Dawn was pleasantly replete and just a bit drowsy. During the last few hours she hadn’t had a chance to talk with Nathan as he had been beleaguered by quite a few Kharlins who wanted him to recount the battle against the demons in their own lair. The ranger had obliged with panache, keeping them spellbound with his tale.

By now the whole village of New Haven was buzzing with the news that the threat from the giant spiders was finally over. They had been vanquished and didn’t need to be feared anymore. It was a huge relief for everyone and the mood of everyone had lightened.

At last, most of the Kharlins had gone on to talk and drink among themselves and Dawn was left at a table together with Nathan and Nuala.

Nathan sighed. “ I’m grateful for the hot meal and the chance of a decent night’s sleep in a comfortable bed without the need to watch out for beasts. I’ll have to admit I will be glad when all this is over and I have a chance to return to Atelang for a while. The last time we’d scarcely returned and finished our report when they ordered ma to accompany the expedition to the demon’s lair. So, there was just enough time to get a bit of the latest gossip, enjoy a hot bath for a change and get my gear back into order. I’ve barely managed two nights in my own bed and been out in the wilderness without a real break in between for almost two months now. It is rare for us rangers to go such a long time without pause. Too much chance that you’re making mistakes if you’re tired out. Not many rangers make it too old age in any case.”

Dawn cocked her head. “Why didn’t they send Grinna and Teren? They haven’t been out of the city for quite as long as you?”

“Madden is quite furious with her after she went and searched for you against his wishes. Not that it takes much for him to be angry at her. It almost seems to be a perpetual condition with him.” Nathan rolled his eyes.

“Apart from that, and a far more important reason at that: Her presence among the group wouldn’t have pleased the devotee. As he was doing us an enormous favour in taking part in the expedition, she would have not been chosen as a member of the group in any case.”

Dawn snorted. “Let me guess. The devotee thinks that women should not leave their home and their taking up a sword and worse having their own opinion is the root of all evil.”

Nathan smiled faintly. “Something like that, yes.”

She grimaced in distaste. The devotee had been the major reason for the success of the expedition against the demons, and for that she had reason to be grateful. But in contrast to Nathan who almost seemed to adore the man, she did not hold him in nearly such high regard. Though of course she had not gotten to know him at all. In her opinion, however, anyone who didn’t think much of Grinna was a fool, plain and simple.

“Are you really going to look for traces of the demons?” Dawn asked leisurely, feeding some leftover morsels to the cubs who lay beneath the table.

“Of course, I will. Wouldn’t dream of going against my orders, especially when they come from the devotee himself. He really is a man to admire wit his willingness to aid people, his great strength and devotion and not a bit of arrogance.” Nathan assured her.

“Well, one thing I can tell you is that your expedition did clean up thoroughly among the demons. There’s only one of them left alive by now,” said Dawn, and added with emphasis. “That’s the queen.”

Nathan raised his brows as he turned to look at her. “And how exactly would you know that?” he wondered.

Dawn bit her lip. “I had a quest to eliminate them.” She admitted sheepishly. “And about two days ago in the evening it suddenly popped up as completed. Gave me quite a bit of experience too.”

Now Nathan’s brows almost disappeared into his hairline.

“A quest and you received credit even though the soldiers killed the monsters?”

“Hey, I killed quite a few of them myself, or at least helped to kill them.” Dawn protested vehemently.

Nathan raised his hands. “I didn’t mean to devalue your contribution to the demon’s demise. But you have to admit it is just a bit unusual.”

Dawn shrugged and looked at her hands. “That may be true. Probably because it was the Trickster who gave me that quest. A few days ago he appeared in my dreams and scolded me something fierce because I had apparently gone about everything absolutely wrong. And then when your group killed the demons, I got a notification that I had completed the quest along with a commendation. He congratulated me on my efficient use of soldiers to take care of the problem.” She said drily.

At that, Nathan burst into laughter. “The Trickster has quite the humour, I have to admit.” He said when he had calmed down again, brushing tears of laughter from his eyes. “Though I wonder what will happen next? You did not get a new quest to take over the Samrakat by any chance, did you?” he teased.

Dawn cocked her head. “No, nothing of the sort. Just to take care of the demon queen. Though I haven’t the faintest idea how to find her, let alone how to kill her. She and her minions took out a whole nation of magically proficient stoneblood folk. And apparently they didn’t find a way to take her out? I have the uncomfortable feeling that task is just a bit out of my league! Though at least her minions have been taken care of for now. I have to wonder, of course these monsters were a huge threat, but your devotee and his soldiers managed to kill them. Why couldn’t a whole city of that ancient apparently very powerful folk prevail against them then?”

Nathan looked at her thoughtfully. “That is a very good question. But unfortunately not one I am capable of answering. Who knows what happened then? Maybe they were all very peaceful people and totally surprised by the bloodthirsty monsters?” He shrugged and mindlessly rubbed the scar on his cheek.

“The whole world would have to have been entirely different from what it is now, if that were to be the case.” Dawn said incredulously.

“So did you get something good for the quest?” he asked after a while.

“Oodles of experience and a skill point,” she told him, almost vibrating with excitement. “And I got to pick a branch and I’ve got an absolutely unbelievable list of skills from which to pick,” she raved on with enthusiasm.

Nathan’s eyes had widened when she mentioned that she had a branch to pick, and he cleared his throat.

“Do you mean to say you are at level 15 already?” He asked with barely concealed surprise.

“Looks like it?” she replied faintly abashed.

“You’ve grown unbelievably fast.” He said. “I know some rangers who were out in the wilderness for years before they passed that threshold.”

Dawn chewed on her lip. “I’d guess that they had no Trickster setting them up with impossible quests. It is kind of nice to get so much experience, but when I first received the quest I was everything but happy about it. Of course at the time it didn’t know that the Trickster was responsible for that whole debacle.” She grumbled, muttering something about manipulative gods who stuck their noses into her business under her breath.

Dawn looked up at Nathan quizzically and asked: “And you? Are you going to try and track the queen, now that you know she’s the only one left?”

Nathan leaned back and rubbed his neck. “I’m not really sure. I would have to return to the city to start looking and I don’t know if there’s a realistic chance to find anything, what with the battle and the rockfall and a whole party of soldiers tramping through every corner during the last days.”

“I could come with you to the city. Together with Ankou of course. We’re kind of a package deal nowadays.” Dawn offered.

“And what about the cubs?” Nathan wanted to know. “I’d hardly think you can take those two terrors along on such an expedition. No doubt they’d get lost in some corner of the city or other and we’d spend all our time searching for or rescuing them.”

The girl wrinkled her nose at the thought. “You have a point there. We couldn’t take them along. But maybe Verene and Kharma would agree to look after them for a few days?” she added hopefully.

Nuala had listened and remained silent during the exchange, but now she said with an urgency that seemed quite out of character for the always serene priestess:

“You have to find her. Find her and rid the world of that soulless abomination.”

Dawn glanced at Nuala uneasily, taken aback by her unaccustomed vehemence.

“I’ll admit that we have better chances against her now that all her minions are dead. But I still haven’t the faintest idea how to kill her. Allegedly, she is indestructible. Strange as that seems.” She brushed her hair out of her face and looked at Nuala questioningly. “I have a quest to kill her and therefore a vested interested in removing her from among the living. Why is it so important to you?”

Nuala sighed and looked at her folded hands laying on the table in front of her.

“It’s not easy to explain, but I’ll give it a try. You might say as a priestess the wellbeing of my fellow Kharlins is dear to my heart. And in a way, their souls are my business. And souls…” her ears quivered nervously.

“Souls are complicated.” She hesitated, apparently searching for the right words before she continued.

“A normal person, a healthy person combines the trinity of Mind, Spirit and Soul within herself. Now, your mind and your spirit can be be influenced by others, but your soul - your soul is yours and yours alone. Only you yourself can agree to give your soul away. Just as it is your own choice to purify it or to stain it.

But mind you, it is not as if someone comes to you with a contract and asks if you agree to part with your soul. That’s not the way it happens. Every action you take has an impact on your soul. Every time you love someone, every time you hate someone, you give a part of your soul away.

That’s why it hurts when someone you love dies. They take a piece of your soul with them.

Now when you love someone he gets a little piece of your soul. If he returns your love he exchanges it for a piece of his own soul. That means that your soul is in balance. That way you feel happy when you love someone and are loved in return.

But if you give parts of your soul away and get nothing in return, an imbalance develops. Almost every living person has a slight imbalance in their soul, one partner in a marriage loving deeper than the other for example. As long as it is slight, that’s nothing to worry about. But there is a tipping point. If the imbalance becomes too grave, then in case of a soul deficit that person will start to feel hollow.” She paused and drank some tea before she went on.

“Most won’t know why they feel that way, but they will try to fill the emptiness in some manner. Some try to fill it with possessions, like jewellery and clothes, some chase that fluttery feeling of first love with many different persons, some turn to drink, some to gambling. There are many different methods and they all inevitably fail.” She shrugged helplessly.

“If however a person has an overabundance of soul, because maybe they are loved excessively by many people, like a favoured child by example, or a very talented bard, then they may start to develop hubris and arrogance. Such persons will think they are always right and can do no wrong. Sometimes they are very charming and able to convince scores of other people of their opinions and their causes. Sometimes they are cruel and violent. That’s how tyrants are made.”

Nuala looked up and fer face was very grim when she said.

“That Rakor meddled in something he should have left well enough alone when he created the queen. Oh yes, I know it hurts when someone you love dies. But the gods have set limitations for us mortals with a reason. Ignore them at your peril.”

With a pang Dawn remembered the Lady and her wish for immortality. Had she ignored the limitations of the gods too? Was that the reason she had had to pay such a grisly price?

Plaintively, she asked.

“But he only wanted to save her life. He did everything he could for the woman he loved. He wanted to do good, so why did it have to turn out so bad?”

“Because in spite of all his genius and all of his work he didn’t know what he was doing. When he decided that Saida needed a new body, he must have thought about lots of things, created solutions for problems I don’t even know how to formulate. And he obviously succeeded in transferring her mind and her spirit into a new body. But her soul couldn’t follow, because the soul is bound to the body and it would take the act of a god or goddess to transfer it whole and undamaged. That’s not a thing mortals are allowed to meddle in.”

“But what makes you so sure that he didn’t transfer her soul? You say that only the gods can do that, but isn’t it possible that he could have found a way?” Dawn asked.

Nuala sighed and thoughtfully stroked her whiskers. “I am sure because I saw the Queen when we hid from her at the exit of the city during our escape. I am a priestess and one of my skills enables me to see your soul and the state of it, too. And she didn’t have one. What she had instead was an abomination. I told you that your soul is yours alone and that no one can take pieces of it away without your consent. And that is certainly true as long as you are alive. After you die it returns into the keeping of the gods. But at the moment of death, when your soul leaves your body there is a weakness. She must have used that as a loophole.” She rubbed her eyes tiredly then focused her gaze on Dawn.

“If a marked deficit in your soul makes you feel hollow, what do you feel if you don’t have a soul at all?” she asked, then shook her head.

“Honestly, I can’t imagine and that’s not something I want to dwell on. But if you focus on the queen’s actions, I’d say it is safe to say that she tried to fill the emptiness in herself by killing others and creating her children. Inside of her there are hundreds of different pieces of souls probably taken from the people she killed, all cobbled together. The result will not content her, it cannot. But it has certainly driven her mad.”