Fighter looked at the candle that cast its shadows about the little space it illuminated. There were many half burnt candle sticks about, but tonight only one was lit. Fighter sat up on her bed and watched the twin moons pass through the window beyond, the green glow she hated most of all, and she recalled the story of the goblin home there. She stared up at it and reached to the alcove where the candle sat.

The soft warm wax molded easily to the pressure of her fingers and she held it aloft in front of her, so that the candle flame loomed larger than the distant moons. She dropped the candle, it landed with a soft ‘smack’ noise, and Fighter lifted her bare foot. She snarled at the green in the sky and stomped the light of the candle out, heedless of the flame’s brief moment of caressing her skin. The wax splattered or scattered around.

Fighter however, gave it no heed. She had eyes only for the moons. “You took turns on me, over and over while I held the severed hand of my lover. You held me down, you beat me. You dropped your seed in me, all of you until I stank of it and of you. But I know the truth, you green skinned bugs.” Fighter spat every word without a tear, only venomous hatred poured out instead. Her fist clenched violently tight and it came up to take the space between her eyes and the moon where the candle had been before.

“You need us, and you’re terrified of us. Without the hob, I’d have easily killed you all, maybe Warrior would have still died, maybe Wizard couldn’t be saved. But without that Hob, you were my prey, not the other way around! Even while you made me cry and wail and scream, I never begged. I killed your seed here in this temple, like I killed your kind before. You can’t have me anymore!”

She shouted out to the green moon that stories told her sent the goblins to her world as a plague.

The darkness of her room was partially cast off by the light of the two moons, and she turned away, putting her back to them before going to the door. She flung it open, stepped into the hall which had no light, and began to walk.

‘This hall is always lit… now?’ She had cause to wonder, and briefly the memory returned of the cave in which her life had been destroyed. In that brief moment, she feared the dark, the shadows and the feel of goblin hips and a rod of goblin flesh slapping against and into herself again and again. Fighter froze where she stood, her heart raced like wild horses over the plains.

But then it began to slow down. The rising fear crested like a high wave, and began to diminish, it was less, and less, and less, until she could move again. She stepped forward into the pitch black, the stone halls in all their darkness that had briefly made her tremble, lost their power. A faint unpleasant memory remained, but Fighter put one foot before the other. Her feat with the great double door meant for six to manage but which had submitted to her strength, the approving eyes of Abbadar over her as she worked… it conspired to strengthen her resolve.

Her steps, first slow and hesitant, her back hunched and watchful as if she were a thief in the night, changed. She began to straighten up, the falling of her foot went faster and faster. ‘You can do it!’ A voice called out in her head, her proud father’s face smiled at her ten thousand times when saying those words, and though his body was gone, his spirit lingered on in her will…

To take…

One….

More…

Step…

Until she’d taken them all without even knowing it, she walked with her back straight and eyes clear until she was at the great silver doors bedecked in their richness and artistry.

But the eyes of Abbadar depicted on the doors were not the only eyes staring back at her. Grandmother Swan stood waiting, and with her, the Swan Mother.
They waited bedecked not in their customary white, but in a rich deep black as deep in its darkness as a slab of obsidian. They had their hands folded down before themselves, and each bowed their head in slow warmth. They were illuminated on either side by a pair of candles in alcoves, and the shadows danced over them all and made the silver door to shine with light and dance with shadows cast by their bodies.

“We knew you would come, there was never any doubt for us.” Grandmother Swan said with a wrinkled smile on her face.

“No, not even a little.” Swan Mother echoed, her hair hung low behind her back and it swayed slightly when she bowed, it shone brightly, reflecting the golden light and her more youthful smile was a mirror of the old woman to her right.

“I had no choice, I had to.” Fighter said in a still, small voice that echoed with the steel resolve that had once made her train relentlessly under her father.

Grandmother Swan’s creaky, weary voice spoke of the depths of her great age, though she seemed to be strong of limb, a weariness underlay her words that was almost greater than the venom of her hatred for goblins. “Then it is time you know the truth. Before we go within. The worship of Abbadar is not all warmth, love, and light. There is a darker side, a side of sacrifice. You may have heard how the goblins have sometimes sacrificed women in their grim rituals… but they… they are not alone in what they do. We sacrifice dark creatures to provide Abbadar’s blessings. That is why I pray in shadow, all who recover as you have, all who make it as far as you do, make a choice. My choice, to savor Abbadar’s darkness, and sacrifice the dark creatures, making potions from their blood and fertilizer of their flesh, preserving what life energy we can as mana to help adventurers.”

“I… I follow Abbadar’s light… I respect the darkness, but I am not… not suited to that. It’s why it was I who drew you from the cart…” Swan Mother said and held out a hand toward Fighter, while pressing the other against her own breast. “I… yes, hate them, but I want only to heal those who come here, far more than I want revenge for what was done to me. When we pass through this door, you will make the choice of which path to pursue. Abbadar’s light, or Abbadar’s darkness, nobody will tell you what is right for you. To kill goblins, or to heal humans… both are necessary tasks and even the great Saint Slayer will not argue.”

“How… How do I choose? And what comes after?” Fighter asked, her eyes widened, she felt the pressure settling over her that mimicked the day of her father’s passing.

Grandmother Swan reached within the sleeve of her robes and drew from it a black obsidian knife. She extended it toward Fighter with the pommel first.

Grandmother Swan’s voice carried on, creaky but inexorable, soft, yet unflinching. Like flowing water, her words washed over Fighter’s spirit, and the younger woman could not help but hang on every word.

“When we pass within, you will see an altar, on that altar you will see a full grown goblin. It will be chained, it will be helpless. If you wish to follow the black, sheath it in the goblin’s heart. If you wish to follow the light, there is a sheath of leather as well. Sheath it in the black leather instead if you wish to follow Abbadar’s light. If you choose the dark, you will be under my lone instruction as my replacement instead of Swan Mother. If however, you choose the light side, then you will train under Swan Mother. She will follow me as head of this temple, and when I die, and she takes my place… you will become Swan Mother, as she becomes Grandmother Swan. So it has always been, my child.” Grandmother Swan took Fighter’s shoulder in her free hand, her long staff tapped the stone lightly while Fighter stared down at the blade.

“Whatever you choose… as a final consequence, I remind you that there is no going back from it without leaving here entirely. Abbadar does not allow another roll of the dice. If you are in his shadow, you are there until death, and if you are in his light, it is the same. Whatever your choice, once you make it, you will have to live with it for the rest of your natural life.” Grandmother Swan squeezed lightly once and turned around, as did Swan Mother with her.

From beyond, the doors began to open, Fighter heard the faint sound of multiple women struggling to open the way, as soon as the doors parted, she heard the faint crackling yowl of a goblin struggling in its bonds. It bucked and arched its back, the long ugly green nose inhaling the scent of the room. Its wild eyes staring around uncomprehendingly. ‘It wants to rape us all… it hates this place and wants to defile it, defile us.’ Fighter knew it immediately, the little green thing was naked, which was how she quickly saw as she approached the altar, that it had already been deprived of its favorite weapon between its legs.

It whimpered when it found itself staring up at Fighter’s eyes, ‘Are those noises ‘words’? Or just growls and mewls like a dog or a cat might make?’ Fighter wasn’t sure, Within the room, there were other women dressed in black, but also there were women in white, black swans, white swans, and a moment more, Grandmother Swan and Swan Mother were on the opposite side of the grey granite altar. Behind them stood the towering statue of Abbadar. Fighter looked up at the great glass windows and the depictions of paradise and destruction.

Torches in the room sparked and cast orange light about the sacred place of worship, the incantations of Abbadar’s faithful of black and white alike were intoned together as one.

The surrealness of it all hit her like a fist to the gut. Like the moment she realized her warrior was dead and would never be again. That a lifetime of dreams had been cut down because of a jutting stone in the darkness of the cave that caught the boy unawares and disarmed him before his foes.

Her thoughts were grim and many, fear, loathing, hope, longing, all ran through her heart, and below her gaze a goblin groveled in the most servile, whimpering voice the little monster had for its own. As she looked at it, it was a pathetic little thing, it would die no matter what choice she made… but her choice could offer it a reprieve of a few minutes life at least.

‘Isn’t that what the last king said as he lay dying? All my kingdom for one more hour of life? And here I can grant that to this pathetic wretch… or not.’ Fighter thought and cradled the blade like a newborn, the sharp edge left tiny painless nicks on her skin from which tiny bits of red were exposed.

‘The knife before me… the handle toward my hand. One thrust, the deed is done, my life rewritten again… leather sheath or flesh sheath… the choice is mine.’ Fighter looked down at her as the incantations rose higher and higher. “Can I heal the wounded? Can I take vengeance for the wounds? What can I do? What can’t I do…?’ She wondered and wondered as doubt whirled and raged like a torrent, like the great storms that bent or broke mighty trees in the forest she once played in with a young Warrior.

‘You can do it!’ The voice of the lost shouted from the mists of time and memory, calling her to find her way.

Fighter held up the knife, “I can do it!” She shouted, and Fighter… Sheathed the blade.

The next time she heard that voice from the deep recesses of the beyond, she did not passively listen. She answered back.:

‘You’re right dad. You were always right. I can do it.’

And for the rest of her life, she did.