The Eye of Anubis: Cutscenes

[Isabella]

• • "On the contrary, Thomas. Your student raises a good point. A partnership of sorts, perhaps? You handle the desert, criminals, ancient artifacts of evil and such-like. I handle the University bureaucracy when we return."
    
    Marchand-Renier sipped his drink for a moment, before adding thoughtfully. "You may be getting the safer end of the partnership."

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Professor Marchand-Renier paused for a moment in the courtyard, taking the time to check his appearance. It was not normally an activity he indulged in. Although possessed of impeccable dress and fashion sense, he was not a vain man, and when he groomed himself in the morning he tended to stay groomed. This, however, was a special occasion. It was not every day that the Head of the University urgently requested your presence at his personal estate. Marchand-Renier had every intention of taking every minute he needed to look just right. After all, every minute he spent attending to himself was another minute Lord Balfour had to wait on him, and it cheered Sebastian immensely to leave the man to rot.

To that end, Sebastian examined himself in the magnificent crystal panels of Lord Casteele’s door. He scrupulously combed his hair once more, making sure every hair was exactly in place, before combing it once again just for good measure. He heard some rustling in the bushes behind him, momentarily ignoring it in favor of straightening his cravat for the fifth time. Still, it signaled that it was time for him to get moving. With a resigned sigh, Marchand-Renier politely knocked on the door, folding his arms behind his back as he waited for the servants to open it.

The flurry of servants descended upon him almost immediately, ushering him inside, offering to take his coat, suggesting a snifter of brandy. Sebastian smiled politely and lingered in the hallway, accepting the offers one by one, greeting the personnel individually, gratefully accepting the drink. He handed over his coat with a bit of a fuss, but eventually conceded, mentally counting it off as a loss. After delaying the staff with their own offered pleasantries, he finally allowed himself to be guided upstairs, handing the untouched brandy off to some unwitting servant. The staff hung around him anxiously as the door was opened for him. Sebastian mentally filed this detail away.

The room itself was dark, lit only by a single oil lamp. It took Sebastian a few minutes to adjust his eyes to his dreary surroundings. Even now, he could only make out an indistinct figure in the dim light.

“Professor Marchand-Renier, as you requested, my Lord,” he announced himself politely, remaining in the hallway until he had been acknowledged. The light flooding from behind him cast a long, black shadow across the room.

“Sit down,” the Lord’s voice commanded, his voice trembling with intensity. “The servants will leave us now.”

Both Marchand-Renier and the servants obeyed. The door closed quietly behind him. Sebastian could make out Lord Casteele’s form better now, sitting upright in his bed. The Headmaster’s proud face was marred by a broken nose and deep gashes, his posture was stiff and difficult, his breathing was labored. The priests, it seemed, had managed to save his precious fingers - Lord Casteele would cast spells again. A pity.

“It’s a relief to see you are doing well, my Lord,” Sebastian said cordially. “That unfortunate business has cost the University too much already. No one could have expected such a shocking ploy from that madman. Fortunately, the Council fully understands-“

He was cut off by a large dossier flying over to him, magically propelled by Lord Casteele’s will. It hit him in the chest with more force than was strictly necessary. “Read it,” de Casteele ordered.

Marchand-Renier did so, dutifully perusing the assembled documents. He was impressed, despite himself, on the size and thoroughness of the collected pile. It contained quite a few filed reports, sworn statements from University arcanists, transcribed magical divinations, and several professional opinions from respected University personnel, all amounting to the same thing: that he, Professor Marchand-Renier, had broken into the University administration building and stolen a number of documents during the confusion at the auditorium.

Marchand-Renier set the dossier down and looked at Lord Balfour. The other man seemed to be expecting some sort of reply. Sebastian considered his words carefully.

“Yes, that sounds about right,” he said, after some thought. He wondered vaguely if he should call for a doctor. Lord Balfour was nearly choking on his own fury.

“You admit to this villainy? This outrage?” Lord Balfour roared at him. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Ah. My Lord may, perhaps, recall the warnings I wrote to the University on the subject of both Cavendish and the Priestess of Anubis,” Marchand-Renier said, clearing his throat slightly. He gave it a moment before continuing. “As well as the responses I received for said warnings. I felt it may have been imprudent for those documents to be discovered. If it were revealed that the University knew of the impending attack that cost the Councilor his life...”

Sebastian trailed off. At the corners of his perception he could hear slight scratching noises from the walls. There was a long pause as it became apparent he would not continue. “You destroyed them,” Lord Balfour stated flatly, his features still livid with anger.

“They are... safe,” Sebastian replied.

Marchand-Renier did not elaborate, instead electing to wait for the Headmaster to catch up. Lord Balfour tended to be distressingly slow with such crude and mundane affairs as blackmail.

Still, he was a brilliant man. Realization began to creep into Lord Balfour’s features, and if the Headmaster had still had the strength to cast spells, it was likely Sebastian would have been disintegrated on the spot. Sebastian felt increasingly vindicated for the arrangements he had already made, as for a moment it seemed like de Casteele would order him to be hauled out and shot. “Where?” Lord Balfour demanded.

“Safe,” Marchand-Renier repeated. In truth, even he wasn’t quite sure where they were at the moment. It made it harder for the Brotherhood to pry the information out of him.

“You miserable vermin-!” Balfour thundered, gripping his bedpost with all his meager strength, before cutting himself off. The Headmaster could hear the scratching now too, it seemed. Sebastian smiled inwardly at the expression on Balfour’s face as the significance of it dawned on him. A poor choice of words on his Lordship’s part, to be certain.

Sebastian felt the bone-like fingers around his neck far too late to react - of all the things he had anticipated, he had not expected the Headmaster to physically lunge at him. The cruel, hooked talons of a hunting bird pressed painfully into his neck, threatening to slash his throat wide open if he struggled. The claws flexed slightly, restricting his air and drawing blood, as Sebastian found himself staring into Lord Casteele’s face. The golden eyes of an owl stared back at him. “And what do you presume to demand from Lord de Casteele, Professor Marchand-Renier?” Balfour hissed dangerously.

It said something of Marchand-Renier that he managed to keep most of his composure. It might have pleased Lord Balfour to know how difficult it was. The impending loss of air was enough to make any man panic, and the simple sensation of another man’s touch brought agonizing memories of Cavendish flooding back to him. But it was the eyes that truly horrified Sebastian. Some deep, primal part of his mind quailed at the sight of them, instinctually trying to freeze in terror. You are a man, not a mouse, he sternly reminded himself.

“My Lord, I presume nothing. I demand nothing,” Sebastian said, speaking very carefully. Every word threatened to plunge the claws deeper into his neck. “I intend nothing by my actions. If it were revealed that I removed the documents and hid them from the government, I would be ruined along with the University. Even if I somehow concealed my own involvement, my career, and that of my colleagues, would not survive. The documents are detrimental to my own interests as well as yours... so long as I am alive.”

The talons flexed again at the warning, then unhooked themselves, none too carefully. Sebastian put a hand to his neck as de Casteele’s hands reverted, instinctively swallowing. The scratching at the walls, agitated by the sudden attack, was now settling down again. He suspected Lord Casteele had only let him go out of physical exhaustion, rather than the effectiveness of his rhetoric. The Headmaster was a proud man, however, and for the moment, Sebastian had him.

“Then what do you want?” Lord Balfour asked, harshly.

To escape all of this, Sebastian thought to himself, mournfully. To have lived out my life peacefully, without all of these endless, pointless struggles for power.

“Nothing,” he said aloud, straightening his bloody collar. “I am simply ensuring I have a career, and a life in which to pursue it. I am likely to become department chair in a few years, as you know, and I was rather looking forward to it. So long as I am assured to my own safety, I have no intention of doing anything with the letters... nor any of the other documents I procured.”

“I have no delusions to my survival should someone choose to erase us,” he continued quietly. “So if I am convinced that my own death is inevitable, I will have little reason to hold my peace. And, Lord Casteele, if anything happens to the other members of the Expedition... and I will know, if anything happens... I will be making assumptions.” Sebastian leaned a little closer. “Rest assured the rest of the family has precious little stake in the University’s continued existence.”

With that, Sebastian stood up, ignoring Balfour’s outraged protest, and walked out the door without leave. The Headmaster would quiet soon enough, and Sebastian had nothing more to say. He brusquely brushed off the servants as he headed down the stairs, refusing his coat as it was offered to him at the door. There was no point in even affecting politeness now, and the professor had no desire to stay here another second.

He paused near the edge of the courtyard, waiting for his entourage to join him. He leaned his hand against the wrought iron fence that ringed the Headmaster’s estate, closing his eyes for the moment. The professor felt tired, very tired, as bad as he had felt in those miserable days after leaving Kamarn-Quse. He stood there for as long as he was able, pretending that the Headmaster had simply talked about University business, that the petty machinations of the powerful would no longer destroy his life at every turn, that he could finally go home and rest after six months of hell. Sebastian choked slightly, drawing his sleeve across his eyes.

A swarming sensation around him told him the dream was over. “Well, Felise,” he said, addressing the score of black rats that stared at him from the foliage. “As you can see, I am, for the moment, not dead. It seems your services will not be required after all. Thank you for your accompaniment.”

One of the rats chittered in response, but the group did not disperse. Sebastian frowned as he noted many of them sniffing the air and investigating the same spot. Though he examined the air very carefully, he could find nothing that would provoke such interest... come to think of it, he counted one rat too many. The rats moved forward, all in concert, surrounding the interloper and something else. Marchand-Renier reached into his vest with surprising speed, whipping the pistol he kept hidden toward the patch of open air.

“Faster than I thought you would be,” Marchand-Renier sneered, circling around warily. “I suggest you reveal yourself now, or I shall fire and let my companions find you by the blood trail.”

“Don’t shoot!” a very small, urgent voice came. The magical invisibility rippled away, leaving a tall, lanky young man behind. He carefully raised his hands above his shoulders, to prove he was unarmed.

“Remy?” Sebastian asked, absolutely stunned. The gun fell slack in his fingers, the trigger guard the only thing preventing it from falling from his grasp.

-------------------

It was a rather silent walk back to the professor’s office. In truth, Marchand-Renier wasn’t adverse to answering the boy’s obvious questions, even out in the open. The entire Fraternity would soon know everything that occurred, and there wasn’t much he could do about it. Sebastian had little defense against the arcane arts, as Remy had so obligingly proven. Deterrence was the only card he held. If the Brotherhood decided to move against him anyway, no amount of caution would save him. He was hoping the sheer gall of his actions would buy him a little time. Beyond that, he was counting on Balfour’s own pride in his reputation, and the reluctance of anyone, even the Fraternity, to tangle with his family. If there was one thing the Reniers knew how to take advantage of, it was secrets. And if the Fraternity tried to turn his family’s own secrets back on him, and expose him as a wererat, they would run into the very small problem that he wasn’t.

Still, that was no reason to get careless with Remy’s safety, and Sebastian’s mind was elsewhere. He chuckled ruefully, wondering how much of the conversation Remy had heard. The boy was getting far too good at this sort of thing. Given a few years, Remy wouldn’t need his protection anymore - if anything, it would be the other way around. Sebastian wasn’t sure whether to thank Andre or curse him for teaching Remy the art; probably both, in the end. Magic might protect Remy from trouble, but it would also lead him to it, and attract it both from without and within. Marchand-Renier had seen too much of what power could do to people.

He almost didn’t notice the boy whispering a spell of warding, disguising it as an accidental brush of the arm. The boy really was getting too good at this.

“A bit of an odd place to take a stroll, Remy,” Sebastian finally said. The student flushed guiltily.

“I, ah, saw you walking from the University,” Remy said, fiddling with his notebook self-consciously. “I thought I’d catch up with you, but you went inside the Headmaster’s manor before I could.”

“And decided you’d wait for me inside the grounds?” Marchand-Renier asked, very amused. “Invisibly?”

“Well...” Remy trailed off. Marchand-Renier gave a small chuckle.

“How long were you following me?” the professor asked.

Remy gave his notebook another twist. “Since you left your office,” he admitted. “I heard rumors...”

“No doubt,” Marchand-Renier murmured. They’d only brought back one of the greatest archeological finds ever, assassinated the Lord Governor’s chief advisor, caused a riot, blown up the University auditorium, and burned down the Opera House. “Any good ones?”

Remy gave him a perturbed look.

“Cavendish was an ancient Akiri mummy come seeking his treasure, and the Opera House was destroyed by the curse of the pharaohs. The Anubite was his wife,” the student started, ticking them off on his fingers one by one. “Helen du Suis and Marcos Vedarrak hired Guy Benoit to assassinate D’Honaire and overthrow the government. Lia Mournswaithe wears the mask and gloves all the time because she was made out of spare parts by her father. Khalil and Fassahd didn’t come back because they were fanatic Akiri tomb guardians who tried to assassinate us... or we murdered them to take their share of the treasure, take your pick. Professor Theroux murdered Professor Pelletier to summon up a demon, which got loose, stole his skin and took his place... that we fed Captain Harris’ soul to the Akiri gods in exchange for the treasure... that Sascha...” Remy trailed off.

“Never mind what they say about Sascha,” Marchand-Renier said quietly.

Remy stared at the ground for a while before going on. “They say you... ah...” he tried, cautiously, before stopping again.

Sebastian waited patiently for the student to proceed. “I’m used to rumors about me, Remy,” he eventually prompted.

Remy self-consciously lowered his voice. “They say even the other Reniers are afraid of you. That you’re Jacqueline’s son.” Marchand-Renier’s eyebrows shot up as he unlocked the door to his office. That was definitely a new one. Remy continued. “That’s why Louise hates you, but doesn’t dare to do anything about it. They say one of your uncles-“

“Gauderic Renier?” Marchand-Renier interrupted, with a small, surprised laugh. “They managed to dig that up?” He was surprised. It had been almost thirty years. Admittedly, the event itself had been a bit of an affair in Richemulot at the time, given how far across Ste Ronges the body had been strewn. He hadn’t expected anyone in Dementlieu to have heard of it, much less remember it.

They’d been so convinced that Gauderic had infected him. All it would have taken was a playful nip, or a careless scratch. Gauderic had left a bloody swath across his chest deep enough to scar. His father had agonized over whether to put down his own son; if Sebastian couldn’t control his transformations, he would be a danger to human and wererat alike. And yet... for once in his life, some miracle came through for him. Against all odds, he never transformed. His father, fighting against hope, had hired an arcanist to magically trigger his lycanthropy. The spell had washed over him with no effect. Sebastian Marchand-Renier had somehow managed to cheat fate.

Gauderic hadn’t been so lucky. Sebastian suspected no one except his father had really cared about what had happened. But his father had a great deal of money with which to make his displeasure known.

“Good,” Marchand-Renier finally concluded, letting the office door swing open. He invited Remy inside, then shut the door and sat down at his desk. “That should give any would-be-assassins food for thought.”

“That’s what they say, sir,” Remy said, looking troubled. “They say that’s why you’re not afraid of the Headmaster. That you robbed the Unviersity because you’re untouchable. Sir, I can’t believe you-” Remy actually clapped his hand over his mouth, absolutely at a loss for words.

Sebastian leaned forward, his hands folded on his desk, his face stern. The first thing he had done upon getting back was hire someone to ward his office, something he was certain he’d be grateful for in the months to come. “How much did you hear?” he demanded.

“Just the end of it,” Remy confessed. “I don’t know exactly what you did, but- Professor, they’re going to kill you!”

“Much as they would have before,” Marchand-Renier said mildly, leaning back in his chair. “I am not so optimistic to think we would have lived. For a few months, perhaps, as they picked us off one by one. Going for the ones who lived furthest away first, disguising it as accidents, so we didn’t even realize until much too late. No, Remy, I feel I am no worse off now than I would have been. Save for a few arrangements I was forced to make with my aunt...” Sebastian gave a tired chuckle at the aghast expression on Remy’s face. “My other aunt, Remy. I am not quite so far gone as to ask Louise for the time of day.”

Remy looked back at him, eyes pained; Sebastian hadn’t completely hidden the bitter resignation in his voice.

“We could have found another way...” the student whispered. “If you’d only told us...”

“Given time, perhaps you shall,” Marchand-Renier said. “Time you now have. These are not men we can simply fight off, Remy. One of us would have had to bargain with them, one way or another. And I did, after all, promise the Expedition I would help them with the University bureaucracy once we returned home. Let it never be said I break my promises.”

Remy stared at his fingers miserably. “Sir... there’s a difference between helping and getting yourself killed!”

Marchand-Renier sighed. “The others may well agree with you. If only now that it’s too late to stop me.” Remy’s eyes shot up, completely taken aback. Marchand-Renier continued. “I am well aware of some people’s opinions on those members who declined to risk life and limb.”

Remy blanched. “Professor, that’s completely different! No one would think that of you!” he protested, jumping to his feet and gripping the desk hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “You were never a traitor...”

“I merely shot a boy while he was begging for my forgiveness, and tried to drown the entire Expedition,” Sebastian murmured ruefully. The professor immediately regretted saying it. Remy winced at the memory, staring down at his fingers, unable to even look at his professor.

“I would have done it anyway, Remy,” Sebastian said, gently. “You are, of course, right. That was entirely different.”

Remy was clearly not mollified by this, but Sebastian didn’t say much else. He was just too weary to keep pretending he was alright. It had been safe here, not so long ago. Once it had become apparent he would not return to Richemulot, Louise had mostly left him alone. He had been free to do as he saw fit, provided it didn’t interfere with his family’s schemes, and he agreed to that with great relish. Then came the Expedition. Now it was all gone. The Brotherhood would recover quickly, and they would never allow anyone with a hold on them to survive - it would be a desperate struggle to keep even a single step ahead of them, and he couldn’t do it on his own. To effectively oppose the Fraternity, he’d needed Jacqueline’s backing; in siding with Jacqueline, he’d earned Louise’s ire anew. He’d made too many bargains to ever untangle himself, too many enemies to ever outlive them all. He would spend the rest of his life watching for assassins at his back, until the day he finally missed one.

The professor felt Remy’s hand on his shoulder; Sebastian tried not to flinch at the touch. The student wordlessly fetched a bottle of brandy from the cabinet by the door, pouring the both of them a glass. Sebastian sniffed it, slightly, to ensure it was actually made of peaches; Remy cast a spell over both glasses, looking for poison beyond the brandy itself. It seemed strange to Sebastian, watching the clean cut student drinking strong alcohol like that. He lifted his own glass up to his lips. For the first time in quite a while, the two men actually looked at each other, eye to eye.

And they talked. Not about the horrors they’d seen, the things they had lost, or the dangers that still awaited them. They talked about simple, everyday life, as if the whole trip had never happened. After all, even after everything, Remy still had a thesis to write.

It was late in the evening when Remy finally departed, seeking out Professor Theroux on some minutiae of magical theory he wanted to discuss. Sebastian watched him go with a pang of regret. He’d declared war on the Brotherhood, and despite his best efforts, he knew Remy would be a target once they recovered. Even if the Fraternity left Remy alone, he knew the boy well enough to know this wasn’t the end of it. Remy was far too intelligent and ambitious for that. The student would not be satisfied to simply sit back and leave things be, not with his growing power and unfortunate loyalty. It would sit in the back of his mind, turning itself over and over, until a possible solution came to him - regardless of personal cost. It was only a matter of time before he sold his soul to the devil to try and save someone else from the fire.

Just like his professors.

“Your move, Lord Balfour,” Marchand-Renier growled aloud. “And if you ever think about touching my boy... you’ll find this old rat still has teeth!”

[Nathan of the FoS]

“With all of the dislocations in government I don’t suppose it will be easy to act on the information I collected, but…”

Josephine Chantreaux waves away the continuation. “Yes, this Brotherhood of yours will be a tough nut to crack. They seem to be well-ensconced in positions of responsibility, and given that we don’t even know who the new Councilor will be…d’Honaire had his faults, Ezra knows, but so many threads were gathered in his hands and are now scattered quite irreparably. Our ability to work behind the scenes will be sadly limited until we recoup the organizational losses and the domestic contacts. The foreign work is quite different, of course, he had much less to do with that. Speaking of which…I understand that you’re angling for a new assignment. Nevuchar Springs, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right, General.”

“Because of the…woman.”

Charles bows his assent.

“Well, I suppose a mixed pair will fit in there better than anywhere. What did your father say?”

“Very little. He didn’t disown me, which I’m grateful for, but he made it clear I should consider myself a black sheep and not to bring Sarari to the house. Mother had the vapors and refused to see me.”

“I’m not at all surprised. Marie might be the most conventional woman I’ve ever known. It makes me wonder how she produced such a son.”

There being no real response possible to a remark like this, Charles makes none.

“Well. I see no real objection to it. You’re still our man, Captain, and always will be, but a diplomatic assignment of some sort won’t do you any harm. Might open some interesting opportunities, in fact. I’ll recommend you to Lagrange as vice-consul and when old Descroix comes back I suppose they’ll kick you upstairs. Is there anything else?”

“No, General. Thank you for your attention.”

“My pleasure, Captain. Send in Paul on your way out, would you please?”

NINE YEARS LATER, NEVUCHAR SPRINGS, DARKON

“The consul’s house. Go to the end of the road here and turn left along the carriage path. Can’t miss it.”

Thus guided by a reasonably friendly elf, Tomas finds himself approaching the Dementlieuse consulate in Nevuchar Springs--a rather handsome “cottage”, as the term is used among the Dementlieuse nobility—a two-story house of perhaps twenty rooms, with gravel drive and fountain before it and a sundial garden behind, with a high yew hedge separating the garden proper from the more wild than domesticated park beyond it. It's quite a tranquil scene, at least until the screaming starts.

Tomas runs a hand through the scraggily whiskers he's grown over the past few years of travel, taking a moment to smile and shake the elf's hand and thank her for the directions. And then, yes, the screaming starts, and it's all Eisenwald can do to keep from smiling-he jogs forward, easing his shield onto his forearm and getting ready to bash the door in if necessary.

As Tomas approaches the house, from which the screams (adult female, frightened and angry more than hurt) can be heard, a small blond bolt of lightning barrels around a corner, and a door opens to reveal Charles Martel, descending the front steps at a rapid pace. The three moving elements of the scene come together in a near collision which ends with Charles and Tomas face-to-face and a boy about five years old secured beneath Charles' arm, a bow clutched tightly in his hands. "Tomas!" Charles says, smiling broadly. If he’s surprised at the apparition of this figure from the past it’s not apparent in his bearing. "Flee and you'll face the dock, you young pirate. I need to put you down so as to embrace an old friend." Setting the boy down, he suits deeds to words.

"Hallo!" Tomas greets kindly, as though it had not been years since he had last seen Charles. His hand eases back from Ivorsen's hilt when he recognizes the outline of a child . "You've become a schoolmarm, as you had threatened! How wonderful!" Tomas returns the hug-a little less fiercly than usual because Eisenwald is armored and armed.

“Yes," Charles says, "Parenthood. It does wonders for one's reflexes and one's wits. Now, Sascha, this is M'sieur Tomas Eisenwald, one of your namesakes. Please, introduce yourself in a way that will reassure him you were not raised by troglodytes in remotest Sanguinia."

Now that he’s standing still, Sascha is revealed to be almost Charles in minature, save for his delicately pointed ears and the intense gaze of his gold eyes, although his high cheekbones hint that his face may become more elven when he loses the baby fat that rounds it. Straightening himself into almost a parody of upper-class Dementlieuse posture, the small boy makes a leg that would do credit to a full-grown courtier. “Aleksander Tomas Ellessir Martel, your humble and obedient servant, m’sieur,” he pipes. Having dispensed with the formalities, he reverts to what would appear to be his customary attitude of cat-curiosity—leavened by a measure of innate courtesy—and questions, “Is that a longsword, m’sieur, may I see it? Does it have a name? Is it the one you stuck in the evil magician?”

"I am fairly sure I would have remembered saving your son from troglodytes while I was in remotest Sanguinia, Charlie." Tomas asides, internally wondering. A father. Man, he has been...away for too long. He winks at the bowing boy, because one good turn deserves another, and positively grins as he notices old Ivorsen. "As a matter of fact-well, I'd have to see what your father thinks first, of course, but its name is Ivorsen, after the fellow who made it."

"Go ahead. He can't lift it, thank goodness, or I should be worried. Especially given his predatory tendencies. I believe, Sascha, that you have been practicing your marksmanship on M'selle Defrens?"

"Yes, Papa," the boy says, eyes downcast.

"Well, it would be a shame to have a drumhead execution while we have an honored guest here," Charles says, winking at Tomas. "But I think it may be a while before you see your bow again."

"Yes, Papa." Duly chastened, Sascha hands over the offending implement before turning back to Tomas expectantly.

"So he takes after you, then." Tomas murmurs (because he's certain Charles has heard all the jokes about Sarari's tendencies that he'll ever need to.) As he pulls Ivorsen out—rather spectacularly, if he says so himself—the faintest trail of electricity following the sword's movement. Sascha examines the blade, enthralled; Tomas doesn't TOUCH the kid's probable crush on a neighbor because, well, Sarari can probably still kick his ass. "A little worn, these days..."

"You've been fighting the good fight these many years?" Charles says, looking keenly at the paladin.

"Had promises to keep." Tomas murmurs vaguely, refusing to allow his smile to slip. "You and the little woman have been enjoying the quiet life here, then?" Eisenwald does not entirely believe such a thing is possible, but Charles has always relished his secrets and Tomas loves his old friend too much to force them out in the open. Unless it's really funny.

"With this young terror about?" Charles says, mussing his son's hair. "Never in life. But we can't keep you on the step! Come in! What brings you to our neck of the woods?" He shows Tomas inside and takes him to the kitchen—guests get the parlor, but close friends of the family get to go to the real heart of the house. "Have you had breakfast?"

"I was in the area and thought I'd indispose myself." Tomas says vaguely, deciding to leave out the bit about the rogue Ezran fanatic who's been raising devils in an attempt to convert the Legions of the Night or what he will have to do with the man's face in all probability. "I cannot say that I have, no."

"Alessa, something for the gentleman. Would porridge and cream with honey do? Simple fare, but the best of its kind. Alessa knows her business."

Alessa (a small brown-haired woman, and a half-elf herself, if Tomas' guess is good) smiles and curtseys, giving the tall and handsome stranger who's obviously a friend of her employer an admiring look before turning back to her cooking.

Tomas tips his hat to this Alessa, and smiles a little. "You are too kind, Charles. Sounds like the best meal I've had in a while, to be a little overly honest." Huh, Tomas thinks, who screamed?

As if in answer to his unasked question, the door bursts open and a tall, redheaded woman in her early twenties stamps in. "M'sieur Martel!" she says. "I demand that you discipline that beastly child. He has launched an ambuscado on my person not five minutes ago with that bow and arrow his mother gave him."

Oh, and here he thought it was some sweet little neighbor girl that he had trouble expressing a crush on, Tomas thinks, and realizes that he is forever cursed with the mind of a romantic. "Hallo!" Tomas booms, looking as large and foreign and strange as he can manage so as to give the kid a break from the woman speaking in italics. "Du best die enie blume sie?"

Thus halted in mid-career, the formidable Miss Defrens is rather taken aback. "And who is this exceedingly unlikely-looking person?" she asks, with rather less volume but no less marked emphasis. "A knight in armor in the kitchen? You surpass yourself, M'sieur Martel. You surpass yourself."

Charles gives Tomas an amused look and says, "Tomas, may I present M'selle Barbara Defrens, the unfortunate governess of our resident hellraiser.” Sascha, sensing he is being spoken of, looks up from his breakfast; seeing he is not being addressed directly, he returns his attention to the porridge (which is, in fact, excellent). “M'selle Defrens, M'sieur Tomas Eisenwald, a good friend from days of yore, as it were."

"Oh, I'm not nobility!" Tomas corrects, "Purely proliterat, as Herr Lacht would define me. I am but a humble author with excellent taste in apparel." He offers the woman a handshake entirely to scandalize her.

M'selle Defrens has recovered her composure sufficiently to shake Tomas' hand in a firm, man-to-man fashion. "So! You are the famous Tomas Eisenwald," she says, fixing him with a gimlet eye.

"I am?" Tomas looks from Sascha, to Alessa, and finally to Charles, wondering when Sarari pops out of the cake and they all yell “Surprise!”

"She exaggerates," Charles says reassuringly. "We don't recount the tales of your heroism around the hearth-fire more than once in a fortnight."

"Ah! Well, eventually you have to run out of stories about how cold Vorostokov is, I gather." Tomas admits, starting to eat himself because he's going to have to wrestle a mummy later, he just knows it. "Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

"The pleasure is mine, m'sieur," she says, before turning her attention back to Charles. "As for the young miscreant..."

"I've confiscated the guilty implement and postponed further punishment in light of the happy occasion," Charles says, nodding at Tomas. Sascha looks at Tomas and smiles as well, with an odd air of familiarity--as if the Lamordian is someone he's known all his life. In a sense, of course, Tomas is; obviously, even if they haven’t been discussing him once a fortnight, Sascha has heard of him. More than once.

"I got you something." Tomas murmurs, taking on the persona of favorite uncle with the sort of relish only a man acutely aware of his own lack of progeny can manage. He winks at Sascha. "For later, of course."

Sascha nods happily, as if he had expected nothing else.

The door to the garden swings open, and Sarari enters, dressed for hunting and carrying a rather handsome pheasant, which she hands to Alessa. Turning to scan the kitchen, her gaze falls immediately on Tomas, and she grins. "Eisenwald!" she says, more cheerfully than Tomas can ever remember her saying anything. "Good morning! A fine day for the hunt."

"Sarari, libschen!" Tomas gushes, swallowing a hot mouthful of porridge because it really is rare that he gets a chance to eat a home-cooked meal. "I can only hope that I share your gift for exploiting the day."

"You are going hunting this morning?" Sarari asks.

"Hunting, being hunted..." Tomas winks at the cook again, so that the civilians in the room will think he's being a pig, instead of alluding to brutal combat with the forces of darkness. "It's all a state of mind, darling. How's easy street treating you?"

Sarari puts her own interpretation on the metaphor, saying "Oh, nothing in the streets, it is not so wild here as all that. But it is not hard to find good game quite close to the house, in the park. If you are going hunting I wish you good luck, and our help if you need it. Is that what is bringing you here?"

"Honestly?" Porridge eaten, Tomas stands up. He has already slipped a parcel into Sascha's hat, where he assumes the boy will find it later this afternoon when he finally has to try and wash it. "I...finished my business up north." He won't say it out loud, but the implication should be fairly logical. "So I thought I'd take the long way back. Kind of silly, ja? But, why pass up a chance to waste my friends' money and eat their food?"

"Indeed! And talk about old times. Can you stay long? A few days at least?" Charles asks the question, but it seems everyone in the room hangs on the answer.

Tomas pauses, and for a moment, he's really and truly tempted. And then, in a flash, his Sight crackles, and he can see it: The smoke rising from the cottage roof, the faint outline of a broken body, the stench of brimstone and the scrawling on the walls proclaiming the mad intepritations of the Ezran doctrine that the sect just north of here has helped bring into the world. Wicked spirits must be purged, lest the Legions of the Night be strengthened. It's horrible, seeing the slightly pointed half-elf ears on the ground, worse, seeing the hole in the house Tomas once equated with paradise, but worst of all is that they left Sarari alive. Motherhood is one of the great risks of life, and Tomas hates that she doesn't regret it, or blame him, or feel anything other than poisoned love and loss.

"Just had time to pop in and say hello." Tomas admits, smiling his silly smile and giving Sascha a wink, as though they were sharing a secret between men. "You know how it is, Martel. Promises to keep, and miles to go..." Tomas tips his hat at the beautiful young family he loves and secretly envies, pulling his coat and cloak up in order to endure the road a little more.

“You're quite sure?" Charles says, although his voice says he can see Tomas has already made his decision. "Very well. I hope we'll see you again sooner rather than later."

Sascha nods, and Tomas' Sight shows reveals something more--a corona of leaping blue and gold flames on the young half-elf's brow, as if he were a saint in an illuminated manuscript...or a martyr, burning in the flames. The mark which has set him apart all his life is on young Sascha too.

Tomas smiles, knowing in his secret heart that storms are best brief and seen sparingly. He closes his eyes, and says, "Soon enough, Charles. I'll make time for a good, long visit. I promise." And Tomas never breaks a promise.

[NeoTiamat]

Samael watched the waves through the porthole in his cabin. It wasn't much of a cabin, in truth, but once the storm and the Mists hit, there hadn't been very many ships willing to set sail. He wasn't sure where Lily had dug up this old smuggler, but something told Samael that there would be violence before the trip was over. When three travelers with too much gold and in too much of a hurry by passage on what was probably a part-time pirate ship, sooner or later some sailors would try to just kill them and take it all for themselves. The Borcan sighed. He'd have to tell Jervis to leave enough survivors that they could still sail the ship.

On the off-chance however, Samael withdrew one of his pistols from the boot where it rested, laying the little weapon on the table within easy reach, not far from a bottle of what passed for rum on board this ship. He didn't think he'd need the gun any time soon, but it never hurt to be careful.

And here we go again. Everywhere I go, people just keep dying. Admittedly, it was Jervis who was doing the killing, but he was Samael's brother and Samael's follower, which made him responsible for it. Drowning in blood, once again.

“And for what?” Samael asked aloud. His gaze moved towards the enchanted satchels with their treasure trove of gold and jewels. Even after the University had taken its cut, even though this was just what had been hidden, it was still a king's ransom in wealth.

Enough to buy a plantation in Souragne. Enough to set up as lesser nobility, landowners of some fine estate not far from Port D'Elhour. Enough to start a new life, of sorts, or in Lily's case to retake her old one. Samael smiled a little. Lily had been genteelly gloating ever since they finally left Port-a-Lucine. Not that anyone except Samael had probably noticed the demure gloating, and he only managed by dint of long acquaintance. People in their line of work did whatever necessary not to let emotions show.

We're sort of like emotional vampires, in a way. Samael said, taking a sip of the rum that was on the table beside his pistol. It tasted absolutely horrible, but there was a decided lack of good wine on board. We've no emotions of our own, so we go and wreck them for others.

It was, he knew now, a thoroughly miserable life. But it was what he'd been raised to. The world wasn't exactly swarming with employment opportunities for Dilisnya by-blows, and it had always seemed like such fun. Spread a little chaos, a little enlightenment... a little misery. And now I get to go from criminal con-man to genteel overlord. Instead of harassing the rich, I'll harass the poor. Iosef, you are so wonderfully improving your life now.

Samael took another drink of the ship's rum. The Borcan, normally a connoisseur of fine wine, was too gloomy to realize that he was getting just a little drunk. He sat by the table, his eyes falling on the pistol. So I suppose it's back to murdering people inch by inch now. Assuming I can keep Volodya from murdering them wholesale.

He'll fit right in with all the zombies, crocodiles, and Parlmofaits running around there. Samael said, remembering the good old days when he'd just met Basler. Who, admittedly, was also in the “slow mass murder” business nowadays. In no small part thanks to Samael's distribution connections for his opium, admittedly. Samael picked up the pistol on the table, turning it around in his hands. Consequences have a way of making fools of us all, try as we might run from them. We can hide, we just can't run.

It was a small pistol, a sleek derringer that was good for firing one shot, a shot that had minimal range, but was a shot that the foe never knew you had. A nasty little surprise weapon, not much good past five yards or so, but quite useful beneath that range. Samael was more of a knife-man, by preference, they were quieter, but you needed room to throw a knife properly.

Tomas forgave him. Which was strange, since Samael had never really paid that much attention to him. He was just another of the students running around and making nuisances of themselves. But he'd forgiven Samael. The Borcan wondered whether anyone else did. He somehow doubted it.

Iosef Dilisnya turned the pistol over in his hand, then put the barrel up against his forehead. At that range, not even a derringer could miss. Tomas forgave him... But Iosef didn't think he'd be able to forgive himself.

“Iosef, interesting news.” Samael jumped as Lily's voice appeared from the cabin door. The green-eyed reporter opened the door and walked in, wringing out some of the salt-spray from her golden hair as she spoke. “Vladimir said that one of the sailors was just in the crow's nest, the magic storm back in Port-a-Lucine seems to have stopped.... Iosef, what are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out if there's any way to keep this thing from rusting before we reach Souragne.” Samael lied smoothly. He peered into the weapon's barrel. “Do you know anyone who makes holdout pistols in Port D'Elhour?”

“Masley should, if he hasn't gone out of business since I left.” Lily said, either accepting Samael's explanation or choosing not to make an issue of it at the moment. Even to the Borcan, she was hard to read. “He used to be the family's blacksmith, but he turned to making lockpicks and pocket pistols after our fall from grace. He had a thriving little business when I left.”

“Someone we'll have to look up.” Samael said, putting the pistol down. “You've never said much about your family.”

“Not much to say in the Saga of the St. Germaines.” Lily said lightly, sitting down on the cabin's cot and running a comb through her hair. Her green eyes betrayed no emotion as she spoke. “Father, Augustin St. Germaine, was a kind, generous, wonderful man. Also Souragne's prize fool, who should never have been let near money. We went bankrupt, lost the St. Germaine plantation, were out on the streets not long after I turned fourteen. Father died heartbroken, Mother died not long after. I preferred not to die, so I survived. The End.”

“I'm sure.” Samael knew that there was a great deal that was being skipped over, how Lily had gone from a frightened fourteen year old to the assured beauty before him. Then again, even at fourteen he had a hard time imagining her afraid of something. “I suppose I was luckier. My own father was a Dilisnya banker up in Vor Ziyden. He was... weak. My mother was a chambermaid, but I was never sure whether he seduced her or she him. The latter, I think. She ended up taking a lot of money to just disappear, then turned out to have much better business sense than him. I ended up growing up in the middle of a thriving little sin business.”

“You call yourself a Dilisnya, though.” Lily noted, working a tangle out of her hair.

“It's Iosef Darov, legally, but people in the underworld respect you more if you go by Dilisnya.” Samael shrugged. “Haven't used it on anything official since I was eighteen.”

“Mmm...” Lily made a noise under her breath. “We're a pair of twisted saplings from some very strange orchards, aren't we?”

“Oh, I don't know. Vladimir had just about a perfect childhood. Legitimate heir, rich, my father loved him, and look how he turned out.” Samael said. “I think they finally disinherited him a few years ago. Not that he cared.”

“There's a lesson in this, but I don't know that I care to find it.” Lily said.

“Possibly something to the effect of the gods making fools of us all?” The raven-haird Borcan snorted, then fell silent, a musing look on his face. After a moment, he continued. “Lily, have you thought of what you'll be doing with your share of the treasure when we finally reach Souragne?”

“Not particularly,” The green-eyed reporter said, smiling faintly. “Spend the next few months turning it into good coin, most likely. Then see about a townhouse in Port D'Elhour, maybe a small estate somewhere. Make a splashing come-back onto the social scene and watch all the débutantes turn green with envy.”

“They'd never accept you on your own.” Samael said, gazing at Lily with a strangely fey look in his grey eyes. “Even if you are Souragnien, they'll just dismiss you as some foreign adventuress. Noblewomen don't travel alone unless there's a problem of some sort, something gone horribly wrong.”

“Oh?” Lily asked archly, putting down the comb. Her golden-blond hair fell to her mid-back, nearly luminescent in the sunlight coming through the port-hole. Her green eyes sparkled. “You have a better idea?”

“I do.” Samael said, rising to his feet and sitting onto the cot beside her, taking her hand into his own. His voice, usually full of confidence, was thick with emotion. “Lily... will you marry me?”

“Yes.” The green-eyed woman answered softly, and leaned in to kiss him.

================================================

Jervis, listening in at the door, grinned from ear to ear. He was rather proud of himself for the timing of the message that got Lily to show up at Samael's door when she did. His half-brother was the smart one in the family, but he tended to mope when he had too much free time on his hands. Lily could distract the dead.

The killer quietly padded away down the hall, leaving the two to their privacy. For his part, Jervis didn't worry too much about the future. The future would happen regardless of Jervis's opinion on the matter, so why worry? But if there was one thing he was sure about, it's that he and Samael were never going to have a dull life. And he doubted Lily was going to change that.

Though, Jervis reminded himself, he'd still need to replace the firing pins on Samael's pistols before his half-brother realized they were gone.

[lostboy]

“It would seem payment is now due, effendi,” Khalil said, smiling through slightly gritted teeth at the fat man.
Seated behind a low table on opulent cushions, the man was very fat, bloated like a leech, with oily hair and pudgy fingers. Fingers that at this moment were caressing a heavy leather pouch that clinked loudly as he pushed it to and fro. The man’s gaze was piercing though, even through his air of supreme arrogance, this was a man used to being obeyed, and who lived for power and believed himself invincible through it.

As far as the man was concerned Khalil was a courier, an escort for his cargo, a highly recommended errand boy, but an errand boy nonetheless. Khalil, on the other hand, knew exactly who this man was, not just one of the richest merchants in Toyalis, not just a key player in organized crime, but someone from his past. In fact the desert guide had rehearsed this meeting over and over in his mind, the reality was all the sweeter that the man was ignorant of exactly why he was here.

“Indeed, you appear to have done well, Basler was right to recommend you to me,” the leech purred, taking a swallow of smoke form a nearby hookah. “Karim, check the cargo and get the men to start unloading.” The mountain of a bodyguard moved swiftly to obey, leaving the two of them momentarily alone in the small office.

“Now how was the journey? No problems I trust?” The man inquired, squinting at Khalil.

“Nothing of note, the road from Phiraz was unusually quiet,” Khalil responds, and then continues with a monologue of small matters, all the while studying the man carefully and doing his utmost to keep his thoughts beneath the surface.

His thoughts took him back almost a year; tiring of the insular community of Muhar, Khalil had joined a caravan heading for Phiraz, and then back to the core. He had no desire to return to the viper’s nest of Dementlieu in any hurry, but there was something that belonged to him, something that bought him dusty and exhausted to a certain door in Hazlan. Basler Nisanci hadn’t been exactly overjoyed to see him again, and even less so when it transpired Khalil had bought none of the treasure with him. The revelation the Dragoman was no longer interested in opium smuggling had soured relations even further.

“So,” Basler had said, looking pointedly at Khalil, “what exactly do you intend to offer me in exchange?”

Khalil’s eyes followed the movement of the obsidian pendant, cast in the shape of Anubis, that dangled from the red wizards fingers. “I have nothing but my service to offer Effendi, take it as you will, but I will have what was once my mothers and is now mine, returned, whatever it takes.”

Basler raised an eyebrow “Such a change of heart, considering how quick you were to trade this away for the means to rob the tomb and the expedition blind… which I see you didn’t do anyway.”

“Much time has passed Effendi, priorities change; I have seen things, things that cause a man to awake to what is important in this life.”

“Really.” Basler looked less than convinced, but sat for moment in thought. Finally he looked again at Khalil. “I get the feeling you are likely to plague me for this trinket, and neither of us wants to find you breaking into my estate in the dead of night to retrieve it.” The Red Wizard's gaze communicated the notion that it would be the desert guide who would favour that eventuality the least. “So I have a proposition for you, my nomadic friend. How does murder sit with you?”

Actually it sat rather well with Khalil, at least it did once Basler named the man to die. “Burak Feyzi, the man was captain of guard in Sly Var, before he discovered how well corruption paid. Now he masquerades as cotton dealer, but in reality he controls far too much of the Phiraz opium trade for my liking.” Khalil had agreed almost before Basler had got the proposal out. Fortunately the Mulan assumed it was desperation for the amulet that caused the dragoman’s eagerness.

Anubis was truly smiling on the desert guide this day; three of Khalil’s loved ones were dead by the hands of the vindictive. Avenging his brother’s death had sent the young man into the wild years ago, and Khalil had recently had cause to thank that strange knight for destroying Snefru after Kheldun had divined that she was responsible for the death of his father. But still his mother’s killer eluded him, and now Basler had served him up on a plate.

“Be on your guard with him,” Basler had said, “the man is wily as a fox and less principled than a plains cat in heat. I would not normally assist in such an endeavour, as a connection between Burak’s death and myself would be most troublesome, but he is cutting into my business, and I want him dead.” The Mulans’ face, black as thunder, convinced Khalil that staying on Basler's good side was very healthy idea. “The man is protected by wards even he doesn’t understand, but it will make the task difficult, therefore take this.” Basler handed over a small box of ebony inlaid with a ruby. “Press the ruby and all magic will cease to function for ten breaths, no more, that is your opportunity to strike. The man has a caravan departing from Phiraz in a week or so, I will arrange you to be the caravan guide.”

“Ahem” the fat man coughed, snapping Khalil back to the here and now. Focusing himself, the desert guide fingered the box hidden in the palm of his hand.

“As I said Effendi payment is due, I have no desire nor I am sure do you to prolong this.”

“Very well, I take it gold is acceptable?” Burak set the bag clinking again. Khalil stared at the bag for second, then with a deep breath, depressed the ruby and looked the man deep in the eyes.

“Unfortunately, only your hearts blood will suffice effendi,” Khalil said, drawing a scimitar and examining the keen edge. Ignoring the fat man's panicked look as his magic failed, he continued, “You see, my mother whom you ravaged and killed rests uneasy in Du’at. Her only crime was to protect her sons from you and your men. Now I am afraid only your death will set her free. “

“Kar….. urghhhh-” The fat mans cry cut off into a gurgle as the blade suddenly snapped out across his throat. “Die in the name of Anubis, sewer dog!” Khalil hissed, reversing the stroke and stabbing the blade deep into the man’s chest. In seconds it was done.

Gathering a shaky breath Khalil wiped the blade on the silk cushions, grabbed the pouch and stood. “May Ammit, the devourer, feast on your soul for eternity” the desert guide pronounced, spitting on the corpse, before turning to the door.

Khalil didn’t feel the same passion as he cut Karim’s throat, he even whispered a prayer over the body, wishing the bodyguard’s spirit safe journey, but by association the man had marked himself for death. Leaving the body Khalil approached the wagons, pulling back the oil cloths, shoving aside the spools of cotton, and gazing at the faces behind the bars.

Burak, it seemed, was not just a trafficker of opium, he also ran slaves from the Amber Wastes to Hazlan, a fact Khalil had discovered shortly after leaving the gate of scorpions. “Be still, all is well,” he muttered in Phirazian to the women and children huddled within as he unlocked the cage with Karim’s key. “You are free now.”

As they filed out, the desert guide bit back his anger, so many of them, so young, so like himself and Rizak. The last to emerge was a young woman, despite the scarf Khalil can see her beauty, and he thanks Anubis silently that he was able to save her from such a fate.

Hefting the pouch in his hand, the desert guide withdrew ten gold pieces from a hoard ten times that number. Slowly he turned them in the light, examining the luster and shine of the metal, so bright and sensuous, a total contrast to the poor creatures before him. Sighing, Khalil handed the bag to the woman. “You all will have need of this” he said simply, pocketing the ten pieces, “call this my fee…. a man has to eat after all.”

Pulling the scarf around his face, the desert guide slipped out into the night; he had an appointment in Elazig, and despite his crimes, his heart felt somewhat lighter.

[NeoTiamat]

The only thing James regretted was that he wouldn't be able to take the dogs with him.

He'd miss the furry mutts, but he never pretended to himself that he'd keep them forever. Everything else was rather looking up for the jackalwere. He was alive, he had plenty of money, and he was getting as far away from the fallout of the Opera House Fire as could be managed. So on the whole, James was rather pleased with his life right now.

A fat raindrop fell from the sky to land on the brim of his broad hat, where it rolled around a little before dripping off James's hat to splash on the road behind him. Although, the jackalwere thought, I could do without the rain. It was a good plan, on the whole, James knew, even as he pulled his raincoat a little tighter around himself. First he had lain low for a few weeks, waited until any searchers had given up on trying to find him in a city that he by this point he knew like the back of his hand. Then, once any interested party was convinced that he had left the city by the quickest possible route, he'd taken the next mail coach to Levkarest, from where it was onward to all parts east. James had heard good things about Nova Vaasa, plenty of work in his profession, pretty women, and no wizards. This last bit was important.

Mail coaches were fast, they traveled at all hours of day and night, and while searchers would check the four moderately miserable paying passengers inside, they wouldn't pay much attention to the far more miserable guard hanging on to the rear of the coach. That had been the jackalwere's reasoning at any rate, though at the moment James wished he had given just a little more thought to comfort when making plans. James hoped the actual guard was happy back in Chateafaux. Postal guards were well-paid and had a good pension, and so were thought to be incorruptible, but in James's experience, that generally translated to “really blooming expensive to bribe”.

But bodies were always found, and “dead men tell no tales” was a horrid lie when dealing with wizards. So James had paid, and now he was shivering for the privilege. It's karma, it is, the jackalwere thought gloomily. Still, he could afford a lot more bribes than just that if the need arose. In a box amongst the mail, he had his prize crossbow, the snow-boy's satchel of gems, and whatever books and magical trinkets he could loot from the boss's place in the few hours before he expected the Brotherhood to arrive. James could sell them in Hazlan for a pretty penny. The boss never did give him a pension, so the jackalwere figured it was fair.

“Coming up on the border, mister, so look sharp.” The driver called from up ahead. James grumbled something under his breath and straightened, putting a hand on the rapier by his side. He wished he was actually any good with the thing, but his melee tactics had generally come down to “stab them in the gut with a shiv when they aren't looking.” Still, hopefully he wouldn't need to use it.

“Halt!” The Falkovnian border guard yelled as the mail coach approached, his voice thick enough with an accent that James could barely understand it. The guard used another piece of his limited Mordentish vocabulary to yell “Customs!”

The coach drew to a halt at the customs station, and the thick-tongued border guard began to yell incomprehensible gibberish at the coach driver, who retorted with equally incomprehensible dialect from the north coast. James wondered idly if either of the two men could actually understand one another. Meanwhile, the other border station guards loomed around the mail coach like grim crows in their dark uniforms. Waiting for orders to wreck the coach or let it go and wait for plumper prey, was James's uncharitable suspicion.

“Gut! All is in order!” The Falkovnian guard said, peering at the coach and its inhabitants carefully. “Jawohl, is gut! You may go!”

James heaved a sigh of relief as the coach rattled off again into the rainy evening.

================================================

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“Hullo the Mail!” The distant voice roused James from his slumber, which led him to put a hand on the rapier at his side before he remembered that he hated rapiers. The jackalwere shook himself off of some of the rain and loosened his grip on the rear of the coach. One of the tricks of being a good hired killer was the ability to sleep absolutely anywhere, including while holding on with a death-grip onto a moving vehicle.

“Hullo the Mail!” The voice repeated, and soon its source appeared. It was a troop of Falkovnian cavalry, led be a man with short black hair and a faint scar across his forehead. They were coming from ahead of the mail coach. “Good thing we've found you.”

“What's the matter, sir?” The driver said carefully, even as James listened in. He also looked over the strange officers wrists. No bracers... so at least not a Talon. James found that to be a good side.

“Elves.” The officer said with a wry smile.

“Elves?” The driver answered, not quite grasping why this was a bad thing. James rolled his eyes. The driver continued. “What be the problem with elves?”

“We've corralled a group of runaways in the forest up ahead, and the Kommandant is going back for more troops.” The black-haired officer explained. “Shouldn't take more than an hour for him to get here, we'll give you an escort through the woods.”

“An escort from elves, sir?” The driver asked skeptically.

“Yes, an escort from people with excellent marksmanship, legendary woodcraft, and the ability to hold a grudge for a century at a time.” The officer said with a fairly suppressed sneer, James thought, all things considered. “You're welcome.”

Bidding his farewell to the fidgeting coach driver, the officer rode along towards the back of the mail coach. He shook his head and asked James quietly. “He always like this?”

The jackalwere shrugged, keeping his eyes averted. There was a prickling sensation along the back of his neck that was telling him that something was very wrong. “Don't know, first time with him.”

“Last time too, I wager.” The officer said dryly. “Not the greatest intellect ever to come out of a Dementlieuse lyceum, is he?”

“Lieutenant Schiffer,” A soldier rode up, saluting briefly. “Perimeter established, Sir!”

“Good work. Well, duty calls.” The officer said with a bit of a sigh, He turned and smiled at James, leaning over the shoulder of a monstrous black excuse for a horse to clap him briefly on the shoulder. “Never fear, the Kommandant will be here soon, and then we can get this all straightened out.”

[Isabella]

“Fifteen black,” Anton called out, watching the wheel slow in its spin. There was a massive stir from the crowd, excited by the prospect of blood, metaphorical though it may be. The man in the silver vest had just lost big, and big things always attracted people’s attention. Anton secretly encouraged it. He was showman at heart, truly; it was half the secret to running La Palais de la Biere, more than just the dice. You had to put on a show. A subtle one, perhaps, though La Palais did sometimes hire entertainers. The spectacle was what drew them back, the hope that this time you would see someone win huge. But of course, for that to have any meaning, most the men had to lose. After all, that was the thrill of gambling - the knowledge you were walking on the edge, that you could lose everything.

Anton casually reset the roulette wheel as the house cleared the solars from the table, ignoring the man’s ruined expression. At the very least this one didn’t cry, threaten, or blubber, like many of them did. Politeness counted for something. Not for enough to get his money back, of course, but it was a matter of good upbringing.

“Taking all bets!” Anton cried out, captivating the attention of the crowd. “What about you monsieur? Still a chance for you to win it back!”

Odd. That normally got a bigger response.

Anton was aware, in the back of his mind, that his control of the scene was slipping. Something else had caught the people’s attention, something more captivating than a one in a million chance, than the coin flip between riches and ruin. It was becoming less and less comforting to Anton as it became more and more apparent that, whatever it was, it was right behind him.

The answer became obvious as soon as he turned. Whomever... or whatever was standing before him had no sense of subtlety whatsoever. The newcomer was dressed in nobleman’s clothing, but he had not bothered to remove his outdoor cloak, instead wrapping it around him and pulling the hood down low over his head. The impression it made was certainly striking. It was also overdramatic, theatrical, and decidedly against dress policy.

“And how many men have you ruined today, monsieur?” a low voice growled from under the hood.

That was enough for Anton to overcome his initial surprise. “Now see here, sir,” he began indignantly. The rebuke died in his throat as the hood lifted slightly, and Anton caught a flash of amber eyes - piercing, vengeful eyes that shot Anton straight through the chest.

A rough, weathered hand violently shoved a bag into Anton’s chest, coins bursting forth from the top and spilling across the floor. “Paid to the name of Micheal de Angelis,” the cloaked man said. “All debts honored. With interest. I trust you will find it acceptable.”

Anton couldn’t reply. Any response he could have said was frozen in place by that implacable gaze.

“Good,” the man said, without waiting on his response. The figure turned, his cloak billowing out behind him, as he strode to the door. “I’d leave this place, if I were you,” he finished - to the gamblers, Anton assumed, though he wasn’t quite certain. “Gambling’s a dangerous business.”

Then the man was gone.

Anton recovered his senses slowly, still holding the bag of coins dumbly in his hand. He wanted to make some response, some comment about melodramatic madmen, and brush the whole thing off as an amusing anecdote that would be told to friends, accompanied by much chortling and shaking of heads. But he did not, could not, more to the point. Those burning eyes had held a promise, and they lingered behind long after the man himself had left.

Still, Anton recovered quickly, returning to his fast talk and grandstanding not long afterwards. By closing time the whole incident was out of his mind, and he didn’t think any more of it until the hilt of a Parthian Rapier came smashing down on his head.

==

Consciousness returned to Anton slowly and painfully. He was lying on the cold cobblestones outside of La Palais, his hands tightly bound behind him. His own silk kerchief had been stuffed in his mouth, held in place with a makeshift gag. Struggling against his bonds, Anton crawled his way along the street, inching his way upright by pushing his arms downward. His head protested the sudden movement, and he had to fight not to throw up from the sudden bout of nausea that ripped through him. With the gag in his mouth, that would be very unpleasant indeed.

“Awake?” the low voice from before asked him. Anton managed to roll onto his back, his eyes widening when he saw who was there. The man standing over him was feral and unkept, his grizzled hair falling about his shoulders. His lips were pulled back into a thin snarl, and his eyes were molten even in the low light. More important, however, was that Anton recognized his face. He was staring at the most wanted man in all of Dementlieu.

Guy Benoit reached down and grabbed Anton by the shirt, his nails long and wild. “I warned you gambling is a dangerous business,” Guy growled, his teeth bared in a feral snarl. “You’ve ruined too many men.”

Anton flinched at the cold touch of steel along his skin. The Parthian Rapier caressed his throat, sliding up his neck an leaving a slight trail of blood. Anton could feel the barrel of the rapier’s pistol hilt press into his chin. Guy tensed with anticipation, and Anton squeezed his eyes shut.

The rapier jerked violently, just once. Anton opened his eyes in astonishment as the gag fell away, sliced in half. Guy forcefully yanked the kerchief from his mouth, flapping it in the air a few times before cramming it into a bottle at his side. Anton gasped for breath in the cool midnight air, only to have the wind knocked out of him when Guy dropped him back to the ground.

“HELP!” Anton screamed out, despite the agonizing headache it caused him. “Heeel-“ He was abruptly cut off by Guy’s foot on his throat, set with just enough weight on it to be exceptionally uncomfortable. He watched in growing horror as the fugitive stuffed the soaked handkerchief into another bottle. Casually, Benoit reached into one of his pockets, pulling forth a matchbook... one of the matchbooks La Palais de la Biere gave out. With a flick of his nails, the match burst into flame. Had Anton been a more superstitious man, he would have believed that Guy could have lit it simply by staring at it.

Guy touched the little flame to the oil soaked cloth, giving a stark grin as the whole thing began to burn. For a moment, he simply stared at the bottle, watching in unholy fascination as the glass glowed red in the light.

“What are you doing?” Anton gagged out, still struggling not to crush his throat under the weight of Guy’s foot. “You’re insane!”

“I just gamble with higher stakes,” Guy said.

With an offhand, almost careless toss, Guy threw the burning bottle through the window of La Palais. There was the crack of glass as the bottle shattered, and a sudden flare of flames as the oil poured inside caught alight. The fire spread in minutes, and before Anton could register what was happening, the entire building was ablaze. Shouts of alarm were already coming from the nearby buildings, and the watch would no doubt be here soon. Too late, however, to save La Palais from total ruin.

Guy nodded with satisfaction, taking his foot off Anton’s throat before turning back towards the darkness. Anton struggled back upright, watching his business burn down before his eyes. “You madman, they’re coming for you. You can’t hide forever!” he gasped at Guy.

Guy looked over his shoulder, his burning eyes freezing Anton solid.

“Come and find me,” Benoit growled.

Guy Benoit slipped into the night, vanishing into the shadows. The sky burned red as La Palais was consumed, the entire building enveloped in flame. The gendarmerie ran by him, calling out in panic and alarm. He walked on without blinking an eye. A few moments later, La Palais exploded behind him, the flame having reached the barrels of gunpowder in the basement. He gripped the Parthian Rapier in his hand as the fireball erupted into the sky.

“Not in vain, Micheal,” Guy whispered, pulling the rapier against his chest. “Never in vain...”

[Rock of the Fraternity]

766 Barovian Calendar

The bats swarmed over the smallish concert hall, just as they did every night. Some of the people gathering in the street to attend tonight’s symphony looked up, concerned that they might be subjected to a brief rain of guano. Their fear failed to materialize, however. Just as it had failed to materialize during the previous social season, when this symphony had been performed.

“It’s just more illusions,” one portly, moustache-wearing patron opined as he led his companion to the well-lit entrance. “Dashed effective, right? Too right! Puts you right in the mood.”

The bats swarming over the crowd would report this comment to their leader, just as they would all of the other comments they overheard. Said leader would have flown out with them to spy and report what he had spied, only he was getting on in years. Silvery grey hairs flecked his muzzle and back, and he preferred to ride with his master and receive reports in that most comfortable of roosts.

Liability Mourneswaithe was sitting on top of the concert hall, which she had started renting after it had been brought to her attention by her business partner. The building suited her preferences perfectly; it was a little out of the way, and looked slightly dilapidated in daylight. It did not attract undue attention during the off season. Even when people who did not work there as part of the staff found reason to pass the building, they rarely took the time to look at it too closely. The few times that desperate thieves had tried to loot the place, they had been driven off by swarming, shrieking, and for some reason highly incontinent bats.

The rent was dirt cheap, both on the building and its security force. The occasional slab of beef left to rot on the roof and attract insects was all it took to secure the loyalty of the local bats, and it was barely any expense at all, now.

Tonight was the first night of the aforementioned social season, and Lia sat on the roof and watched the people come. Tonight, the doors stood wide open and emitted bright light from inside, as they would for several nights to come. It was … acceptable. Usually, Lia would spend the nights poring over tomes of ancient and modern lore in her office, hidden deep in the building’s bowels. But tonight … Tonight she felt like taking in summer night’s air.

Perhaps it was the music. Rehearsals had started months ago, as they must. Rooms and corridors which had known only the twittering of bats, the sound of a solitary wizard’s footprints (apart from those few, but welcome visits), and the settling of dust had echoed to the tread of cleaners and the sound of the flutes.

The flutes, the flutes, forever the flutes. Music, composed by a Fey lord, banished for the sake of love and exiled lord of a desert realm. Mad, strange music. How long ago was it that she had offered to carry the Featherflute’s story out of the desert to the world?

“Has it really been five years, Professor?” Lia asked out loud.

Professor Marchand-Renier came forward out of the shadows to stand beside the mage, who sat at the very edge of the roof. “Since the end of the Menetnashte Expedition, Miss Mourneswaithe?” the academic asked as he adjusted his jacket. “Growing maudlin in our dotage, are we?”

Lia did not acknowledge the joke with laugh or counter. She simply let it pass. “Five years,” she said, making a simple gesture at the crowd filing into the building. “Five years and five social seasons survived. With a reasonable profit.”

“True,” the Professor agreed as he looked down on the people. “I believe that ‘the Lay of the Fey Lord’ has become something of a conversation piece in the salons. Not an important one. But people do like to say that they have heard the music, and to speculate.”

“Speculate, do they?” Lia sighed.

“If you went out more, you would probably have heard already,” the Professor said with a small, sharp-edged smile on his aristocratic face. “Apparently you are a brilliant composer, scarred in body and mind, so that you hide your face and hear strange voices when you compose music. Or no, you have actually sold your soul to fiends for music that will scour the soul. But no, you are –“

“A flesh golem, a vampire, an undead bard doomed to wander this building until I have composed the definitive music,” Lia replied, waving the mad theories of Dementlieu’s salons away with a weary hand gesture. “There are so many rumours, and they mean so little.”

“You would probably dispel some of them if you were seen about town more often,” the Professor noted.

The academic did something that seemed very out of character; he sat down next to Lia, dangling his legs over the edge of the roof as she did. The summer night’s breeze lifted her black skirts and the hem of her cloak, sent them fluttering over his own dark attire before she brushed them back. To the people on the street, they might as well have been invisible; two figures in dark colours on a dark night, on top of a dark building, when bright light was spilling into their eyes from the open door. Invisible – or monstrously large bats. There were theories about those, as well.

“I go into town often enough,” Lia replied, shrugging. “I need food, after all. Fresh parchment … books … occasional visits to old friends … There are necessities.”

“But you do not go as yourself,” Professor Marchand-Renier countered. “What kind of illusions are you using to disguise yourself these days? And why do you do it?”

“I have all that I need in Dementlieu,” Lia replied, quite simply. “This building. My degree. The flautists. I foresee a time when I will be finished with Dementlieu forever. When that day comes, I shall prefer not to leave behind anything important. I require no new connections in this city.”

“Are you still so ashamed of your appearance?” the Professor asked, a slightly pained expression on his face.

Lia did not reply to this, either. Instead, she extracted a crumpled, much-read letter from her sleeve. “My sister writes to me,” she told the Professor. “We are in fairly regular correspondence these days.”

“And how fares your sister, Miss Mourneswaithe?” Professor Marchand-Renier asked, one eyebrow quirked over a piercing eye.

“With the money I send her, and the business deals she is forming with grand-mêre’s advice and expert tutelage, she fares well,” Lia replied. There was a very faint note of pride in her voice. “The family business is perhaps not thriving, but it is recovering. And the family manor is being restored. A few more years, perhaps four, and all will be … almost as it was before father died. Only better.”

“Four more years,” Professor Marchand-Renier repeated, slowly nodding. “And then what? Will you return to Mordent?”

“Initially, to see the house. But after that, I will travel again,” Lia replied. “I have chatted a bit with Professor Carter, from time to time. There is so much left to discover, and he might have a use for me in this respect. Also, Tomas is out there, somewhere.” She waved her hand in the direction of the north. “Off having mad adventures, risking his life to fight the good fight, while I sit here and study, and … arrange for music to be played. I have not yet seen Charles’ and Sarari’s house in Nevuchar Springs. I have never been to Sri Raji. The world … beckons. But first I will discharge my duty to my family and the Featherflute, as I have been doing.”

“Not without help,” Marchand-Renier noted, somewhat pointedly.

“Of course not, Professor,” Lia replied, unruffled. “Your help has been invaluable. You have people skills that I lack – and have no interest in developing.”

“What is to become of this place, when you leave it?” Marchand-Renier asked, after hiding a faint wince.

“It is to continue as it has done until now,” the mage replied. “I will leave it to you, if you will have it. Otherwise, I will reach an agreement with the musicians. The music must continue as long as I can arrange for it to go on.”

“Nine years of loyal service for a pair of wings,” Marchand-Renier chuckled. “And I doubt you’ve flown around Port-a-Lucine unless you made yourself invisible first, my dear Miss Mourneswaithe.”

There was a faint twinge in Lia’s back at this comment. Still, she let it pass.

“I gave my word,” she replied, simply.

“And so every year, you pay those down on their luck flautists,” Marchand-Renier said.

“They are very good,” Lia countered at this, her voice turning sharp. “Just … not popular.”

There were many ways for even the most skilled of artists to be less than popular in Dementlieu. Miss Matisse was a local girl from the lower society. She’d grown up in a slum, looked mousy and unassuming, but could play the flute like a master. Her parents had spent a tidy sum on her education once they discovered she had a talent, then kicked her out when a payoff failed to materialize. Señora Fabrezio was an Invidian expatriate, who would be the very model of a fiery Invidian beauty … if not for the fact that half her face was covered in scars. The woman was closemouthed about the cause for her scars, but she was more than grateful for the special uniform she had to wear during the symphony. She could insert a wildness into flute music that was entirely fitting for this symphony.

“Of course,” Professor Marchand-Renier agreed. “They are simply not popular with the in crowd. But here, at least, they find a modicum of fame. And financial security.”

“Are you suggesting something?” Lia asked archly.

“Perhaps you are trying to fight the good fight in a smaller arena, Miss Mourneswaithe,” the Professor chuckled.

Lia said nothing to this. The silence stretched, and broke when Professor Marchand-Renier rose and patted down his trousers. “Unless I misjudge the time,” he said, “the curtain will be raised in fifteen minutes. Will you be joining me in the directors’ private box tonight, Miss Mourneswaithe?”

“It is the first night of the social season,” Lia replied, “the first night of the symphony’s cycle of performances in this year. Therefore, the flesh golem, the vampire, the undead bard, shall, as usual … be absent.”

“Come now, Lia,” Marchand-Renier chided the mage. “Break out of this rut of seclusion. Set the tongues of the social scene wagging by actually being there for opening night. It will do the symphony a world of good, you know.”

Lia considered. And nodded. “I will follow you in about ten minutes,” she agreed. “And make a grand appearance.”

“Excellent!” Professor Marchand-Renier said, smiling darkly. “We will witness the performance of your fine, masked musicians amid the illusions of grand Fey you have conjured, and perhaps scandalize the socialites gathered in the seats below our box. And possibly we will share a glass of wine?”

Another twinge in Lia’s body, though this one was in her bowels, as opposed to her back. A rather visceral memory, that one ... “Not wine, perhaps,” she hedged. “We might share tea.”

Professor Marchand-Renier chuckled as he walked back into the shadows. Lia leaned back and let the night breeze wash over her. Twittering bats wheeled overhead, bringing news which Grimmric muttered in her ear. Not immediately critical news, perhaps, but essential.
The bats were security. To a certain extent, they were bodyguards. Lia had more reasons not to be seen out in public than a desire for privacy and the ability to eventually leave Dementlieu without leaving anything behind.

There were other letters stuffed up the mage’s sleeves, leather straps keeping them fixed in place. Letters from Tomas were the most numerous, and deeply appreciated.

The most recent one, however, had been delivered by a fat, orange cat, which had snuck into the building through a little door made just for her, and had delivered the note directly to Lia’s hands. Dear old Andre … Still teaching theology at the University. And most likely, he was still worshiping an insane, ancient Fey who claimed to be a goddess. He was still neck deep in danger and not about to get out of it anytime soon.

Dangerous business from dear old Andre. It was best to be known to all of Port-a-Lucine as a reclusive wizard and director of odd music. The modest fame derived from being one of the directors of a symphony which had managed to draw audiences for several years in a row was already dangerous. Or at least it felt dangerous to her. But it was necessary. And if Andre would risk his own safety to regularly talk to her about … things, the least she could do was match his courage with some of her own.

Still, it was best that people think Liability Mourneswaithe had retired from the affairs of the larger world entirely, and was focusing only on recovering her family’s fortunes and her private studies.

It was best that no one even suspected what business she and Andre got up to, by virtue of the odd bat courier and … other means. Unobtrusive means. The building had needs, simple needs, which required simple people, unimportant, uninteresting people. The kind of people who had feet, hands and minds. Yes, by far for the best that everyone important should think that Lia was a recluse and that nothing important happened in this concert hall. And still it was not the only reason why Lia only went out anymore under cover of illusions.

That would change, she had promised herself. But it would have to wait. She still needed to get used to the … changes, needed to grow comfortable with herself again.

The bats wheeled overhead and chattered at each other. Lia leaned back and reminisced. “Nine years of loyal service for wings, eh?” she mused out loud. “Pah. Not hardly no more.”

Who else could she have asked to be the first one to play the symphony? Even when Marchand-Renier had found the concert hall for her to inhabit and stage the symphony in, even when he had brought in the two musicians, the music had not been played yet. She had not felt right about asking it of anyone else. She had been the one to offer to carry the Fey lord’s tale to the rest of the world. How could she have asked it of anyone else?

And so she had gone to the main hall in the dead of night and started to play. It took time. It took hours to get the song right, it was so complicated. But finally, the warped, twisty melodies rose to fill the room, and …

“A fine joke, lord Featherflute,” Lia sighed, not for the first time in the past five years. “Oh, well. I have my own reasons.”

She’d given her word, for one thing. And it gave her a way to provide for her family back home. That was a rather amusing thought, after all the effort she’d gone to just to get away from home, less than ten years ago. Also, it gave her a reason to be in Dementlieu, where she could channel Andre’s information to the right people, and where other old friends knew how to reach her. But she had been honest with Marchand-Renier when she told him that the world beckoned. Was that part of her nature now?

… the warped, twisty melodies rose to fill the room, and … she had known. Had felt the Featherflute’s trap lying in the music. Felt the choice. And she had made it. Had taken on the trick, so no one else would have to, and the music could be played, could be shared, could be … free. The change had come over her, and she had known it would be permanent. But now no one else would be changed. The joke was made, the trick was played, time to move on with life.

Liability Mourneswaithe rose and walked onto the roof, walked into the shadows. The summer night’s breeze washed over her again and, for just a moment, snatched away her black veil. Her hair rose to snatch it back, but for a moment, her face was revealed to the night.

Her skin had not changed much. It was still grey, still blotchy. But it had become smoother. And her facial features had been … refined, sharpened. Her body was slimmer, more elegant in its movements. If seen without her colouring, Lia might have been called beautiful, a rather savage kind of beautiful. A fey kind of beautiful, perhaps. Her red eyes were almond-shaped, their glitter sharper than it had been before she’d played the music. When her hair was at rest, it tended to twist itself into curls and ringlets sometimes. And there were the horns. They were not that large, they had a lovely shade of gold, and they were sharp of ridge and point. A trade-off, perhaps. Small horns and elegance of body in trade for the wings that had once carried her aloft. They were small again, could not carry her.

“Wings for freedom,” Lia noted, and smirked in the darkness. “Mine. My freedom. Nothing owed anymore, lord Featherflute. Nothing but what my honour dictates. Nothing owed anymore, lord Bloodthorn. Nothing but what my honour dictates. Nothing owed anymore, father. Nothing but what honour dictates. All debts paid off.”

Honour was a strange thing. Was it something she had learned from dear, silly, heroic Tomas? Something she had always had? If she wanted things she had gained from Tomas, then she had a more tangible item to look to than honour. If Professor Marchand-Renier had noticed the sword hidden under her cloak, he had failed to comment, and she had not felt like bringing it up herself.

On a whim, Lia drew the blade, adopted the first training pose and slashed the air a few times. There had been changes, yes. Her mind was still powerful, but her body was now strong as well. Healthier. She just needed a bit more time to get used to it. But she had time. And she had a chance to keep fighting the good fight, not only in the smaller arena.

Liability Mourneswaithe descended the stairway into the concert hall. Her new body did not tolerate wine, but she was actually looking forward to a cup of tea. It was always nice to have a good cuppa when listening to music in mostly congenial company. She sheathed the blade as she went, eyes cutting through the darkness without trouble.

In the summer night, Liability Mourneswaithe … smiled. And was, for the moment, at peace.

[NeoTiamat]

Life... returned to normal for Professor Andre Theroux. However, Andre had developed what could only be called a rather skewed definition of normal over his travels, so how close to normal it truly was was a matter of debate that could likely occupy quite a few scholars for a very long time. Preparations had to be made for the upcoming academic year, and with three new courses he was offering, Andre was a rather busy man. Pre Akiri Sebuan language, history, and religion. To call it an academic coup would be an understatement, considering the lack of any prior information on the subject. Of course, Andre had other plans beyond simply enriching the academic community with previously unknown knowledge.

After all, he HAD made a deal, and if certain of his students who took all three courses happened to stop regularly attending Ezran services, and instead met with Professor Theroux for "Independent study on the ceremonial nature of Pre-Akiri religion", well it was academic enrichment, surely not Professor Theroux leading some sort of heathen cult amongst the student body. That would be simply preposterous, especially considering that after the expedition to Har Akir, Andre had for all intents and purposes, somehow discovered an aspect to his personality that ALMOST made him likable.

Of course, that also led to the rumor that he had killed Professor Pelletier in some sort of insane scheme to summon a demon, which in turn had killed and replaced Professor Theroux, but considering that the "demon" wasn't quite such an utter bastard about grading, and was able to talk with his students as if they were more than lackwits he was forced to deal with on a regular basis, it was a rumor quickly quashed if just on hopes that they wouldn't find the original Professor Theroux and have to deal with him again.

So any rumors about him leading some sort of diabolic cult were surely simply that, rumors.

It wasn't a diabolical cult at all, it was a very scholarly, logical cult. And not so much a cult as a re-emerging faith.

Of course, Andre had other commitments as well. Escaping from the Fraternity of Shadows wasn't exactly the easiest thing in the world. They had enough reach that even with immunity to divination, Andre would be hard pressed to escape their grasp, and likely if he made things difficult... they would make his life very short and unpleasant. So when in doubt, work the system from within.

It was rather ingenious after all. The discussion with certain... individuals... was a bit stressful, but explaining that his allegiances were far from contradictory was easier than one expected. After all, the Oracle is an amoral goddess of knowledge and learning. The Fraternity of Shadows... an amoral society of magi and scholars trying to learn all they could, no matter what the costs to others. Really, it was the sort of matchmaking that made more or less perfect sense. They weren't exactly at cross purposes after all.

And Honored Brother Theroux had a nice ring to it really. Of course, there were prior... commitments too.

A letter here and there, in a cipher that blended the grammatical nightmare that is Tepestani, phonetically rendered into Akiri and then replaced with a substitution cipher. Although there was always the chance of it being intercepted, Andre utterly pitied anyone who tried to actively translate it. Of course, it was a bit of a headache for Lia to translate, but it was better than just writing everything out in High Mordentish for any idiot to read.

Sometimes, a twinge of guilt at crossed allegiances. But only a twinge. Knowledge was amoral after all. It wasn't exactly his problem if Lia used certain bits of information in ways that didn't exactly expand the Fraternity of Shadow's agenda...well so be it.

He didn't tell her what to do with it, she made her own choices.

So did Andre, and most of the time...he slept well.

[The Whistler]

Property of Zherisian Metropolitan Police Dept.

Date: 09/27/766
Supervising Constable: H. BOLTON

The following being the collected documents and witness testimony reports pertinent to Case 27754, the which transpired at the location of 76 WILLOW CRESCENT, SHADEWELL DIST. between the hours of 12:10 AM and 1:35 AM, on the date of 9/15/766. For internal use only.

---------------

ITEM A:

Written records of Const. L. Smythe, Asst. Procurator, Zherisian Metropolitan Police Dept., for the morning of 9/14/766 (Excerpted.)

7:45 AM: Semiweekly barracks inspection; cleaning. Recommend replacement of storage lockers in units 1, 5, and 6.

9:17 AM: Arrival of messenger from residence of Chief Procurator R. Tibbins, regarding unexpected resurgence of gout. Will take over Chief Procurator’s appts. for remainder of week as previously discussed.
EXPENSES: 2 P. (gratuity)

9:29 AM: Meeting with representatives of S______ International (one Herr S_____ & wife), regarding pending munitions resupply of 12/30/766. Interview conducted through translator. Herr S_____ particularly animated regarding S______ Co. enhanced small arms products; offered demonstration.

Despite efficacy of S______ Co. munitions, given recent upsurge in violent crime re: Blackchapel, bulk-discounted firearms more valuable than “boutique” product at present time. Additionally, despite industry rumors of past S______ Co. successes (Kantora Constabulary; Mayvin Defenseworkers’ Guild; the Free Rokushima Initiative, etc.), available concrete evidence indicates S______ Co. a small-scale concern w/ largely embroidered reputation—owner-operators conducting sales meetings directly; small/nonexistent support staff, & c. Thus, recommend purchasing from Carlyle Trading Co. in accordance with existing contracts.

---------------

ITEM B:

Transcript: Sworn Testimony of Ms. F. Atwater, President, Paridon Environmental Defense Foundation. Recorded 9/17/766 at 33c W. Ramsgate St., Bowels Dist., under supervision of Const. H. Bolton.

“Donations have been scarce, nowadays, what with the economy as it is…it’s a difficult thing to get citizens to care about charitable giving, even when the need is so great. Most of our larger donors do come from outside of the City; I believe it’s an effect of having seen wilderness once, and being aware of what one’s missing. Much of the younger generation, that grew up after the Upheaval…well, Divinity knows how we’re going to reach them.

“Even with that in mind, though, Mr. and Mrs. S_____ were…different, than our usual contributors. Lamordians are rather rare to begin with, but merchants even more so: generally, the aristocracy is more likely to have the right combination of ideals and funding. And when Mr. S______ told me what business he was in…well, you can imagine.

“We spoke largely in Mordentish—I’ve picked up some of the language. I remember that he was particularly interested in Paridon’s higher-order predators; he’d made a study of the Barovian Grey Wolf, he said, and he was of the opinion that an environment was only as healthy as its carnivore population. There’s some truth to that, in fact—for predators to flourish presumes that herbivores also do so, and so on down the line. I couldn’t be of much information to him in that respect, though; cultivated parkland can only really support so much wildlife, so the most we get are a few coyotes moving from green space to green space. I did mention the recent problem with stray dogs that Shadewell’s been having, up by the edge of Barrows Park; he seemed interested in that.

“In the end, he made a very generous gift to the Foundation. Our operating expenses should be spoken for over the next half-year at least, I don’t mind telling you…

“Which made it all the more of a shame, what happened next. Mrs. S_____ had begged out early; something about having to look over the accounts, she said. She had a baby on the way, though, poor dear—a few months pregnant at most, but I can tell these things. I imagine she simply needed the rest. Well: after Mr. S_____ had written me the cheque, he had gotten up to leave, and was on the sidewalk outside the office; we have a bay window, so I could see it all as it occurred. It was from one of the side streets to the left: a short, stocky man, unshaven and with brown hair, dressed as a laborer. With no provocation, he simply lunged at Mr. S_____, with a thin dagger in one hand, snarling something that I couldn’t hear…and then…

“Well. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Quick as you’d like, Mr. S_____ just sidestepped, as if it weren’t any trouble at all; he was facing me, so I could see his mouth, and I think he muttered something like ‘not again’, of all things. I should mention, about his footwork: he did something with his heels, rather like a quadrille step. You know, one two three kick: like that kick. And then he disappeared! As if he’d never been there…I had to take a second look at the cheque, to make sure it hadn’t vanished as well. And then the other man simply ran off, before I could cry out.

“Such an odd occurrence…you did say he was all right, did you? Mr. S______? I should like to send him a thank you card, at very least…”

---------------

ITEM C:

Transcript: Sworn Testimony of Mr. G. Pike, Day Laborer, Shackleton’s Chimney Services Inc. Recorded 9/17/766 at 24 Public Alley 223B, Blackchapel Dist., under supervision of Const. H. Bolton.

“Now, what them blokes streetside don’t understand is a little something we call ‘vantage point.’ You’re south of King’s Quarters, you say? Have yourself a fireplace? Then we Sweeps, fellow-me-lad, can see you go about your daily business. Hear you, too, if your ventilating’s good enough: noises head straight up through the flues, or get knocked about from alley to alley. Once it gets up past third-story level, it’s all on us.”

“So, naturally, I had me suspicions about the old Wolcott place to begin with. Not so I’d go ringing the coppers about it, but enough to keep me eyebrows a-raised. First thing, and this ain’t no bragging matter, but the honest truth: The Wolcotts never did go in for our services. Not just Shackleton’s, mind ye, but Sweeps altogether—ain’t touch their chimneys, ain’t get their hedges done, leaves their rubbish out in the yard for the neighbors to gab about… I ain’t never been one for fine living, ‘cept round paydays, but these are Shadewell blokes what we’re discussing, and on the Park at that. For my dosh, I’d say one of them Wolcott lads was payin’ off the Watch, or [REDACTED] one of the Lawn and Garden tarts. Hells—all of the Lawn and Garden tarts. Cover your bases, and all that.

“Second thing is the company—all hours of the night, shifty little blighters coming out and in—and third thing is the dog problem: just as shifty four-legged ones doing the same. Me, I figured they just like their mutts, savvy? No trouble in that—had one meself, when I was a wee little [REDACTED]. But still—gets you to thinking.

“So, it’s roundabout dusk, start of the shift, and I’m at me business swabbing out the Houghton place: two flues, pitched roof, right there on Willow so’s it’s spitting distance of the Wolcotts’. And I’m thinking about dogs, you see? Which is why me eye gets drawn down to street level when this Falkov bint comes into the picture. Tiny little thing.

“How do I catch on she’s a Falkov? ‘Sides from the whole blonde-and-blue look about her? Well, fellow-me-lad, remember: ‘once it gets past third-story level…’ I know Falkov when I hears it, and the way she natters on to those pups, as she walks ‘em—like choking on a fish bone, it was. Farthest from the Queen’s Zherisian what I’ve ever heard. And these pups—that’s understatement, mind. Big as houses they were, all three of the buggers…like to rip your face off as look at you. I was a kennel club chap, I’d near have bust me heart with the shock; thank the stars that yours truly is a Blackchapel gent.

“Refresher, then: one Miss Fifth Column, three crimes against bleedin’ Nature. I’m keeping half an eye on this lot, by now. Miss makes like she’s takin’ the brood for an old-fashioned walk-around—but soon as shooting, once she gets aside of the Wolcott place, she ducks down all stealthful-like and lets the poor blighters off-leash. Now, this next is Divinity’s Honest: these three beasties dig theirselves ‘neath the Wolcott’s fence and split their separate ways ‘round the yard—in formation. Sure as I’m alive: the biggest of the three blighters led ‘em in, but after that, ‘twas as if the little [REDACTED] were casing the place for a smash-and-grab. Methodical-like, and that. Falkov bint even makes to sit over the park ‘cross the way, like she’s waiting on ‘em to join back up once the job’s done.

“Now, I ain’t mind telling you, this all is like a good bit of thee-ay-tah to yours truly. But I lose track of the three pups ‘round ten minutes after they’re in the place, and I got me a cleanin’ job on Mr. Thackeray’s pipe at eight-abouts, down on Chestnut, so I can’t stay to chat. So I scarper before I see the lot of ‘em come out.

“Shame I wasn’t about later that night, in’nit? Friend o’ mine saw the whole show, he did—bloke’ll have pub stories for bleedin’ months.”

---------------

ITEM D:

Additional written records of Const. L. Smythe, Asst. Procurator, Zherisian Metropolitan Police Dept., for the late evening of 9/14/766 and early morning of 9/15/766 (Excerpted.)

10:18 PM: Following unscheduled departure of Night Constable W. Frasier (re. food poisoning), will be personally covering Shadewell Dist. Incident Report Desk from 11:00 PM 9/14/766 through 5:00 AM 9/15/766. Have reassigned Deputy Asst. Procurator V. Riggs to bi-nightly holding cell inspection.

11:00 PM: End of late evening shift. Const. J. Perry reports minor purse-snatching (code 7445) at corner of Vauxhall St. & Gantry Ln., at approx. 9:45 PM, 9/14/766. No further incidents.

12:27 AM: Arrival of personal valet employed by Ms. H_____ of 78 Willow Crescent, regarding noise complaint centering around adjacent residence. Quote: “a sort of muffled thud, and then a crack-crack-crack.” In re. prior history of Ms. H_____ and frivolous complaints, dismissed valet, with gratuity.
EXPENSES: 2 P. (gratuity)

12:35 AM: Transmission received from in-office sending stone keyed to Hon. Mr. N______, of 74 Willow Crescent. Transmission record: PULSING VIBRATIONS IN FLOOR AND E HOUSE WALL STOP SUSPECT FURTHER ARCANE TOMFOOLERY FROM SIR Z_____ STOP UNACCEPTABLE STOP PLEASE INVESTIGATE STOP. Recommend dispatching officer to residence of Sir Z_____ at 9:00 AM 9/15/766 in re. city ordinance 8973 (treatment of bound elemental spirits w/in private residences)

12:51 AM: Arrival of Mr. P______ (& bicycle) at Shadewell Dist. Incident Report Desk. Mr. P_____, of 82 Willow Crescent, apparently winded, out of sorts. Quote: “Wolcott…blue light! …and the firing and whooooosh!” Directed Mr. P_____ to visitors’ area to recuperate; will interview further in approx. quarter hour.
EXPENSES: 3 ½ P. (restorative tea, biscuits)

12:56 AM: Arrival of personal valet employed by Ms. H______ of 78 Willow Crescent (see above) regarding further noise complaint. Quote: “a small click, and then a louder one, and then a very noisy sort of ‘krak-THOOM’, and then a number of dogs barking, and then a sound like a hundredweight of crockery being dropped down a flight of stairs.” Detained valet for further questioning.

1:02 AM: Additional transmission received from in-office sending stone keyed to Hon. Mr. N______ (see above). Transmission record: SECOND STOREY OF WOLCOTT HOUSE GONE STOP CAN SEE FROM WINDOW STOP WHERE SECOND STOREY SHOULD BE INSTEAD SEE IMAGE OF MAN W PISTOLS WOMAN W MILITARY GRADE HOWITZER STOP DID NOT KNOW SIR Z_____ WAS AN ILLUSIONIST ALSO BUT HE IS CLEARLY A DISRUPTIVE BOUNDER STOP

1:05 AM: Requisitioned armaments from department repository; currently departing for Willow Crescent.

3:47 AM: Returned to Department Headquarters.

Incident Report: Upon arrival at 76 Willow Crescent, Shadewell Dist., observed significant civilian crowding in area, in addition to presence of constabulary. Damage to Wolcott property significant, inc. absence of roof & second storey; destruction of fence; small, localized fires; apparent explosion of carriage-house; disappearance of shrubbery (see property damage report 411A2). Gunfire/Sounds of continuing struggle non-present. Two figures momentarily visible in silhouette on upper balcony, apparently embracing: 1M, 1F, age/physical features indeterminate. Aforementioned persons absconded from balcony by unknown means shortly thereafter.

Asst. Constable T. Hopper suggested pursuing and arresting aforementioned persons on charges of Amorous Public Conduct; Asst. Constable Hopper immediately and forcefully dissuaded.

Further investigation of property resulted in discovery of Mr. W_____ & associates (hereafter Suspects 1-7) prone in the side yard. Suspects 1-7 were discovered alive, and in the Hybrid form affected by natural [REDACTED]; suspects had previously been trussed about the limbs and torso in such a manner as to prevent transformation. On-site interrogation of Suspects 1-7 met with minimal resistance due to Suspects’ ongoing shock, and revealed connections to Marston Dock Teamsters’ Association (see Report 746, “Well-Known Front Organizations”; Report 55, “Narcotics Smuggling: A Preventive Approach”), as well as ongoing correspondence with Mr. James B______, late of Blackchapel.

Additional inspection of side yard revealed printed notice pinned to tree approx. 10 ft. from position of Suspects 1-7. Quote:

“ATTENTION INTERESTED CITIZENS:

THE RAPSCALLIONS PRESENTED HEREWITH HAVE BEEN SUBDUED BY MEANS OF FIREARMS AND PERSONAL DEFENSE ITEMS MANUFACTURED BY

S________ INTERNATIONAL,

THE WHICH IS CURRENTLY OFFERING A UNIVERSAL 15% DISCOUNT ON ALL PRODUCTS PRESENTLY STOCKED. TRULY, THIS REPRESENTS AN OFFER HERETOFORE UNMATCHED IN THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ENDEAVOR! RESIDENTS OF THE CITY ARE HUMBLY EXHORTED TO CONTACT THE ZHERISIAN REPRESENTATIVE OF S_______ INTERNATIONAL AT…” (& c.)

Regarding pending munitions resupply of 12/30/766, have personally submitted recommendation that Zherisian Metropolitan Police Dept. dissolve existing contracts with Carlyle Trading Co., and instead commence immediate business proceedings with S______ International. For related expense information, please see Form 4791.


---END OF REPORT---

[Kaitou Kage]

October 15, 761, Lamordia, 3:37 PM

“Ugh,” Kuzan shivered again. The cold nipped at him, even through his magical protection, and the white, flaky stuff that Rajian had no word for was everywhere. “How much further?” the priest demanded.

“Just over the next ridge,” Dieter replied cheerfully, “Why? You cold?”

Kuzan shot the Lamordian a dirty look. For weeks, the pair trudged over snowy, mountainous terrain. The priest’s magic allowed them to walk on top of the snow instead of through it, but he found it small comfort. Even at his most seasick, the priest had never felt so miserable.

He sniffled, wiped his nose on his sleeve for the thousandth time, and tromped onward after Dieter.

October 15, 761, Lamordia, 6:32 PM

The two young men approached the cabin. The wind had stopped some time ago, though the snow continued falling. Kuzan irritably brushed it off his shoulders as Dieter stared at the closed door.

“Are you going to open it?” Kuzan asked, “Or are you going to let us freeze to death?”

“Heh,” Dieter said, “Just thinking. It’s been years since I’ve been home. Wonder what they’ll say.” The lanky blond youth glanced over his shoulder at Kuzan. His blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “You should probably forget all the Lamordian I taught you,” he said brightly, “And remember what Remy and Otto and Tomas taught you. Some of the words you learned from me aren’t good for polite company.” The Lamordian grinned and then turned and knocked on the door.

Kuzan fidgeted anxiously. He’d seen plenty of families back home. Even throughout the Core he’d witnessed familial love and affection from a distance. Yet here, in a remote farming town in frozen Lamordia, he was about to experience it firsthand. Or so he hoped. Dieter assured him repeatedly that his folks would treat Kuzan like one of their own, but the priest still held doubts.

The door opened and Kuzan jumped like a scared rabbit. A middle-aged Lamordian man, thick around the waist and wearing simple farmer’s clothes opened the door and peered out. Sharp, blue eyes looked Dieter up and down. They look just like Dieter’s eyes, Kuzan realized.

“Hey, Pop,” Dieter said sheepishly.

Kuzan watched as the older man’s blue eyes suddenly widened in recognition. The door slammed shut and the priest heard excited shouting as the man fumbled with the chain. Then, the man flung the door open and lunged at Dieter, encompassing the young mercenary in a giant bear-hug A rosy-cheeked woman hurried out the door and paused, staring slack-jawed at Dieter before joining the hug. Two teens, both still in their gawky, awkward years, hurried to the doorway, bundled up in cloaks to ward the cold. They grinned broadly as they watched Dieter and his parents reunite.

Kuzan fidgeted a little. The teens glanced at him occasionally, curiosity and confusion in their bright blue eyes. The priest tried to ignore the looks. Dieter had warned him that few people in Lamordia had ever seen someone with dark skin. Kuzan had argued that in Sri Raji, he was considered light-skinned. Dieter promptly pointed out how fair-skinned he was compared to Kuzan.

The priest waited the uncomfortable few moments until Dieter's parents released him from their hug. His mother dabbed her eyes with a kerchief and his father patted the skinny mercenary hard on the back. Dieter stumbled a little, but laughed. So this is what family is like, Kuzan thought. The joy and love floated on the snowy air like hundreds of songbirds chirping merrily. Kuzan felt a brief flash of jealousy, but it vanished as soon as Dieter started talking.

"Mom, Pop," the lanky mercenary said, "I'd like you to meet my best friend, Kuzan. We met on the expedition to Har'Akir and decided to stick together after. He's from a far away land called Sri Raji but I hope you won't hold that against him." Dieter grinned cheekily at Kuzan. "Kuzan, this is my dad, Bartleme Haulfstead, and my mom, Sofia."

Kuzan froze like a startled deer. Dieter's parents turned toward the priest. Sofia regarded him with the same awe the two teens had. Bartleme, on the other hand, folded his arms across the chest and critically looked Kuzan over. The priest suddenly felt extremely self-conscious. Not only was his skin color odd for Lamordia, but he was dressed outlandishly. His magic warded off most of the cold, so he wasn't even wearing a coat.

Then Bartleme grinned and wrapped Kuzan up in another giant bear-hug. "Welcome to the Haulfstead home," the Lamordian patriarch said, "Any friend of Dieter is friend of mine and Sofia's, yes? Come in, come in, you will catch cold! You both must tell us of your trip, and of this Sree Rajee!"

Bartleme wrapped a large arm across Kuzan's shoulders and guided him inside. Kuzan found himself grinning like an idiot. He caught sight of Dieter out of the corner of his eye. The mercenary was escorting Sofia inside, but flashed the priest a thumbs up as they went in.

October 15, 761, Lamordia, 8:54 PM

"And so then this giant gargoyle-monster, all black and shadows jumped across the roof." Dinner was done but the whole family still sat around the table to listen to some of Kuzan's and Dieter's stories. It was Dieter's turn to talk.

"So I shot him right in the nose! But then he glared at me." Here, Dieter put on his best "evil monster" voice. "'PUNY MORTAL,' he said, 'I WILL TAKE YOUR BRAINS AND EAT IT BREADED AND FRIED.' And I went "Pshaw" and rai--"

"As I remember it," Kuzan interrupted, deadpan, "You shot him and then he blasted your brain and you fell over like a tree struck by lightning." Dieter's family gasped in shock.

"Hey," Dieter protested, "Shaddap! You had your chance to tell this story!" Bartleme and the two teens whooped with laughter. Kuzan grinned and sat back.

Dinner was hot and filling and both Sofia and Bartleme were quick to refill the mugs of warm, mulled cider. Kuzan rubbed his stomach contentedly. Here he'd found good food, good company and a warmth that he'd never experienced before. It was a warmth the priest only knew fleetingly, a warmth that the home-cooked meal, the cheerfully burning fire, and the hot cider couldn't bring. It was the warmth of a family, and Kuzan felt himself being pulled into that warmth.

"Are you really from Sri Raji?" The soft voice of Dieter's younger sister interrupted Kuzan's reverie. The priest looked at her and saw in her clear, blue eyes the same eagerness and curiosity that Dieter had.

"Yep," Kuzan grinned. At the other end of the table, Dieter kept his family entertained with more expedition stories.

"What's it like there?" the girl asked.

Kuzan set his mug down and sat back. "Well..."

April 13, 762, Lamordia, 9:30 A.M.

"You sure about this?" Kuzan asked once they crossed the ridge and were out of sight of the village. The duo had spent the winter in Dieter's family's home, but they'd said farewell only an hour ago and started the journey to Ludendorf. From there, they planned to catch a ship to Sri Raji.

"Yeah," Dieter said, "I left Pop with enough money to keep the farm going and hire a few helping hands. If I stayed around I'd just get bored again. Plus, with your blinky-jumpy magic, coming for a visit should be easy, right?" The Lamordian grinned and punched Kuzan playfully on the shoulder.

Kuzan laughed. "Easier, anyway," he said, "It's going to be a few years before the temple's finished. We won't get off the island much."

Dieter shrugged, still grinning. "As long as it's warm, I'll be happy."

"Well, then," Kuzan said brightly, "Off we go!" He placed a hand on Dieter's shoulder and uttered a word of prayer to Garuda. The pair vanished instantly.

[Isabella]

“-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”

Carter went flying through the stone door, plowing face first through the loose rubble as gravity caught up with him. The giant stone slab smashed down behind him, letting out a huge thoom that shook the entire cavern. Bits and pieces of rock clattered down from the ceiling, showering Carter with debris. There was an ominous rumbling sound, and then an earth-shattering crash as something collided with the stone door, shaking the temple to its foundations. Another hail of rubble followed, tiny chips of stone covering his shoulders and his hair. A large cloud of dust blew up around him, causing Carter to cough violently.

Carter’s hat slowly wafted down from the air above, settling gently on the ground beside him before the acid caused it to disintegrate.

“Well, that was fun,” Carter said.

He’d landed rather heavily on his equipment, and the metal lantern was digging painfully into his ribs. He picked himself up off the ground, dusting off his coat and doing his best to remove the bits of gravel embedded in his face. That settled, he gave himself a few experimental pokes and prods to make sure nothing was broken. He quickly discovered that most of him was very sore and did not appreciate poking. Still, nothing was too serious, so he picked up his pack, rearranged his gear, and started walking again. A moment later, he stopped, because there was a giant chasm in front of him.

“Hmm,” Carter hummed to himself. He could see the remnants of a rock bridge, but it had collapsed eons ago. Carter carefully approached the giant drop, kneeling at the edge of the cliff. His fly spell had shorted out an hour ago, and for some reason he simply couldn’t get it to work again, meaning he was stuck using mundane means. His magically-augmented sight couldn’t see to the bottom, so it was definitely deep enough to be deadly if he fell. Unhooking his lantern from the harness around his chest, Carter tied a rope to it, slowly lowering it down into the canyon. It didn’t reach the bottom, but it did illuminate a small footpath he hadn’t seen before, running down the sheer face of the rock wall. Hauling his lantern back up, Carter untied the rope from it and wrapped it around his own chest and shoulders. He securely anchored the other end to a steel piton and rappelled his way down the cliff face, landing safely on the catwalk below.

The chasm stretched out before him on both sides, the cliff face rising up behind him and hemming him in. In front of him was a veritable river... if rivers ran with bone. For that was indeed the grisly substance that filled this forsaken abyss. Tiny skulls lay stacked upon each other, forlorn and forgotten, not a single one of them larger than that of a child. It seemed to Carter as if their despair had survived with them into death, as he could still feel it exuding from their pitiful, skeletal forms. On occasion, the mass of bones would stir, as it truly were some macabre liquid, with some unknown horror swimming just below the surface.

Carter sighed. “Damnit, Andre.”

He couldn’t have found some nice Hearth Goddess to worship, oh no. It had to be a vicious crazy blood witch with poisonous snakes and rivers of murdered children. Sure, grinding wheat and baking bread didn’t quite have the same romantic allure, but there was no shame in that. Everyone liked a fresh baked loaf, and at least then you would be certain it wasn’t made out of human bones or something awful. More importantly, it meant that when Carter was asked to go traipsing around ancient temples by a certain someone - and he wasn’t going to name any names, but he was not terribly happy with them at the moment - his quest would not be constantly interrupted by giant serpents, pits of venom, or acid traps, nor would he ever be required to stab himself to proceed.

Well, one thing was certain. Carter was NOT going down there.

Clambering back up his rope, Carter carefully examined the area where the rock bridge had been, reasoning it had to have gone somewhere. He lit a torch from the fire in his lantern, throwing it across the gap. The light reflected red off a stone archway, decorated with entwined serpents, their eyes glittering in the newfound illumination. Carter nodded in satisfaction. Now he just had to get over there.

Sighting along the opposite wall, Carter picked out a promising spot in the stone serpent’s coils. He unslung an odd tube-like device from his shoulder, sighting along the edge carefully. The device looked something like a musket, though it had less in the way of delicate mechanisms and more in the way of room for gunpowder. A large, barbed harpoon was loaded into it, with a metal loop welded to the shaft. Carter pushed one of the barbs, watching it slide back into the harpoon, then spring back forth when he removed the pressure. He then untied the rope from the piton and carefully tied it to the spear. He hadn’t given up on the idea of firing a grappling hook, and though he’d had to make some rather heavy adjustments, he felt it worked out rather well.

Carter checked the knot a few times before hoisting the entire device over his arm, carefully aiming it at the carved doorway, and pulling the trigger. The harpoon shot across the chasm with a sulfurous explosion, the rope coiling in the air behind it. His aim proved true. The harpoon crashed its way into the stone carving, lodging itself thoroughly in the serpent. The barbs, having yielded as they collided with the rock, sprung forth again, catching on the statue. Carter gave the rope a few heavy tugs, then leaned back with all his weight. It was stuck fast.

The professor nodded, then crept back over the edge of the cliff. He didn’t particularly feel like simply swinging across from the top, as that would give his nose a rather violent appointment with the other wall. Instead, he used what handholds in the stone he could find to climb down as far as he could. He carefully inched his foot down toward a small niche, edging his way down with excruciating slowness. A few more feet, and the cliff sloped in underneath itself, making it impossible for him to climb. He gave the rope another tug, then let go, kicking off the face of the cliff to aid the swing.

It took Carter a moment to realize that he couldn’t feel anything holding him up, and that the sensation of weightlessness came from him plummeting. He screamed as he fell into the darkness.

He wasn’t sure if the cracking came from the bones he landed on, or his own. The bones, precariously balanced on one another, collapsed beneath his weight, plunging him deeper into the pit. Tiny teeth tore at him as he sank. Skeletal fingers clawed at his face. The collision sent ripples through the entire pile, the skulls rolling and clattering against one another, as if suddenly awakened and now coming to look at what had disturbed them. It was eons before he felt his momentum stop. Carter lay splayed against the mass of bones beneath him, feeling his lungs fill with blood, buried alive in a sea of the dead. A fragile, half broken skull stared at him mournfully, before vanishing below him through one of the gaps in the bone.

“I’m sorry...” Carter whispered after it. The child had been murdered and forgotten, it deserved to have its remains better treated. It was one final insult to a soul so tragically abused, and Carter wouldn’t have been surprised if the spirits of these poor victims had returned, seeking vengeance for this desecration.

They didn’t, and they needn’t have bothered. Carter could barely breathe, and he had no way of pulling himself out of this one. Slowly, heedless to the bones shifting underneath him as he moved, he reached his arm back and touched the symbol of Ezra he had taken to wearing, under his shirt. “...that she might protect us against the night...” he said softly, letting his eyes fall shut. “That she might strengthen us in our roles... until they are complete.”

There was silence. Carter cautiously opened one of his eyes.

He was suddenly feeling much better. He was also still buried in a giant river of skulls, but you couldn’t ask for everything. Carter hacked up a glob of blood, breathing easier as he cleared his lungs. The skulls shuddered with his sudden movement, and he froze, realizing that only a quirk of fate had kept him from falling further. One wrong move and he’d find out first hand how deep this pit went.

“This is a fine mess,” Carter groaned. He was feeling rather miffed, he’d checked that the rope was secure. How had he ever let himself get talked into this, anyway? He was forty-five years old now, he couldn’t keep pulling these kind of stunts and expect to keep up with it. The Guardians had already stopped giving him the more dangerous assignments, and last year the Department Head had paid him a visit, suggesting that perhaps it was time for Carter to consider a full-time teaching position, and leave the adventure for younger men.

And that, Carter thought glumly, was exactly how he’d gotten talked into this.

Well, he was past neck deep in it now. He’d better start figuring out how to get out of here. Carter racked his mind for his current options. Desperate prayer... well, it had worked well enough, but he was still stuck in the pit. Magic... he stretched out his arms, the skulls shifting dangerously at the movement, and made the gestures with his hands. “Volo!” he commanded.

Carter did not magically rise into the air.

“Did I say Volo? I meant Volat,” Carter tried. “Volare? Volatile? Vol-au-vent? Maybe I got the gestures wrong...”

No use. What else could he do...? His hands strayed across the modified rifle and the rope that was still tied to his chest. If he could get the harpoon back, he could reload the gun and try to fire it again. He’d be aiming blind, but if he managed to hit one of the walls, there was a good chance he could pull himself over to the side. From there, he’d be able to use the pitons and rope to climb out of the chasm. On the downside, if he missed... the recoil would be enough to send him to the bottom.

Carter gently began reeling in the rope, wincing with every skull the movement disturbed. He was treading on very thin ice here, and he needed to be very, very careful. He had a feeling that even if he held perfectly still, the bones beneath him were not going to hold him up much longer. Nearly holding his breath, Carter carefully shuffled the rope across his chest, keeping his arm movement to a minimum. It took forever, but eventually he felt himself coming to the end of it. Almost there, now...

The harpoon was missing. Carter stared in horror. The rope had been cut.

The skulls around him all began to shift, the movement rippling through the pile of bone. The support beneath him began to give way, bones cascading around him like a waterfall. Carter gasped in fear, reflexively reaching out for a lifeline that wasn’t there. One by one the skulls turned to him as he began to sink, surrounding him with their empty gaze. Then, all at once, their glowing eyes opened.

Carter cried out as he vanished into the abyss.

-------------

He was lying face down on a stone cavern floor. Carter shook his head as consciousness returned to him, slowly pushing himself into a sitting position. He wasn’t certain how long he’d been out. The spell on his vision had faded, and it was dark down here. The only light came from a soft, pale glow from some of the moss on the cave walls. He looked around, his mind feeling dull and sluggish. This place was different from the temple up above. Where the caverns there had always had some sign of human presence, this place was untouched, ancient and primordial. A deep hum was resonating through the cavern walls, like the chanting of a thousand holy men.

Carter felt around for his equipment, finding his pack missing from his side. He found his lantern sitting next to him, long burned out. Carter groped blindly about in the darkness, his hands coming across his familiar leather bag. He rifled through it, pulling out the lamp oil and his flint and steel. Unable to see his lantern well enough to fill it, he poured a bit of the oil on the floor, setting it ablaze and blinking at the sudden light. There was no sign of the bone chasm, nor any hole in the ceiling he could have fallen through to get from there to here. His equipment was set neatly in the corner, the rope untied from his chest and coiled up alongside it... someone had moved him.

Carter scrambled to his feet, reeling with the sudden rush of blood from his head. He quickly ran his hands over his body, looking for anything wrong, then tore into his pack and scattered his equipment across the floor. It took him a moment to forcibly calm down, his panicked eyes running across all of his gear. Nothing was obviously altered. Carter stared at the mess for a while before cramming everything back into his bag, throwing it all over his shoulder. He had deep misgivings about using the equipment after someone had tampered with it, but it was suicide to go on without it.

His instincts were screaming at him again. He felt the unmistakable, prickly sensation that he was being watched... He quickly lit his lantern and swung it around, casting light over every nook and cranny. There was nothing there.

Carter crept out silently through the cavernous tunnels, feeling far too visible with his burning lantern. The unfathomable chanting continued to echo through the caves, making his mind feel foggy and clouded. He kept close to the stone walls, finding the solid fixture comforting somehow. At one point he ran his hands against a strange script, carved in the rock face; it reminded him a little of Rajian, but the squiggles formed no words that he knew. Just looking at it sent a shiver down his spine.

He could see some kind of light up ahead, a sickly bluish glow that overshadowed the iridescent cave moss. Raising his courage, Carter pressed onward. His eyes were playing tricks on him now, and Carter couldn’t stop himself from looking to the side at the slightest movement. There was never anything there, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling... He paused for a moment, pretending to catch his breath, then swung the lantern around to cast light on the wall behind him.

There was a silhouette, the slightest glimpse of impossible shapes in the shadows. With a gasp of horror, Carter lost his grip on the lantern; he was running before it even hit the ground. The flame guttered and died out, as something glided over it.

He was running blind, now, his only direction the glowing blue light. There was no sound save his own panicked breathing, but he could feel something chasing him, moving through space in ways inconceivable. Carter stumbled over the rugged floor, his heart pounding in his chest. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and Carter swore it was coming closer to him. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he dashed wildly forward. He was certain if he saw that thing again, he’d go mad.

He could sense the light through his closed eyelids. There was some kind of dais that he nearly tripped over; he staggered back to his feet and kept going, only to crash into a podium. Instinctively, his eyes opened. An unimaginable cyan light flooded his senses, and he felt himself unable to look away. He was paralyzed, entranced. His hands moved of their own accord, reaching up to grasp what lay in front of him. He could feel the light flowing through his eyes, he could see it leaking out through his mouth, and his body was filled with a thousand strange sensations. The color burned away at his mind, consumed his senses, until he felt he was nothing more than light himself...








When he woke again, he was standing on air. The limitless expanse of the night sky stretched out before him, a thousand stars glowing in the distance. He looked down below him, and the stars were there as well, stretching down into infinity. For a moment, Carter was terrified he would fall, as he had too many times this day, but he remained where he was, standing on the void as if it were solid ground. Slowly turning around in shock, he found himself staring in amazement: one of the stars was right behind him, a glowing mountain of light. He realized the star was some kind of dead creature, a withered husk of what it had once been, and yet still large enough to cover all of Parnault Bay. A city was built on top of it, twisting and alien architecture the likes of which he had never seen.

Far up above him, Carter could see a ship sailing by, flying without sails through the invisible ether. Below him, he could see a strange creature slithering across the sky, a monster with lobster claws and a tail that stretched into infinity. Carter gaped and staggered backward, trying to grasp his missing hat with his hand.

“By the Mists...” he whispered. “Where am I?”

[DocBeard]

It was bitterly cold that evening in Vorostokov, which is to say that
it was evening in Vorostokov. Wind whipped desperately at any exposed
skin like a starving man trying to find a little marrow left in an old
bone. Tomas Eisenwald had braved the cold and damp his whole life, but
this was a new plateau of frigid danger and so he only felt a little
pathetic wrapped in three coats, thermal underwear, a heavy scarf, a
cheap fur cloak and a ridiculous little hat that had earmuffs built
into it, all meaning that he had to waddle through the mess on
snowshoes; little wicker foot baskets that helped with the dangerous
task of travel at the expense of whatever dignity Tomas had left. The
tundra stretched behind him languidly, but finally some signs of life
were starting to be noticeable, little scrub bushes growing into
lonely little trees that sheltered the occasional corpse.

Wait, Tomas thought, something wrong there. Frowning to himself, Tomas
forced himself forward, squatting down next to the tree and ignoring
the icy daggers the wind plunged into his side, digging through the
snow until he found the corpse his instincts were warning him about.
The body was about four feet tall, and dressed in warm layers that
were tattered from whatever beasts had ruthlessly scavenged at the
source of meat and bone. Tomas took a breath, and pushed his hand
under the person's collar, feeling around for a few seconds before
nodding to himself, and with a sharp tug he snapped the cheap metal
chain that held the necklace together; a common practice among dwarf
workers was to have a rune around the neck, small enough not to be
valuable to a scavenger but still enough for identification purposes.
Studying the rune, Tomas confirmed his initial instinct that the
corpse belonged to a worker attached to the Ironleg Expedition, which
had attempted to connect the Principality of Sanguina to the rest of
the civilized world. They underestimated just how hungry the gaping
maw of Vorostokov was, however, and travelers were still finding the
remains of the attempt. This far away from the trail, though, Tomas
was just glad that this meant that he didn't have to worry about
stumbling on the rest of a family of settlers; the mangled pile of
what was a person was enough to trouble him for the day. Squaring his
shoulders, Tomas pulled a spade out of his backpack, stuck it into the
ground, and kicked it as hard as he could; arms shaking a little,
Tomas pushed mightily and finally managed to get the shovel back out.
Snow, ice...and a little bit of dirt. It'll do, Tomas thought to
himself, and began to dig in earnest.

---

Feburary, 761 BC, the Bitter North, Lamordia.
"If this is another passive aggressive way of talking me out of
going..." Tomas groused, rubbing his feet and scowling towards his
uncle and the campfire, "...it'll work about as well as the last
three."

The dwarf looked up, pulling on his salt and pepper beard in
agitation. His face was carefully neutral, however, and that was when
Tomas started to get nervous; his uncle Odi was a temperamental
man-well, dwarf, but a kind soul beneath it all. The only time you
really had to worry was when the boisterous man got like this, quiet,
and careful, with a hollow stare that seemed to see for a thousand
yards. Tomas shut up as he waited for the fallout and wondered, again,
just what Uncle Odi saw in the Darkonese navy, years the old dwarf
never talked about at length or in any detail.

"Boy." Finally, Odi chewed his words out, as though carefully keeping
track of what he was saying. "I've accepted that you only bother to
come home when you want something, and I've been gracious about your
request to learn a few things about how to survive in the Frozen
North. Normally, I'd let a kid like you go up on your own and learn
that he don't know spit about the cold on his own-but you're stubborn
enough that you'd probably die. Mix up my teaching you and my
lecturing you again at your own peril, though, cause I ain't gonna
repeat myself."

"Vas-" Tomas began, but was cut off by the old dwarf raising his hand.

"This is the single most important thing I's gonna teach you, Tomas."
Odi looked a little calmer, or rather, a little rougher which
translated directly into affection in Eisenwald's mind. "We walked
about a mile barefoot, ya? That's for a couple reasons; so you know
what it feels like when you need to stop walking and set up camp, for
one thing, and when those guts of yours'll get you dead instead of
getting you through it, cause there's always more cold. But it's also
to reinforce the single most important survival tool that has ever
been invented."

Odi fished around in his pack a little as Tomas began to feel the
first shivers of hypothermia and realize just how hard fulfilling his
promise was going to be. "A thick pair of dry wool socks. Your feet,
boy, are the gateway to the rest of your body for anything small
enough to kill you. Keep them warm, keep them dry, or you will die,
alone, cold, and in more pain than you thought possible. Do you get
me?"

No, Tomas thought, but that's what you want me to realize, isn't it?
"I will, sir."

---

October, 762, Levkarest, Borca.
"I just wish..." The woman's sensual lips curved into the kind of
smile that made men's...hearts throb with need. "...you wouldn't hate
me because I'm beautiful..."

"Trust me, lady." Tomas struggled with the ropes binding his hands
together as he stared up at the unmistakable figure of Cynthia
DuBerge, the 'heroine' of The Dead Travel Fast. "That's not even on
the top ten list of the reasons I hate you."

"Hrmph!" Cynthia pouted, crossing her arms and nodding to her left.
"Maybe you'll have better luck, Byron, sweetie."

Byron? Who was...Tomas stumbled as he felt the ground beneath him
shake, and he realized what Rajipoor's new book was about as he saw
the massive elephant that had an iron helmet resting on his brow,
tusks sharpened to spear points, and a condescending sneer on his
mouth. "Thank you..." The light Rajan accent just made the beast's
voice all the more menacing, "...for the opportunity, my dear."

All and all, the 3rd annual Levkarest Fiction Writer's Symposium was
not going at all how Tomas hoped it would.

---

August, 763, Mountains of Misery, Darkon.
Tomas desperately parried the glaive's wild strikes, struggling to
throw the spear to the side in order to slow down his opponent's
lightning strikes by just enough to let Tomas get Ivorsen in a
position to block the next one. Unfortunately, he could do nothing to
keep the Vaasi who'd been trailing him throughout half of Darkon from
shoving forward with each spear charge, and every blow sent both of
them a little closer to the crumbling edge of the mountain trail.
There was only one chance; the spearman's armor was layers of mail and
wrapped plates of metal, which meant that the only thing connecting
his heavy, curved helmet to his head was a veil-scarf of chain mail.
Enough to keep an arrow from shooting it off, but...

Tomas grit his teeth and shoved his shield forward; a sizzle of
crackling lightning filled the air, giving him room to step to the
left. It spoke volumes of his silent enemy's skill that even with this
trick, Eisenwald felt the wicked, barbed point of his polearm shove
into his side, ripping through cloth and into his side. Any closer and
the swing would have disemboweled him, but Tomas endured the pain,
hopping into the air and spinning around, building up speed and
shoving past the spearman's defenses in order to slam Ivorsen into the
upper half of his enemy's helmet!

As Tomas landed, he heard the satisfying clunk of iron on the ground,
and turned around, expecting, well, more than what he got. It was a
harsh face, but unmistakably that of a woman; there was a certain
feminine grace to bone structure and curved lips that showed through
the dirt, blood, and the iron hard scowl she was wearing. She had
shaved her head, and had a cold, weathered expression gained through
years of wearing metal in the near-desert; Tomas thought he could
recognize the strange steely spark in her eyes, but was unsure of
where he was recognizing it from.

"My report was correct about you, criminal." She spoke in a monotone
that barely held against the poorly restrained fury surging through
the woman's heart. "More a clown than a showman, you would go for a
distracting, humiliating shot in an attempt to dissuade me from
further conflict. The prepared mind may endure any situation."

This was when Tomas felt his legs give out from under him. "Poison..."
Tomas realized, falling on his hands and wondering if this was really
how he was going to die-before, again, the woman's expression gave her
away. No, he was going to live. She wasn't done hurting him yet.

"Yes, prisoner." The hunter's lips curled into something that might
have been a smile on a kinder person's face. "And now, you will be
coming with me..."

---

Patting his shovel against the ground, Tomas wiped his brow, glad to
be finished. He would be able to give the dwarf's family her name-rune
on his next trip to Lamordia(funny, how that wasn't "home" anymore.),
but carrying a corpse with a little meat on it was like a signed
invitation to the desperate predators that made their home here. A
good example of such would be the white wolf that had come out of the
snowy forest up ahead, and had slammed into Eisenwald's right side.
Biting back a cry of pain, Tomas struggled with the surprisingly
strong animal, drawing back through the snow as the wolf took one,
two, three quick bites at the air in front of Tomas's face. Finally,
Tomas shoved his shoulders forward, pushing the wolf up and allowing
Tomas to smack it in the face with his shovel. Eyes narrowing, Tomas
pushed forward, shoving the spade against the wolf's neck over and
over, until he heard the satisfying crack of bone being crushed.

He barely had time to catch his breath before the growls became
audible. Tomas's head was spinning and he couldn't tell how many were
waiting for him, or how long he had until they pounced. What he could
tell was that one of the hunched, feral figures was far too tall to be
an ordinary wolf, and all at once Tomas realized why he had found the
body. "Well." Tomas breathed, kicked his feet forward, and ran as fast
as he was able, wincing as he felt one of his snowshoes crack and
break against the force of his footsteps. Tomas pulled his shield up
just in time, struggling against the weight of a leaping wolf as it
snapped and clawed against the metal barrier, Eisenwald running
forward and swinging his shoulders heavily, sending the surprised wolf
right into a tree!

Managing a few yards through the forest, Tomas saw an opportunity.
Closing his eyes, Eisenwald forced a little more power out of his
furiously complaining body, bursting out of the woods and leaping into
the air, managing to kick up and over a thin gorge that had been
carved in the tundra, landing with a heavy thump on the other side,
far enough that the wolves wouldn't risk trying to follow his leap. He
was safe. He could rest.

He felt his weight empty out from under him as the snow collapsed
around his legs, leaving Tomas with nothing to stand on. Calling at
the air, Tomas swiped desperately at the rocky cliffside, but only
managed to bash his head against the cliff behind him! Desperate,
Tomas clawed at the sheer rock, and managed to grab a piece of
vegetation! Open mouth shocked at his luck, Tomas took a deep breath,
began to pull his shoulders forward and think about how he could
manage to climb up, when a clawed foot kicked him right in the face.
The plant broke, and Tomas looked in the mad eyes of the snow white
werewolf that had just drop kicked him, just as gravity kicked in and
freefall began again.

---

March, 764 BC, Pardon, Zehersia.
Thump. Thud. Thwack! Tomas held his arms in front of his face as well
as he could, his nose bent in a funny direction from the delicate
application of a pair of ham sized green fists against his face.
Stumbling to the left, Eisenwald shrugged a layer of icy sweat and
pain off of his back, stumbling forward and swinging at Hazlani Joe,
the current champion, in an attempt to even out the face-to-fist
ratio. Eisenwald's eyes widened as the brutish half-man caught his
fist, grinned at him, and squeezed, slowly turning Tomas's wrist in an
unnatural direction and causing him to nearly collapse to his knees.
Only one thing could save him now...

Ding! "Fightas, to yer corners! Round up! Thirty second rest!"

The worst part wasn't the bloody nose, or even the loose molar Tomas
could feel in the back of his mouth. No, the worst thing about this
whole darn situation was standing in front of a crowd of people in
nothing but a pair of pants and an indecently uncovering jersey. Sure,
the people of this neighborhood of Pardon didn't seem to mind Tomas's
unique condition; Eisenwald attributed that equally to his opponent, a
massive caliban with a prominent pair of fangs, a bulging yellow eye,
and a tiny pair of nes pierce spectacles that somehow stay on despite
Hazlani Joe's frequent fist in the face problem, and the fact that his
jersey jokingly said 'Property of Shultess International'. Freaks were
always more palatable when someone owned them, Tomas figured bitterly,
surprised at himself at the same time. This wasn't him anymore, was
it?

"Not to say you're doing poorly, old bean." Otto offered from behind
the turnstile, wiping his brow off with cold water, "But you do
remember the stakes of this little match?"

"Love you too, Otto." Tomas managed to grumble, looking behind him at
the Little Chaps Discount Orphanage, one of the cleaner houses of
refuge that didn't charge an arm and a leg to go into. And now the
sponsors of Joe over there wanted the land-and, somehow, Otto had
harranged it so that the whole question of ownership centered on a
boxing match. Tomas looked into Hazlani's eyes, and saw the sort of
carefully maintained distance a man who's livelihood revolved around
stepping on childhood ideals had to have, and all of a sudden he felt
like throwing up and catching fire all at once.

"Don't worry." Tomas murmured, as the bell rang and the round began.
"He doesn't have a chance."

---

November, 765 BC, Mystery Cove, Blaustein.
"Welcome welcome welcome!" Xerxes Jenkins, salesman to the world, ran
a hand through his curly black hair and pulled his full lips into a
grin. The cocoa skinned elf never felt more alive than when he was in
front of a crowd of disreputable dogs who felt the quality of their
drinks were more important than his still breathing. "And thank
you-yes, you, scum of the Core, for making this 36th annual piracy,
graft, and treachery convention such a success. Without the hard work
you've all put into criminality over the years, events like the
dunk-a-copper, body part scavenger hunt, and Red Twilight ball
wouldn't be possible. This is why you, my friends, the cream of the
criminal crop have been invited to join in a special, goodbye auction
before the departure ceremonies, blood oath of secrecy, and charity
raffle finish up our weekend. Get those paddles ready, folks, this is
gonna be a good one!"

Xerxes didn't need his cursed jeweled third eye to tell that he had
the crowd exactly where he wanted them; a little flattered, a little
wary, and more curious about what he has to give them than what they
could get by killing him. He motioned behind his body, and his
fabulous assistant pulled the curtain back-and Jenkins was rewarded by
the hush that fell over the once-noisy crowd. This, the flash of fear
and awe, was what made a life his mother would be ashamed of worth it.
"That's right, everybody! Today's secret auction is for none other
than an honor I happen to know several people in this select group of
friends are very much interested in..."

"...now for sale!" Xerxes moved with a showman's grace, prodding the
chained man's face with his cane so that there would be no mistaking
whom this was, "The DEATH...of Tomas Eisenwald! Now, do I hear five
hundred?"

"Six!" A corpulent pirate with a face that split down the middle
shouted out, and the betting began! "Six hundred for his still-beating
heart!"

All and all, Tomas reflected to himself woozily, not the best way to
spend your twenty-fourth birthday...

---

June, 766 BC, The Frozen Sea, just outside of Sanguina.
"Hurrk!" Tomas grunted as the heavy iron cable slammed into his gut!
His arms were busy holding off the second cable, which moved around
like a snake lining up to strike. "Get...away...!" Tomas manages to
breathe out, kicking one of the skittering, bug-like machines that
backed the tentacles up, sending it barreling onto its back. There was
a petty sort of euphoria in managing to hurt one of those soulless
things, and Tomas couldn't keep himself from enjoying it a little. Any
pleasure the conflict gave Eisenwald shriveled and died, however, when
he recognized the diminutive form stepping out from the frothy
seascape. "...no..."

"I am afraid so, Herr Eisenwald." The woman was about four feet tall,
shapely in that earth mother sort of way dwarf girls had, with tan
skin silky black hair tied into a tight braid, and brown eyes that
gleamed with malignant intelligence. Wearing a Darkonian captain's
uniform, with a sari cloth wrapped around her waist, Captain Ivory was
not immediately recognizable as one of the most dangerous pirates
alive. Only when an observer really let the nature of her expression
sink in, the grim fascination with the chaos and carnage that followed
her everywhere, was the woman's role as the infamous Science Pirate
obvious. Tomas Eisenwald did not have the fair fortune of being able
to be deceived by Ivory's appearance; he struggled against his bonds,
desperately trying to break the iron and jade cords! "My barnacles are
not cheap to construct, you realize."

Captain Ivory squat down, tenderly petting one of the damaged
machines, which did look a great deal like giant barnacles if you
looked at it the proper way. She smiled, briefly, then returned her
malicious attention to the struggling form of her enemy. "We are in a
position to aid each other, you see. I have finally calculated the
journey to the lost city of Julsa-At. You will assist me in the
exploring of said city, and the retrieval of my family's heirlooms."

"Still clinging to that old story?" Tomas spat, feeling a little
guilty that he could get that bitter with another living being. Still,
it felt good, seeing that smug facade waver a little. "Why exactly am
I going to help you steal anything that isn't nailed down?"

"Because you love your mother, Herr Eisenwald." Captain Ivory smiled,
softly, returning her attention to the repair of her machine.

"what." Tomas managed to get out; his mother's fine, right? Just a
case of the flu...that's lasted a month..., "No. You're bluffing. You
couldn't. You-"

"I did." Ivory reasoned, "Forging your signature was the difficult
part. The rest was a simple matter of horticulture. I estimate that
she has roughly six months left to live, barring her suddenly
acquiring your exceptional constitution."

Tomas's renewed struggle was so fierce, he actually managed to begin
to bend one of his metal shackles. "I'm going to kill you." Tomas's
voice was unnervingly quiet, even as he thrashed like a wild animal.
"You know that, right? That you have just made yourself a walking
corpse."

Captain Ivory merely pulled her silver monocle out of her pocket and
adjusted it. "Not if you want the cure, Herr Eisenwald. Now, do we
have an arrangement?"

Eisenwald made one last desperate pull at the steel cables, which
stretched and bended in order to accommodate his supernatural strength.
Finally, Eisenwald let out a breath, hanging like a rack of meat at a
Rokushuma deli, "...I'm listening."

---

Freefall was not what Tomas had thought it would be. Perhaps it was
the immediacy of honorless death amid the snowy wastes of the north,
or the concussion I'm fairly sure that last cliff face gave me.
Regardless, Tomas was at the mercy of gravity, getting closer and
closer to the frozen slope below. -wait, Tomas reasoned, slope? Eyes
narrowing, Tomas felt energy return to his body as the possibility of
survival manifested itself. At least he'd die trying, after all.
Pulling his shield out, Tomas let go of the Barovian relic, letting it
fall a bit ahead of him while resting his hands against the enchanted
metal. Closing his eyes, Tomas got himself ready to endure a great
deal of pain...

...as the shield hit the ground, Tomas's arms hit the shield, his
shoulders dislocated with a sickening crunch, and as the shield began
to slide forward, Tomas pulled his body forward, landing right in the
center of the shield just as it fell forward across an ice bank! As
Tomas sled forward, he slammed one shoulder into the wall of ice to
his left, grunted at the pain, and pulled his good arm back to smash
his other shoulder back into the socket. This was all just in time for
Tomas to realize that the path down the mountain wasn't completely
whole as he hit a ramp, flew through the air, spun around once, and
landed again shield-first, ripping through the frozen wilderness!

"This is kind of fun!" Tomas exclaimed, grinning a little in his
entirely un Lamordian manner, oblivious to the dark shadow that was
forming over him. Sliding along, Tomas skiffed to the right, and the
left, making certain he knew how to steer properly; it was this that
saved him, for Tomas caught an image in the icy ground while turning,
and was prepared a second later when the werewolf that had shoved him
off of the cliff leaped out of a tree, aiming to pounce on Eisenwald
and disembowel him! Tomas spun around, careful to keep his shield
surfing forward while pulling his sword up, blocking the claw rake; a
vicious bite forced Tomas to lean backwards at just the wrong moment,
and both man and wolf monster hit the hill too fast, flinging through
the air like some kind of giant, ungainly bird! Tomas desperately
blocked the monster's next three claw slashes, the beast fighting as
though it blamed him for the situation the pair were in, as the ground
grew closer and closer...! "Can't...control..."

Sending a glare at the werewolf, Tomas felt a heavy impact against his
back as white overtook everything, and his body barreled through the
endless tracks of snow!

---

November, 767 BC, Desert of the Damned, Sebula.
"All things considered, it's still really good to see you, Brother
Tharvias." Tomas commented cheerfully, as though he knew it was the
best way to get under the elf's skin.

Said elf spared a moment to glare at Eisenwald, before ducking under
one gray-purple arm, pulling his fighting chain to the left, and
catching another massive arm with the center of it. Tharvias tried to
move to the right, only to be caught by the second pair of arms the
bellowing raider had growing out of his torso. Struggling desperately,
Tharvias wasn't sure weather to be relieved or annoyed that a sword
was stuck through the Mangler's chest, courtesy of the visiting
Eisenwald.

"It wouldn't kill you to say thanks." Tomas pointed out fairly
reasonably, or so he felt, finishing chopping the mutation's head off
before it could regenerate. In response, Tharvias flipped up onto his
feet, scowled at the swordsman, and hurled a weighted chain up and
over Tomas's head! For a second, Tomas seemed betrayed, until he heard
the disgusting sound of a grue's heart being pierced by the warrior
monk's weapon; Eisenwald startled at just how close the lurking menace
had gotten to his back.

"...thanks." Tharvias added, a little smirk on his face as he finished
evening the score. The battle against the foulspawn was at a
standstill; the monks were better armed and better trained, but the
mad mutants had numbers and insane devotion on their side. Both
warriors shared a look of appraisal, knowing that something would have
to happen to break the stalemate, and that it was going to be
unpleasant.

"Silence!" A regal voice snapped out. "That is enough!" The foulspawn
immediately stopped, even the massive hulk at the center of the
raiding party falling to his(its?) knees. A shimmer of sunlight, and
then a woman, tall, shapely despite the heavy desert robe she wore,
wearing a turban held closed with a full facial mask of beaten gold,
stepped forward. She held a hand out to gently caress the face of a
foulspawn seer, which let out what might be an appreciative moan on
any less aberrant creature. "There is no need for any more to die. I
only wish to have what is mine." The masked woman spoke haughtily,
though not unreasonably, Tomas privately felt, though he kept his
sword at the ready all the same. "All I require, holy men, is the
company of..." She pointed forward languidly and a glowing spotlight
of sunshine moved where she commanded it.

A hush of awe drew from the crowd, Eisenwald included, when the solar
showcase landed on the humble figure of the abbot. "...my husband!"
The woman concluded, to the general shock of the monks!

All the Abbot could do was shrug, looking more embarrassed than
anything else. "...hello, honey."

---

September, 769 BC, Just outside of Martia Bay, Darkon.
"...nothing?" Tomas asked, looking shocked.

The reverend Zebulon shook his head, rubbing his eyes and looking
desperate. "The Rex's messenger said that it was an opportunity to
show him the value of our foreigner's faith."

Eisenwald looked around him, at the beaten, frightened faces of the
parishioners of Our Lady of Mercy, an Ezran chapel that was only
guilty of giving the people of this impoverished region hope and
medical care. Now, the Falkovnians were coming, and, well, the wizard
king of Darkon gained more of an asset with the congregation dead than
he did while they were still alive, it seemed. The people had all but
given up, and Tomas honestly couldn't blame them.

"You should go, Herr Eisenwald." Zebulon said, looking mournfully at
Tomas. "You do not need to die because of our hubris. Please."

Tomas paused, for a long moment, and turned around. He could feel the
desperation of the parishioners boring into his back as he quietly
walked towards the gates of the chapel. Quietly, Tomas reached up for
the large pair of doors, and with a grunt of effort shoved the iron
bar down across the double doors. "I need a list of what supplies we
have, able bodied fighters, and someone to help me board up that
window to the left. We don't want to make this any easier for the
Falks than its gotta be, right?"

Eisenwald turned around, and smiled; he could feel the faint embers of
hope stirring in the crowd. They weren't exactly an army, but as a
pair of peasants stood to move a pew in front of the open window, and
another ran back to start the supply count, Tomas knew that it was
worth the risk. This was what the job was all about, after all.

---

"Urgh..." Tomas groaned, wiping the snow off of his face and daring to
look around. A few huts that looked ramshackle enough to not be worth
setting on fire surrounded him, and against his back was...a pole of
some kind. Wooden. Groaning, Tomas forced himself to his feet, and
looked bleakly up at the sign that'd stopped his tumbling act.
"Anatevka..."

Eisenwald's eyes widened. It still existed. The six contacts he
interrogated were wrong, there was still life here! "I did it."
Tomas's mouth twitched into a grin, as he hefted the half-conscious
form of his werewolf enemy up by his lapels and shook the beast in
joy. "I did it! Eight years, it took me eight damn years, but I've
finally kept my promise! Hallo! Hallo to the house! Visitors! Oh,
golly, and here I look a wreck." Tomas calmly shoved the wolf-man
against the pole when he started to look hungry, turning to try and
catch a glimpse of some life.

Well, he saw something.

They moved like hungry animals, bodies still charred as though left in
a fire for far too long. Men, women, children, all with the same
vacant stare and dead complexion. A few of the livelier looking ones
managed to sneer, or lick their lips in anticipation of fresh meat.
Ghouls. The only thing left in the village were half-starved ghouls.

"Truce?" Tomas addressed behind him, and was relieved to see the snow
white werewolf nod, stepping up to rest against Eisenwald's back.
Tomas still couldn't keep the smile off of his face, as the first few
raindrops tapped against his skin and a peel of thunder rumbled over
the village. "Come on then!" He called to the unliving cannibals,
pulling Ivorsen and his shield out of the muck. "Face Eisenwald!"

.....and that, more or less, leads me to my current position. My
promise to my friend Sascha has been as fulfilled as possible. As
always, I leave how much of this is true and how much of this is me
having a bit of fun up to you at home-consider it an exercise in
critical thinking! Please excuse a lack of stories for a short while,
loyal readers(And beloved publishers, the fine fellows at the
Wandervogel monthly.), as your friendly neighborhood author must take
a few months to himself, to readdress what my life is going to be.
Remember: Always brush your teeth, mind your parents unless they are
horrible monsters cleverly disguised as your parents, and drink your
milk.

Tomas Eisenwald,
August 30th, 799 BC.

[Isabella]

“If silver stars no limit know
Like sand across the sky,
Then man must bow on earth below
Before eternity.
The countless constellations great
cast forth a bold decree,
With each a strand of silver fate
Upon man’s destiny.”

“Trey-la, trey-la!” the empty air echoed in reply.

“That is all very well and good,” Guillarme said back to the tortoise; “but I haven’t the time for poetry. Please, let me by! My life may depend upon it!” The needles chittered from under the bushes where they hid.

The tortoise blinked at Guillarme, rather rudely, and pulled its head back into its boulder shell. “Well!” the boy exclaimed. He shoved the tortoise forcefully, which of course did not budge it an inch. He then punched the tortoise in frustration, which of course only served to skin his knuckles. “What will be will be,” the tortoise echoed from the black expanse within its shell. “There’s no point in complaining about it.”

“What will be would be different if you would move!” the boy said, quite shortly. Sucking on his hand, Guillarme sat down with his back against the rock, propping his axe against his leg. The axe whispered to him; “When tortoises climbed out of the ocean they dried off and became as hard as stone. That’s why they’re so stubborn.”

“Well!” exclaimed Guillarme-“

Charles Devereux, Professor (as of six years, Retired), tapped the pen nib against his teeth. And then what? He’d planned for the tortoise, as well as what happened after, but he wasn’t really sure how to get it to move himself. Sebastian had gleefully suggested chopping its head off, claiming that children were quite keen on violence to the wicked, or at least the obnoxious. Of course, Sebastian’s bedtime stories when growing up had usually involved someone being eaten by rats. Devereux had mentioned this at dinner, and been firmly told he was not allowed to ask Sebastian for advice, ever again.

What to write, what to write... Devereux tapped the pen again, ignoring the ink he was getting on his lips. The page was glowing again, and Devereux frowned severely.

“Hey,” he said, turning around in his chair. The eyestalk behind him panicked, looking back and forth as if to protest its innocence. “I told you... not to read over my shoulder like that. You’re... making me nervous!”

The eyestalk meekly slunk down the chair and into the floor. Devereux turned back to his book. Where was he...? Tortoises, yes. They were actually bits of metal from the sky, but one had to take some creative licence when writing fiction. Now how to move it...

The page was still glowing. With an annoyed glance, Devereux murmured a few choice words under his breath. “Aha!” he said to the eyestalk as it faded back into reality. The appendage snapped in surprise, quickly zipping back beneath the floorboards. “I told you, you can read it when I’m... done with it!” Devereux called after it.

Honestly. People had no patience these days.

Devereux gently closed the book, beginning to tidy up the pens and inkwells. He’d been cooped upstairs too long, he knew. In not too long the servants would be ordered up to drag him outside. Perhaps that was for the best, at that. The flowers in the garden were doing well this year, despite his continued attentions; the gardener took a certain pride in managing to undo all the well-meaning damage Devereux did. The violet-eyed man smiled as he picked up the inkwell, holding it very carefully as he moved to put it away, like a man might hold a vial of acid. He could go for a walk to clear his head, think on some more ideas, and spend some more time with-

”Daaaaaaadddyy!”

---- ---- ----

The forest outside of Dementlieu had gone wild over the years, twisted and overgrown until it resembled something from a fairytale. The place felt unnatural, somehow, and the everyday people of Port-a-Lucine wanted little to do with it. But then, Charles Devereux had never been someone you could describe as 'everyday.' His house - a chateau, really - sat not a mile out of town, at the end of a long winding footpath. It was... grand. That was the only word to describe it. The lovely building could have housed the entire expedition, even before the conspiracy had sundered it. Devereux had obviously hired someone else to do the decorating, as the place was pleasant to look at. Trimmed with gold and silver, the many windows sparkled like stars in the night sky.

The little white fence that surrounded the place was laughable in the face of the untamed wilderness around it, and yet somehow the tangled foliage straightened itself out as it approached the house. The gate was decorated with white flowers, curling around an elegant archway. It had a silver bell on the handle to catch the inhabitants’ attention. It also had a small little girl in a straw hat behind it, who was looking at the man who approached with a somewhat prim expression.

"Daaaaaaddy!" she called back to the house. There was a bit of a crashing sound in response.

Said man was bold enough to visit Dementlieu despite having a few things to do with the domain's unrest over the past few years...but wearing the throughly unremarkable clothing of a factory worker or barkeep, plain white shirt, heavy brown coat and trousers, thick brown cap-sure, he looked like a peasant, but it beat being mistaken for a Falkovnian mercenary in armor. Tomas could not keep the smile off of his face when he heard the crash, calmly continuing to walk as if he had not been spotted by the little girl.

"Daddy!" The girl cried out again. "There's a person here."

There was a particular inflection on the word "person" that gave Tomas the feeling the girl was not quite pleased with him. There was a bit more commotion in the house before one of the top windows opened up.

"Just one second, Estelle, I'm... coming," Tomas could hear a familiar voice reassuring. Charles Devereux poked his head out, blinking very slowly when he saw who was there. "Tomas! Good day! Estelle, this is... Tomas Eisenwald. Come in, Tomas! Estelle, would you... let our friend inside? And... tell your mother. I'll be right down."

Devereux disappeared with another bit of a crash. The girl, Estelle, gave Tomas a very flat look.
"You're fictional," she told him, matter-of-factly.

"Really?" Tomas looked shocked, giving Devereux a warm grin but otherwise keeping eye contact with Estelle. He hoped it would show that he was not threatening. "I had no idea. Will I need some sort of special passport to explain?"

"No. Daddy talks to made-up people all the time," Estelle said, rather pragmatically. "Maman!"

The front door opened, with several servants crowded around it to see what all the fuss was about. A pleasant, brown-haired woman with clear blue eyes waved from the doorway before hurrying down the path. "Tomas!" Christine Devereux said, smiling warmly. "Good day! What brings you around this part of the core today?"

"Just because something's fictional doesn't mean it's not a person." Tomas agreed serenely. "I'm glad you've worked past such a dangerous prejudice so early in life, petite." There's a hearty wave, then, and Tomas tripped a little with the force of it. "Christine! I suppose I just fancied a walk, and went a bit farther than I should have, nicht war? Estelle has become quite the inquisitive, by the way!"

This is very likely a lie, at least of omission if not an outright deception, but Tomas has never brought anything more dangerous than the faint residue of abominations to the Devereux house-and he did apologize profusely for the basilisk blood ruining the winter roses.

"Really? No evil to be slain, damsels to rescue, ancient swords to be found?" Christine asked, with a bit of a wistful sigh. She was smiling as she said it, but there might have been the slightest hint of disappointment in her voice.

"Mamaaaaan," Estelle said, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, alright, Cherie," Christine said, with a bit of an indulgent smile. "You'd better let him in, then."

"She's gotten, well, serious," Christine said aside, trying to hide a bit of a laugh with her hand. "Come inside and relax. Charles will be down in a minute, I think he got caught up on the stairs."

Tomas grinned in a matter that used to drive similarly serious young women crazy with fury, once upon a time, warming and clasping Christine's shoulder for a moment. "Thank you." It's so...good, seeing this place. Seeing a little toehold of decency in the world. "-so she thinks I'm a fraud? Well, at least she's honest about it!"

Christine gave a little snort, quickly covered up under her lady-like demeanor. "Oh dear. I'm not even sure it's that, she just only knows you from your stories and, well- I think she thinks she's outgrown you." Christine shook her head, partially in embarrassment, having a hard time keeping herself from laughing. It was not, as far as one knew, polite to laugh at someone for being told they didn't exist.

Tomas chuckled at this, seeming to be a little enchanted by the prospect of being outgrown. "Well, I guess she won't want her present, then." Eisenwald had rarely known a child who's skepticism had held firmly against that incentive.

"Tomas!" a familiar voice called out from the stairs. It seemed that Devereux had won his fight with gravity, although it had been a very near thing. His glasses were slightly askew, but he had managed to avoid any further injury. The professor was indeed looking well these days - it seemed having a mob of servants to make sure he ate was doing better things for his anemic constitution. It also seemed having a wife had altered his dress sense for the respectable. Gone was the blinding chartreuse coat, and the mismatched orange vest to go with it; he was wearing a handsome shade of forest green, with a dark grey vest underneath. Judging from the last few times Tomas had seen him, Tomas had a feeling his wardrobe had been tailored so it was impossible for him to mismatch it.

Then again, his jacket and vest were currently covered with ink, forming a pattern of spots and blotches. Devereux was still Devereux, after all these years. He reached out a hand to steady himself before walking over to his former student, a large smile on his face. "How are you... doing, Tomas?" he asked.

For a second, nine years of struggle appeared on Tomas's eyes-so, of course, he has to go and ruin it by pulling his old mentor into a bear hug worthy of the name. "Better!" Tomas reasoned, "Look at you, all domesticated. Is that a tan?"

"It's left over from... a potion to disguise myself as a djinn," Devereux said. The violet-eyed man hung somewhat like a rag doll in Tomas' grip, but he seemed to be pleased. "I had to sneak a wayward Pharazian royal out of my broom closet."

"He's been out working in the garden," Estelle corrected, with a bit of a lisp.

"Careful, Estelle, he might melt if you're too serious with him," Devereux said, cheerfully. Estelle gave both men a rather serious look.

"Good to hear." Tomas nodded, "As long as Diamabel cannot claim that the last of the old royals has died, he will never be able to completely leech wonder from the painted desert's heart." He looked very serious as he says this, and then stuck his tongue out at Estelle, winking at the girl. He was covered in ink, but it didn’t seem to be poisonous, so who cared? "So she's been enjoying her lessons, then?"

"Quite..." Devereux said, finally worming free of Tomas' hug. "I'm afraid... she's proved distressingly good with math... and science." Devereux shook his head sadly. There was clearly no help for the child.

"We were just about to eat lunch," Christine said. Devereux gave her a rather confused look that said he had known nothing of this, but that seemed to be the natural state of things. "I hope you're not too- do you have time to join us?" she asked, rather hopefully.

"Well, I had a very different career than my parents, as well." Tomas admitted, pausing for a moment before nodding. "I'd be honored to join you all, Christine. I'm sorry I'm not being better dressed..." First time in forever that he'd felt embarrassed like this.

Devereux looked down at his frock coat, currently covered in ink, then back over at Tomas' similarly ink covered clothing. "It's... probably best that you're not," he admitted. "Here, we can go to the west wing, it wasn't... finished the last time you were here."

The polished wooden hallway lead out into a large dining chamber, already set for the afternoon meal. The crystal glasses and silverware sparkled in the light, and painted vases held a variety of seasonal flowers. The serving staff began to bustle to get food out from the kitchen and to the table. For the most part, however, the room was dominated by framed pictures - not the painted portraits that usually graced such houses, but daguerreotypes, perfect down to the last detail. Tomas recognized many of them from the wedding that had been held so many years before.

"Remy's... really a wonder, isn't he?" Devereux said, taking one down from the wall. The group in the picture was smiling and waving, despite the freak rain showers and the incident with the cake. Devereux smiled back at the memory, though it seemed for a while his eyes grew distant, and his smile a bit sad. There were too many people that hadn't been there, and too many old friends that remained only in memories.

Tomas ran a finger along one of the daguerrotypes, "A real artist." he admitted, looking a little grim. "No news from Carter, then?"

"...no..." Devereux trailed off. He was silent for a little while, his gaze drifting over the other pictures on his wall. There were a few sketches there, rough and unfinished, but still framed and cherished. Tomas, perhaps, recognized Edmund's handiwork in the rough lines - it seemed he'd managed an odd little drawing of Sascha, at one point, as well as a crude self-portrait. Oddly enough, even the Anubite had found its way onto Devereux's wall, her smiling face lovingly shaded by Edmund's hand.

"Well... how long are you staying in the area, Tomas?" Devereux asked, putting the picture back. He sat himself down at the table. Estelle hauled herself up in the chair next to him, fiddling around with the silverware. "Have some jam! It's..." Devereux peered at the label a bit. "...honey."

"Have some bread to go with it, Tomas," Christine said, in the manner of one that had done this on a daily basis.

Tomas was polite enough to take his hat off, and the sudden spark of static electricity might well have shocked one of the Devereuxes. "Honey jam." Tomas said with a straight face, "Fascinating." He took the bread with a smile, looking over to see if Estelle was going to speak or continue to pretend he didn't exist. "Not terribly long. I had just finished up some busniess with a colleague of Martel's. I...there's no real reason to go north any more, so I was going to flip a coin, to be honest." He didn't mention Mordent, rather loudly in spite of himself.

Estelle saw Tomas' look, and returned it with a blue-eyed look of her own. She carefully sat and ate her food, idly kicking her legs. No longer feeling any real expectation to pay attention to Tomas, she was beginning to take more of an interest in him.

"I... see," Devereux said. With a shrug, he poured the "honey jam" over a slice of roast duck, slicing into small ribbons before popping one into him mouth. "I... you know, Tomas, if you ever want to... settle down for a bit... you'd always be welcome. Wherever... you went, I think."

Socially, Tomas had always been patient. Many years of not being liked by anyone had made the man less than concerned if anyone he met happened to like him-this was not entirely true, but it is psychology that has served Eisenwald for years. He could wait, in other words. And then...Tomas looked honestly touched, smiling a little as he nibbled on his bread and honey. "I..." Eisenwald swallowed, showing humanity and uncertainty for the first time today. "...thank you. That means...more than you know. But, so far, this...it still feels right, ja? Maybe some day, when my obligations are settled."

"Well then... someday," Devereux said, raising his glass in a bit of a toast. Tomas wasn't sure what was in it, but it really didn't look like wine. "To your health, Tomas."

Tomas looked over at Christine, briefly, to check that it wasn't the inner juices of some unthinkable beast. Christine just smiled serenely back at him, a bit of mischief in her eyes.

"And to your family's." Tomas countered, because at least he could be honest about that. He never really takes care of himself all that well, honestly. Besides, Estelle renewed his belief in karma. Tomas tipped the glass, and took a sip, being a big damn hero and all. He still had no idea what it was, but it was sweet and a bit heady.

Devereux set the glass down very carefully before continuing to speak. "Stay... a little while, at least," he offered. "Until... you figure out where you want to go. There are... a lot of people here who would really... like to see you."

The paranoid old man in Tomas, who sounds a lot like Sascha the first, insisted that this was Devereux's subtle way of warning Tomas about the impending trap. The nice guy insisted that Devereux would never do that, barring that one little incident where he sort of let horrible un things into reality to eat us. Tomas compromised and said, "Sure." because he is reasonably confidant that he can take a room full of his enemies if it comes down to that. "If a figment of the imagination taking up a room isn't too irritating to the junior scientist, naturally." Tomas added a wink to show that he means this in good fun.

"You'll have to share a closet," Estelle said, still kicking her legs.

"Can't be worse than sharing a tent with the other graduate students." Tomas noted, chuckling and remembering some of the 'domestic issues' back on their great adventure.

"I'll lend you the poker. If they try to eat your shoes you poke them and threaten to tell daddy," Estelle said. "They won't, though, or daddy will yell at them." She jumped off the chair and trotted off to her room, presumably to do as promised.

"Well... it seems she might yet... take a shine to you, Tomas," Devereux said, smiling warmly. "I'll go have someone... make up a room for you."

"And... for while you're here... welcome home," Devereux added, before bobbing off to look for the servants.

Home. "...thanks." Tomas murmurs, a little too bashfull and a little too full of the strange, bubbling happiness that can only come from being really and honestly welcome somewhere to be boisterous about it.

[NeoTiamat]

For the first time in a very long time, Menetnashte feared. She had all but forgotten the emotion, but now, standing before judgment, she feared. In fact, if the Empress of Demons was honest with herself, she was terrified. It was an emotion she had almost forgotten over the centuries. If you already live the worst fate, live forever accursed, what is there to fear? Menetnashte could not even fear death, for it was denied to her. And so, over more centuries than she cared to count, she had forgotten to fear.

And now, just as she had so recently relearned to laugh and to worry, now Menetnashte feared again. For what stood before her now was not death, was not life, but was oblivion. To have her heart eaten by the Devourer, her body by the Ape, and her mind consigned to non-existence. This was something to be feared. So Menetnashte feared it.

The scales were brought forth, without ceremony and without flourish, with the smooth actions of a ritual conducted countless times. Once for every death, in fact. In so many times, the Weighing of the Heart had been brought to a science.

Menetnashte waited patiently, though there was a twinge of amusement in her mind at the cool, emotionless actions. It would be thought, perhaps, that for one who had been cursed by the god, one who had led his priesthood and led an empire, there would be something more. But no, she was just another petitioner brought before the scales, a mortal whose life was to be judged. It was humbling, in its own way.

The Feather was brought forth, resplendent and beautiful, divine truth embodied in physical form. With care and with grace, it was placed upon one end of the scales. Against the Feather of Ma’at, against truth, would Menetnashte’s heart be weighed. If her heart was weighted down with sin, with all the myriad crimes of her life-time, then it would bring down the scales. Then her heart would be thrown to the Devourer, her body to the Ape, and her mind to oblivion. Should it prove light enough, then so would the Scribe record, and onwards to Duat would the one-time empress pass. And it all dependent on the weighing of the Heart.

Briefly, Menetnashte wondered what they would do for her heart. Would it be the mortal organ, that which had served her from her time as an acolyte in Anubis’s temple, and onwards through the final battle? Would it be the shattered Eye, her heart transmuted into a prison for her greatest crime? Her curiosity was not sated, though, when the simple jar was brought forth and placed upon the scales.

There were a thousand spells and rituals that Menetnashte could’ve invoked now. The Gods of Har’Akir were not gods concerned with justice or virtue, but with law. Over the course of untold centuries sorcerers and priests had developed a multitude of rites to compel the gods, to request, beseech, and demand leniency from the divine judges, to ease into the afterlife pharaohs and hierophants who were at times not the most virtuous of men. There were rituals that could ascend a mortal into the ranks of the minor divinities, and rites to cleanse even the most heinous lifetime. Menetnashte knew them all, had memorized every one of them in preparation for this moment.

Now that the moment had come, however… she stayed silent. She knew what she had done, and so did the Judge. Come what may, Menetnashte had no regrets. Perhaps there were things she would have done differently, given the chance, but to regret it now would be without meaning. It had been her life, both as the Demon-Pharaoh and as the penitent guardian. And Anubis, Judge of the Dead, knew it as well as she did. Whatever her fate was, Menetnashte would accept it.

Then the scales came to a stop, and Menetnashte knew her fate.