Pol's Tale - Part 5
I had overheard enough of the conversation to know some of what was going on. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, was getting married these days. Myronides and Jyslin, Darkmoon and Sirak, Estrelle and Crowbar, the list was endless. It was almost like a huge wave of mystical energy swept through the land removing the minds from good, sensible, honest, hard-working guild members. At least I had made the decision to suffer in silence. These saps would be suffering openly any day now.
Which, while I digress yet again, leads me to my tale. Cyrix and Siren. If ever a sap existed on the world, it was Cyrix. Big. Strong. Dumb. Honest. Helpful. This described the Giant to a tee. I knew him better than most, as we were in the same following for some time, before he went and decided to impress the powers that be and become immortal. Where I had a solid streak of depravation and sneakiness to help me through Sinclair's corrupting influence, Cyrix took *everything* into his huge, pure heart. He was a great campaign leader, despite being dumb as dirt. He had, if nothing else, an excellent sense of character and was imminently dependable in a fight. We got along pretty good for a while, and rumor has it he's lightened up quite a bit. But that's now; this is a story of then.
Siren, as opposed to popular legend, was not nearly the all-powerful and vengeful goddess she's known to have been. In fact, as a mortal, she was quite loveable and clumsy. As a follower of Slash, she stood out from the rest of his disciples as a sore thumb. Poor sense of direction, easily put off, timid. Given Slash's tendancy to suffer fools lightly, it's amazing she did so well. Well..., maybe not *that* amazing. She was handy with her weapons, and had one thing no one before or since (save my little elven lass) had. She was incredibly, incontrovertably, stunningly, beautiful. Even my jaded, conniving little heart skipped a beat in her presence.
Obviously, Cyrix didn't stand a chance. He grew to love her so deeply, even his overactive sense of duty made him do incredibly lurid things to win her hand. I'll skip the details, but note that they behaved no where close to appropriately.
Before Cyrix won his place amongst immortals, Siren made her ascension and started off as a benign and loving goddess. During one of Cyrix's many mortal absences from the world, however, Siren had smitten another unwitting victim, Thaygar. Another giant warrior (coincidence? I think not) had taken up residence in Siren's heart. Upon Cyrix's return, he found Siren had not only become immortal, but had given up her native alignment. She had become evil, and had married Thaygar. In time, Siren bore a son, Thayren. Although, Thayren was suprisingly gentle given his who his parents were. I'll let you make whatever conclusions you wish.
At any rate, this affected Cyrix, besotted fool that he was. In what could be considered more a fit of pique than anything, he strove to become immortal. I think he secretly wished to vie for Siren's hand, over Thaygar's literally dead body. Upon attaining his goal, he found the world was quite different than he expected. Immortals did not fight so, Thaygar was his superior and he would have no chance, and the hardest lesson of all: Siren was truly and unswayingly corrupt.
Cyrix fled the world once again. I suppose when one's not terribly bright, one needs to take incredible amounts of time to think things through. I felt bad for my ex-comrade. So, I did what any other normal incredibly powerful (for my time, at least) Master Mage would do. I declared war on Siren's entire following. And, amazingly enough, it worked. While only a single battle was fought, I had managed to force an entire following to take a vacation. I think this led to Siren's eventual downfall. At least, my significant ego says so.
I stopped to take a long drink of water, looking about at the faces of my erstwhile audience. A few just smirked, and turned away. I guess it's hard to realize just how devastating matters of the heart can be to some. I know I was devastated, and my heart is far harder than many I know.
Just then a deep voice, musical like the chiming of steel on steel, spoke.
"Big, dumb and honest, eh?" it said.
My incantation for seeing the invisible world was still in effect, yet I could not see who spoke. We were in the presence of an immortal. And given the voice, which I recognized, not just any immortal.
I gulped, and tried to word an apology, but the voice just spoke again.
"Accurate, I suppose, though you were way off about Thayren. Siren and I had our brief affair long before he came to be. Too long, if you catch my meaning."
"Uhhh...right. Of course," I said, trying to smile.
"And yes, I wasn't the brightest of mortals. Immortality, however, brings incredible wisdom. Remember this about all of us."
Then he left, with an incredible, ear-shattering explosion. We were all dazed for a moment, heads ringing like bells. The day was not going well at all.
While the rest of the temple was recovering from Cyrix's departure, I took the moment to sneak away. In the span of 24 hours, I manager to give myself a rousing headache, spill my guts to everyone I met, insult an immortal of the realm, and run out of cigars.
All I could think of as I left Midgard was, what else could go wrong?