Hi! I’m back with yet another installment of one of my works. Here’s chapter 2 of Iris and it’s still in that "this is different and the authoress’ isn’t exactly sure how to proceed" stage, but things should take more shape in the next few chapters. And I promise that more chapters of my other works will be out soon. Comments are desired and appreciated, my e-mail address is at the bottom, as always.

Happy Reading!

Standard Disclaimer: I don’t own the Ronins & co. Everyone else I do own and would be very upset if someone borrowed them without my permission. Please ask if you’d like to use them, chances are I’ll say yes.

c. 7/22/98

Iris

Chapter 2

"Raine, my love," Anubis whispered as he brushed a stray lock of hair away from his wife’s face. "I know you need your rest, but please come back to us soon. It’s been hours already."

Her eyes fluttered open. "Have I ever been able to deny you anything?"

"But your rest—"

"Was full of demons and darkness. It is far better to be here with you than there with them." Slowly she sat up and her once bound hair cascaded down her back.

"What happened to the bun?"

"I took it out. It was much easier to lay you down flat without all of you hair piled on your head."

"Oh," she said simply and flipped it back over her shoulder. She shivered and drew the covers tighter around her shoulders.

"Are you cold my love? I could—"

"No, this is a chill that nothing can warm. It stems directly from that girl, and those images," Rhiannon said, waving her hand in the general direction of the room they had just come from.

"What do you suppose they meant?"

"I have my suspicions but let’s go find the others first. I don’t want to have to repeat them. They’re too disturbing."

"Should we gather the others now or wait till morning?" Anubis asked, stifling a yawn.

Rhiannon looked at her watch and then the digital clock on their night table. It’s luminous numbers read 3:27. "Let’s find them now. Sage probably has them all awake anyway. Goddess knows he won’t sleep for another month. For a guy not prone to nightmares, when he does get them, they’re doozies." Rhiannon flung the covers back and slid out of bed. She almost slid to the floor, but Anubis caught her.

"Are you sure you’re ready to do this?" he asked.

"Put it this way," she said with a grim smile. "Who cares about Sage sleeping, if I don’t get this out and figure out what it is and prevent it from invading my mind, I won’t sleep. You wouldn’t want that now would you?"

"Well…"

"I also wouldn’t want to do that either, so get it out of your head."

"Oh, forgive me," Anubis said with a smile. "Let’s go find the others."

"I’m getting dressed. I can’t decipher well when I don’t have real clothes on." She walked to the closet. "And I suggest you put some real clothes on too. I can’t even think straight when you’re not fully clothed."

Anubis just laughed at his wife.

***

Cale still sat alone in the small guest bedroom. He had yet to move from his chair beside the girl’s bed. He slowly ran his thumb over the deep red marks on the girl’s knuckles.

"What happened? Who or what could have possibly wanted to harm you? I know those bruises didn’t come from merely sparing. I believed you when you said that you had injured yourself in your last solo practice session. I thought something was strange, but there was no one else in the dynasty who could have wished you harm. And what quest am I supposed to be on? Who is trying to take over the Dynasty? Why would anyone want to? All I have is questions, questions, and more questions. The others will want to know what’s going on and I have nothing to tell them. I can sense that you know something about all of this, but I have no idea what. My love, I don’t care what you did in the past. It’s what we mean to each other now that counts. Don’t you remember our promise? Goddess, no, that can’t be it." Cale stopped as his train of though suddenly derailed. He remembered something she had told him of who her former master had been. Talpa and his warlords had forced the other evil back into the recesses of the Dynasty. For centuries it remained a dim memory, its loss in battle a sign of the extent of Talpa’s power. She had served the other. Talpa had granted her mercy if she pledged her life to him. She did. The other had sworn he would destroy those who took his power away from him. It had been more than four centuries since they had last heard anything from that end of the Dynasty. If it was as Cale feared, they all had much to fear in the near future.

Cale turned his attention back to the small hand held in his much larger one. "Why couldn’t you come to me with this? You know I promised to protect you from him forever. But it was Talpa’s power that drove him off the last time. And now Talpa is gone. I never thought I’d miss my former master, but he would have come in handy right now. There has to be something we can do. My love, I swear to you now and forever, I will die to protect you from him and any other evil."

***

"Sage, please tell us what’s going on!" Rowen insisted as Sage simply sat and stared.

"That won’t be necessary," Rhiannon’s cool, calm voice came from behind the former warriors. Heads turned to face the stunning goddess. She had traded her silk nightgown for a simple green kimono. Her hair was not in its bun; the torrent of red cascaded down to hug her slim hips. She walked forward, the heels of her shoes clicking on the floor with each step. Not only did she click, but she jingled as well. Strands of ceremonial bells adorned each wrist and ankle. A longer belt of the same bells was tied loosely around her waist, the ends trailing down to the floor behind her. The others knew something very serious was about to take place if Rhiannon was decked out as she was now. "Sage, I know that was not the experience you were hoping for, I was hoping things would turn out differently as well, but sometimes things don’t work out as one would hope. Right now we need to discuss the images that Sage, Anubis and I saw. I fear that we are up against a greater evil than we have ever faced before."

"So, what you’re saying, in plain English, is that this threat is bigger than Talpa?" Ryo asked.

Rhiannon stared at him. "Yes, but you must know, this evil will not speak in plain English. It is an evil older than Talpa and a thousand times more insidious."

"What is it?" Rowen asked from the couch where he was still trying to calm Sage.

"Hate, pure and simple. It has festered for centuries since Talpa banished it from the Dynasty."

Anubis moved to embrace Rhiannon. "You can’t mean…"

"I most definitely do."

"I’m lost," Ryo said.

"What else is knew, Wildfire?" Sekhmet remarked. "He’s back?" he asked Rhiannon.

"Talpa destroyed him. You were still there when we took care of him," Dais insisted.

"We did not destroy him, we simply banished him to the furthest reaches of the Dynasty."

"But he was easy to defeat then. We’re stronger now, it should be a piece of cake."

Rhiannon shook her head at Dais. "We’ve grown stronger, as has he. He has had centuries to allow his hatred to fester. And since that is what he lives on, he has become incredibly powerful. The first time we defeated him, we had Talpa’s help. Now we have nothing but ourselves. I will need every ounce of energy all of you have to offer. We will also need my sister."

"Someone rang?" Kayura asked as she teleported in, staff in hand and chiming in harmony to the bells Rhiannon wore. "It’s good to see you again, my sister," she said, embracing Rhiannon. "I hope married life has treated you well."

"There will be time for pleasantries later. Right now we need to discuss those images. Please, everyone, sit."

"Yes, I wondered what was going on. I could make neither heads nor tails of them either."

"You could see what’s going on?" Ryo asked.

"Yes," Rhiannon answered. "Our mind link allows us to see exactly what the other sees unless one of us chooses to shut it off for whatever reason. But anyway, we need to figure out what’s going on so that we can plan the best way to attack it."

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" Mia asked from her position on the couch next to Ryo."

Rhiannon began to pace as she related her tale, the bells shivering with each step. "In the beginning, was darkness, then they Dynasty took shape. There was a figure kneeling in front of Talpa’s throne. Talpa was angry, as usual. But this was different. I was with him, next to him, as Empress. It was the time when Talpa had destroyed Hakiro’s armies and sent him to the darkest corner of the Netherrealm. As Talpa sent him away, he screamed that he would have his revenge. Then the scene shifted to a girl kneeling in front of the Master. I was not there. But in the vision, this girl pledged her life to the Master. She would serve him for all time in gratitude for his rescue of her from her previous master. The scene shifted again to a battle between the Ronins and the Warlords. Then again to the final battle and the destruction of Talpa. Then to the sparring session between Cale and the girl. Wait! The girl! She’s the one from the other vision."

"What are you talking about?" Kento asked.

"The girl who pledged her life to Talpa after Hakiro’s destruction. She’s the one with Cale," Kayura said.

Rhiannon turned on her heel to face Kayura. The bells she wore shivered violently with her sudden movement. "There was another vision. One of more destruction and complete devastation. The girl is the link. She may not be a willing link, she may not even know that she is the link, but we’ve got to do something to keep Hakiro from returning through her. He’s already sent a minion to possess her and warn us of his impending arrival, so there’s no question that he can use her as a conduit to get back here."

"And Cale’s alone in there with her," Sekhmet said.

Rhiannon turned and bolted for the guestroom, followed by her sister, the three other ex-warlords, and the two dogs. The Ronins sat and stared at each other for a moment before taking off after the others.

***

Toodles!