And up with part one of the next chapter. I do have Part two completed, but I'm not posting from home today. I'll add it later on in the week.
Apologies for Yahell's wonderful handling of anything that's not actually typed directly onto a blog, but I don't like to write these things on something so tempremental ;)

UPDATE: The work below can be found in my pics, but I thought I should post it along with this fic, as it was actually what insprired me to sketch it in the first place. There is also new art in my pics :)
Below - left to right - Tsavong Lah, Khalee Lah.





Now:

Tsavong Lah did not look best pleased. From the deathly cold look in his black as vonduun crab-shell eyes, to the way a pre-emptive snarl twisted his grotesquely scarred visage, there was no mistaking the raw anger that raged within him. It had almost been a full cycle, and the priest had not yielded any new information. He had evaded the warmaster at every turn, as was to be expected of someone who gave his all to the true way ? in particular, to Yun Harla.
Short of having Harrar interrogated under suspicion of a form of heresy, Tsavong Lah was going to have to rethink his approach to this matter. And interrogation was out of the question, especially if his suspicions were falsely placed. The gods may show their scorn by worsening the condition of his new graft more so. He could not afford to let that happen.

"Warmaster, if I may say so, you worry needlessly, while the gods might grow impatient for the twin sacrifice promised to them, I personally have confidence that their wait will soon be at an end."

How did this one always seem to see right through his very thoughts? It both irritated and astounded him sometimes. But even Tsavong Lah could not claim to know the secrets of the priest caste. Nor did he wish to appear curious, he merely allowed Harrar to continue with a simple nod of allowance from himself. He would analyse his every word, scrutinizing the image before him. It was often hard to gage much from a villip?s representation of anyone?s features, particularly when the 'transmission' was being received over a long distance.

"Do you not think that if your son had died dishonourably, the gods would have made this known to you? That his failure to exact the orders and task you yourself bestowed upon him would not have been reflected somehow in your limb?s precarious state?" Harrar went on, his mind racing but he still managed to keep a close check on his lies, there was nothing worse than someone who ill used deception and proceeded to then trip over their own messy lies.

"There has not been any such change." The warmaster replied, the slight edge now slipping from his voice. " Nor has its condition improved, what say you?"

Harrar knew he had very little time to turn this around. The conversation had been edging to a blades point all along, but never before now had it teetered so precariously.
With one last silent prayer, Harrar took a deep inhalation of air and then plunged into the conversation that could well spell his doom if he had - and he hoped he had not - judged this incorrectly.

"Then it is as you suspected fearsome one. The gods await what is owed to them, the jeedai twins." He paused as if for effect,
"Your capturing one has appeased their full wrath, but they will not wait forever."

There was a notable look of interest upon the villips representation of the warmasters face and so the priest continued along his chosen path.
"You must act swiftly to bring the other to bear, only then will your fate be decided by the gods."

For what seemed like an eternity, silence befell them both. Harrar became keenly aware of a dull thumping in his head above the gentle sounds of the living vessel that contained him. It never really registered with him that this was the sound of his pulse through the stresses of rising blood pressure, nor that his body next began to protest through lack of oxygen, not until he began to feel eerily light headed. How long had be been holding his breath? And how long had the warmaster noticed?
Flustered, he breathed deep once more, he was not afraid, he?d know this might have come to this and it was not becoming of one as high a rank as he to fear much, in particular, death.
Yun Harla had smiled upon him thus far, if this was to be his last conversation with his old friend, with anyone, he would die willingly and safe in the knowledge that he truly believed he had done the correct thing. If he survived? Then it seemed he would have much to contemplate come the next time he sat before the effigies of the gods.

"The gods will not want for anything that is owed." Tsavong Lah rumbled, shattering the silence with his words, the fringed flesh of his lips spreading into chevroned segments to form a very intimidating smile.
"It is as you say then?"

Harrar must have visibly sagged upon his seating place, because he felt the fleshy polyp shift beneath his weight to compensate.
He was not about to count his Vua"sa"s however, there was a notable look of something shadowy that lurked beneath the surface in Tsavong Lah?s eyes. Perhaps this would not have been visible to the average eye, but Harrar knew this one well, too well.
All that diminished for a brief moment, when it appeared the warmaster was interrupted by something, or someone, nearby. Something that warranted his full attention too and Harrar noted no hint of anger at the fact Tsavong Lah had been turned away from his current task.
When the warmaster returned to focus on the priest, Harrar braced himself, retaining all the poise one would expect from someone of his status.

"I must depart for domain Lah. I will have need for you to soon rejoin part of our fleet above the world the infidels call Borleias."

That had been unexpected, and the priest could not hide the small hint of trepidation from seeping into his voice.
" Was not the situation at Borleias being dealt with by Commander Wyrpuuk domain Cha?"

"It was." Tsavong Lah responded in an irksome manner. Obscured from the view of Harrar due to the Villip forming only the facial features, the warmaster tensed immensely until he felt the tension put pay to the underlying anger that he wished not to show before Harrar.

"This has changed I see." The priest offered, somewhat reservedly.
"You will await my orders." Tsavong Lah cut in curtly and Harrar had little time for formal endings as the villip reverted back to it?s natural, globulous state.
Left alone in the organic privacy chamber, Harrar at first felt relief. He still had his life, Yun-Harla had indeed answered his pleas, but in typical fashion, the trickster never failed to surprise. She was, he thought, everything you wished her to be, but never predictable and to second guess Yun-Harla was at ones own peril.
A flicker of a smile played across the ashen priest's painfully cracked lips, as he remembered his old friend?s words.
'You will await my order'
So he was to depart for Borleias then? And what he would encounter there he was certain would surprise him. No one second guessed the trickster, not even he.