she asked Sekardi. How could she not know about this?

“No. They’ve found another way to get here.”

Athena stared at the thing line of the canyon ahead. It was incredible to think that there was another way to the astral plane that didn’t involve ascension. But more incredible was the ray of hope it offered: if the D’varsha could come here, maybe however they did it could send her back. Back to the mortal plane. Back to build her followers. Back to build her power. Back to take the fight to Lucathar once more.

“Tell me everything you know about them,” Athena instructed her companion, staring intently ahead, a new purpose fixed in her mind.