Chapter 13
He was in a forest. A beautiful, leafy forest in which the birdsong mingled with the content babbling of the settlement beneath it. He looked to his task. The hands that held his components were pale. His fingernails were darkened by the purple tips beneath them. Still, nothing to be concerned about. Entirely expected given what his teacher had told him. He continued cleaning the skull between his fingers with a sharp stone and warm water from a heated hand.
“Armin! Armin!” Little Vanya cried out. The elvish child was like a niece to him. “They’re coming!” This was no game or false alarm. The skull would wait. He would soon be adding many more to his collection.
He came upon them with his contingent of volunteers. They were foolishly thrashing the brush, careful of the traps he and his survivors had laid. Of course, the soldiers of Yan in their resplendent greens and sturdy armour would think themselves mighty enough to enter his domain without invitation. Although, curiously, as he raised his hand to summon his familiars, one of his subordinates pointed out the flag of truce flying from their standards. It would not be the first time he’d done unspeakable things in pursuit of vengeance. Yet intrigue stayed his hand.
He met them within a glade far from his settlement, seated upon a stump as if it were a throne. Though the fine fur robes of his father were tattered and muddy, he presented himself as the lord he was. The Van Brenin name would still command respect to these humans. And there their leader was, pattering along like a child in his father’s armour. Corpulent and inconsequential, with a fat moustache and sanctimonious pomposity. Relund, the wiry second in command, gave his lord a missive of terms after racing back from the fetid maggot that dared call himself Lord Cato. Humans with titles. Such novelty.
“Your terms are laughable.” He spoke in familiar smooth tones, voice invested with the command of generations. “I am to entrust those I saved to the nation that murdered their families? My family?” He continued with a mocking, hostile grin.
“Emperor Agrius-.”
“Oh, another one, is it? How many have I outlasted? Five? Egalitarian project going well, Lord Cato?” He cut the man off with particular malice placed on the honorific, mocking Cato to his face. The ridiculous little hypocrisies that made up their society grew more naked by the day. “Hard to run an empire whilst Ardan is blowing up city districts on the regular, eh?” He added an additional jab, remembering well how this boy’s father had cursed all elves for birthing Ardan.
“Bernard died to bring down his student. Haven’t enough people died for your pride?” Cato retorted, cutting him to the quick. That such a vibrant soul as Ardan could be laid to waste by a human was unfathomable. “You can’t save them all, Armin. But right here, right now, you can save yourself and them. Think of the children, of Vanya. Think of my boys and their families. On the mercy of the gods, Armin, think about yourself! Look at what you’ve done!” Cato’s tone rose in tenor. His passion and exaltation gave the elf pause. He looked between his boots to the puddle that rested there. And in his reflection, he saw a creature that resembled the young man he once was. The corruption of necromancy which, in his desperation, had let fester within him had stripped his skin of pallor. His once mousy brown hair now bore the sheen of a raven’s wing. The whites of his eyes had been consumed by the darkness of necrotic energy. His mind became consumed by that pitch, creeping into the edges of his sight. With the sensation of falling, Arthur felt himself slip from time into sleep once more.
“Wake up you drunk git!” Fred shouted, giving Arthur a slap across the cheek. The cleric woke, head pounding and ears ringing as he swore to himself never to drink that much again. The cleric rubbed his cheek, still existing in the hinterland between sleep and wakefulness. In the wooden ribs of the ship, he still saw the trees. In the concerned crew gathered around him, he saw those he had to protect. By any means.
“Vanya? Where’s Vanya?” Arthur slurred out, only to receive another slap from Fred. Arthur recoiled and rebelled, mind reeling as he attempted to gather himself. The low huts of thatch and clay dissipated into the wooden walls and the Idharan crewmen were present once more. The dream had clung so readily to the waking world that Arthur had been sure that he’d be trapped in the ghost’s memories forever. “Pretty clever, shearing off your own manifestation to power a spell. And here I was told that ghosts couldn’t use magic.” Arthur grumbled, hauling himself to his feet using Fred as a fulcrum. The smaller man grumbled whilst supporting Arthur, who noticed that Solvi had mysteriously vanished from the galley. Noticing his partner’s gaze, Fred smirked up at him all too confidently.
“Dunno who Vanya is but Solvi’s gone and tried to get Mara out of ‘er room.” Fred sat down across from Arthur, who soothed his aching head with a clear drink offered to him by the crew. One sip told him that it wasn’t just water. Arthur looked to the crew gathered with a perceptive eye, noting the disturbed expressions. These personnel were veterans, going by their age. That, and it was incredibly hard to be in Idharan citizen and not in the army. The jaws of their war machine hungered for flesh the world over, did they expect to be exempt? Fred chuckled to himself, taking an immodest bite of the cheese slice he’d found on the table behind him.
“Didn’ expect the ghosts to show up ‘fore we got to vampire country.” Fred observed to the largely unresponsive room. It seemed nobody was in the mood for his japes. Arthur looked to him with a curious expression. “Oh, that’s right! Princess was sleepin’. Turns out you weren’ the only ones who got a spooky visit. Ol’ Rattlebones was payin’ a visit to everyone on the night shift.” The skitti explained, gesturing to the darker uniforms the crew wore. Arthur nodded, pulling his armlet over his bicep as he began to hurriedly gather up some modicum of breakfast from the leftovers of the mess hall. He had to wonder how Fred had come to know this but had known him long enough not to question his nocturnal activities.
The pair hurried to the rooms used by Mara, only to see Solvi knocking insistently on the door. Twitcher leaned upon the wall behind her, arms crossed as they enjoyed the spectacle of the larger woman trying to entice the mage from her studies, or whatever it was that mages did in their spare time. Eventually, Solvi’s insistence bore fruit in the form of the door snapping open and a masked head poking out of it.
“What is it?” Mara asked tersely, one hand leaning on the doorframe whilst the other conspicuously held itself behind her back. Fred nudged Arthur in the side, only to almost get shoved over in response. “I’m working on a project and don’t have time for spurious rumours.” Mara hedged as Solvi began to explain the ghost sightings. Solvi once again began to speak before Mara cut her off. “Ghosts typically require a specific haunting location. Since this alleged spectre is haunting the sky over the Bay of Fangs, I daresay the crew are imagining things.” She explained with an exasperated air, prompting Arthur to step forward with a firm set to his jaw. Mara shrank back into her room as the man approached, as if afraid he would strike her. As a healer, Arthur would never do such a thing to the undeserving. Though he could certainly think about doing it.
“You might want to share your work. It would go a long way to explaining to the crew why you won’t help them.” Arthur spoke with full gravitas, a surprising authority filling his voice that made Fred instinctually want to punch him in the kidney. He’d heard that voice coming from one too many self-righteous types. “After all, you very specifically left out that ghosts can haunt objects as well as places.” Arthur pushed past the garbling Mara into her cabin. Or rather, cabins.
Fred whistled with astonishment as he followed his compatriot into the spacious room that appeared to have been constructed from the space of four cabins. It had a large, luxurious bed with thick blankets and fluffy pillows. The room appeared to have an en suite, desk and even bookshelves replete with weighty tomes on, from Fred’s eyeline, Idharan history and biographies of the nobility. It appeared to be built into the back of the ship. Rather than a dingy porthole like Fred had, Mara had a grand diamond-pattern window that looked out upon the patchwork of farms and villages below them.
“If it’ll get you off my back, I’ll prepare a means to imprison the ghost in a new object. It won’t be able to manifest in this new vessel.” Mara sighed, crossing her cabin to sit herself once more at her desk. Arthur snuck a glance at the books she’d been using. All manner of vile illustrations coated the pages of these tomes, with scrawling handwritten commentary beside them. Some Arthur recognized as arcanography, others as anatomical drawings. Still more he could not fathom yet resembled maps. Beneath, on fresh paper, Mara had created an approximation of these maps whilst red ink snaked through each individual environ. “Alternately, Solvi can just whack it with the Guillotine since it seems determined to misbehave.” Mara invited her roommate, who scowled in return. Something about Mara’s demeanour stuck out to Arthur, however. As he nodded and began to leave the room, he took Solvi by the elbow and guided her towards the top deck. Fred followed more out of boredom than anything else, it seemed.
Astride the top deck of the Sanlater, huddled within the shadow of the prow, the three of them shared Arthur’s meagre pilfered breakfast. The shell created by the ship’s cores allowed life to be sustained but did little to reduce the chill and whipping winds of the upper atmosphere. The main bulk of the energy, if Solvi recalled her manual reading from the previous night, was used to avoid the ship being flung off into Auryth’s rings by a wayward wind. It was this singular spell that had granted the skies to Idhara’s wooden trade ships.
“Dunno why you let ‘er talk to you like that all the time.” Fred commented, seemingly apropos of nothing. Arthur perked up almost immediately and issued a frantic warning look over Solvi’s shoulder, drawing his flattened fingers across his throat dramatically. “Wha’? If it was me, I’d have given her a right batterin’.” Fred appended, seemingly unaware of the hole he was digging himself. Arthur had seen Solvi lay men out like bearskin rugs for commenting on her relationship to Mara. Though perhaps surprisingly, Solvi sighed into her bread before swallowing the portion she’d been chewing.
“She doesn’t mean it. Any of it.” Solvi spoke solemnly, gazing sadly towards the bridge of the ship. “I owe her my life. She was kind, even to people who treated her worse than she treats me.” The continuation was matter of fact, as if Solvi were grimly determined to say her piece before Fred could interject. Yet as the thoughts of the next part coalesced, Arthur saw a hardness enter Solvi’s gaze. It built and built until even Fred, not known for his tact, saw the rage upon the older woman’s features. “That man is a poison. Since the expedition, she speaks with his voice. Sometimes she speaks with another’s. And the longer this goes on, the less of her I hear.” Solvi choked, her voice breaking. Arthur placed a consoling arm on the woman’s shoulders, Fred not knowing what to do with himself. Eventually, he gruffly yet reassuringly patted her arm. Though as Solvi seemed to regain control of herself, it seemed Fred had not yet run out of feet to jam into his mouth.
“Could always go for someone who don’t have crazy in-laws.” Fred suggested with a twitching whisker, which Arthur knew to be the skitti version of a cheeky grin. Solvi’s head however snapped up in response to this question, the anger returning with a fist not far behind. “I meant nothin’ by it! Just sayin’ if yer gonna go for anyone, go fer someone who ain’t got seven hundred years after you popped yer clogs.” Fred babbled attempting to save face. Arthur had already been preparing his bandages for Fred’s comeuppance when the Orsana did a curious thing. She smiled almost condescendingly towards the skitti, who bristled at the insult.
“What drove us apart was not the potential that she would one day stand over my grave.” Solvi explained as if speaking to a child, causing Fred to grumble into his cheese. He was doing little to dispel the stereotype about skitti and their fascination with dairy. Though, Arthur supposed, having over two hundred varieties of cheese didn’t help much either.
“So, what’s the problem? She a snorer?” Fred asked through a mouthful.
“She thinks she’s hideous.” Solvi shrugged, getting to her feet and cracking her back with a grunt of satisfaction. Without a word to the other two, she walked off towards the bridge through the throngs of crewmen securing the sails for their imminent arrival. Arthur took his watch from beneath his cassock and frowned. A few hours to their arrival, it seemed. After relaying this to Fred, the two of them quickly polished off their breakfast and scurried to their rooms before Twitcher raided their supplies for trinkets, as they were wont to do.
Upon returning to their quarters, the trio found the deck abuzz with various crew members milling about. Captain Rochefort and a contingent of his staff appeared to be struggling with a very irate Mara. She writhed in their grasp, cursing them for fools and explaining in painstaking detail every element of the spell she planned to use. Unfortunately, none of those assembled seemed to be mages and thus, were deaf to her insistent cries for release. Eventually, they successfully tossed the short woman into her quarters and slammed the door. There was a definitive thud on the other side, as if Mara had run at the door.
Fred was bent double, heaving breath into his lungs against the tide of laughter that tried to escape him. After the irritating superiority of her tone earlier, the sight of the mage being manhandled into her room like a naughty child sent him into fits. Arthur, however, was considerably more restrained when several burlier sailors rounded the corner carrying a bound-up Twitcher. They wriggled and thrashed in the crew’s bonds, spouting what were definitely curses in Elysian. The Revcel was firmly tossed into their cabin, just after Captain Rochefort untied the rope restraining them.
“I’m not going to have to confine the rest of you to quarters, am I?” Captain Rochefort sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Despite Fred’s incessant giggling which he valiantly attempted to tamp down, the rest of the party were the picture of innocence and ignorance. Rochefort visibly relaxed, straightening his skewed tricorn. “I was enjoying my breakfast with the quartermaster and the countess’ sister when my cabin boy brings me a message. My engineers tell me that this strange, masked mage was sitting in a ritual circle with an automaton. Speaking in a language they’d never heard. I investigate, only to see Mara and your metal friend casting some sort of spell on my ship!” Captain Rochefort explained with a pained expression, remembering the difficulty in subduing the metal one. Especially with the arm swords involved. Solvi and Arthur shared a look whilst Fred erupted into fresh fits of laughter. “I must ask that you not use magic near the engine room. Or attack the crew.” Rochefort added with a plastic smile before pushing past them to return to the bridge and, presumably, his breakfast with his notaries. With the captain gone, the rest of the crew returned to their labours now that the excitement had died down and the opportunity for rubbernecking was gone.
It was with some trepidation that the group sidled over to Mara’s door only to hear her fuming within, uttering all manner of unsavoury threats and curses in elvish. Solvi and Arthur quickly played a round of the finger guessing game, Arthur coming out on top. With a subdued celebration and less subtle punch of the air, he sidled away from the door and allowed Solvi to speak through it.
“So, what were you doing in the engines, Mara?” Solvi called through the door, giving Arthur a withering look as elvish curses stopped, and a grim silence fell upon them all collectively. Solvi began to repeat her question before Mara huffed loudly enough to cut her off.
“I was trying to rid these ignorant buffoons of their ghost problem.” Mara explained loudly enough for even Arthur to hear, prompting a raised eyebrow. Bold of her, to tackle an exorcism on her own. Especially after he’d failed. “He cannot control his manifestations. Sometimes it’s his voice, sometimes his body, one crewman saw nothing but a hand.” Mara continued with obvious irritation, her pacing audible to Solvi through the door. “But there was a pattern that I divined. His next accessible manifestation will be in the engine room. After that, he’ll take so long to manifest again that the next time he appears will probably be the countess’ manor.”
With a grim acceptance of these tidings, the rest of the party looked to each other to determine what they could do about this spectre. Fred contemplated his rifle, knowing that its magical rounds would most likely damage their ethereal guest. Arthur, on the other hand, seemed spooked by the entire prospect as he shook his head to the notion of fighting the ghost.
“I don’t think a spirit such as him would be banished by a bludgeoning and rites. He is not merely an echo of the hereafter but a sentient manifestation. Such ghosts are rare.” Arthur warned, tempering his comrades’ martial enthusiasm. The clerics of Sirona had spent many centuries perfecting methods of enforcing the natural cycle, almost compelling Fred to take his friend at face value as he leant on the rifle with a sceptical glint in his eye. “The fact that he is capable of using magic without corporeal form is staggeringly rare. I can scarcely think of another, even from the annals of my mentor.” Arthur continued with his grave tone undiminished. He then seemed to take stock and indicated to the captain’s quarters before setting off. Solvi and Fred were left in the corridor with an irate mage, the larger of the two pacing. Her military mind would not release the thought that this ghost meant them harm. Twice she had seen him, twice he had been hostile. The engine room was the perfect spot for a sabotage.
“Are you playing coy with me, Mara?” Solvi demanded through the door, seeming to startle the mage as something thudded to the floor. After a few moments of scrambling, Solvi felt her suspicions harden. “Your mask’s mist, talking to nobody, powers beyond you. Do you know anything more of this ghost?” Solvi asked fervently. Her voice rose though she did not quite understand why. Fred’s words had galvanized something within her, forcing the resentment to the surface once more. It seemed Mara sensed it for she did not answer, a span of silence growing between them.
“These are all explainable phenomena. The mist is exhaust from my spells. I think out loud.” Mara began, her voice neutral and muted through the door. “I’m more capable than you think I am.” Her voice echoed directly in Solvi’s ear, causing her to flinch away from the door. Magical theatrics could buy Mara a few admirers from the uninitiated, but Solvi was the daughter of a shaman. She would not be swayed by cheap tricks. Fred gripped her arm, looking up to her with caution in his eye. A silent understanding passed between the two. Where Fred begged restraint, Solvi yearned to express that which had been tormenting her.
“Spells exhaust visible light. It’s curious how you only think aloud when you don’t know someone’s listening. I don’t know why you’re lying to me Mara, but Rochefort is right. You need to be confined to quarters.” Solvi spat, malignity colouring every syllable. She did not wait for a reply and began walking towards her cabin. Fred winced as the door slammed shut, causing him to walk to Twitcher’s cabin and knock on the door with a cautious optimism on his features.
“Don’ suppose you’d be up for a drink tonight?” Fred called through the door, more hoping to avoid drinking alone than anything.
“Ligoden thruch!” Twitcher shouted through the door, not requiring a translation given the tone. Fred coughed, righting himself and convincing himself that perhaps a drink really wasn’t necessary with Idhara so close. Perhaps he could try one of those lovely wines he’d heard so much about!
The winter months and latitude had stripped Idhara’s coastline of its daylight and what little remained had been consumed by thick grey snow clouds. As Lureaux, the capital of the province the countess oversaw, came into view Solvi gasped.
The city nestled against the coastline with broad harbour walls to protect from the raging sea. Dramatic mountains speared skywards with their peaks bathed in white. The glens and valleys that led to these mountains were covered in a dark green carpet of evergreen trees making the city itself seem to be an island of warm orange stars in a sea of nature.
As the Sanlater flew ever closer those party members not confined to quarters could see swarms of ships of every size sailing into and out of the port city, some baring heraldry that Solvi had never seen. Junks from far of lands met with the stately metal armoured Idharan navy vessels on shore leave. They could see throngs of people conducting business in the twilight on the docks, their noisy commerce echoing across the water to the ship as it swung low to dock. The helmsman brought their vessel into the hangar smoothly, drawing remarks from Fred at how recently skitti had been called in to build this extension to the city. Arthur, as he alighted from the craft to help with his luggage, noted the sheer beauty of the architecture as Idharans called back to the elegant curls and arches of elvish buildings only to combine them with the boxy pragmatism of humanity’s offerings. Vampires had added their own flair for the dramatic with stained glass windows decorating the more opulent buildings whilst the rest garnered and almost quaint appeal with their slate rooves and picturesque covering of snow.
Captain Rochefort and a cohort of his crew escorted Mara and Twitcher from their rooms and practically shoved them off the vessel with an agreeable smile and an earnest hope they would enjoy their time in Lureaux. Perhaps less earnest where the two elves were concerned. And whilst Mara’s luggage consisted of a bag of reagents and a trunk replacement clothes, Twitcher inexplicably possessed a retinue of manservants with various boxes. As they made their way from the hangar to the city proper, they nodded with approval as if the vampires had built their city purely to impress one Elysian ancestor.
As the group left as a whole, Solvi found something niggling at the back of her mind. An incessant unease. Their shared walk down the curling paved street towards ground level left her unsettlingly convinced that they were being watched. Unsure whether paranoia concerning the Heldothir, she looked to her comrades. None of them seemed to be anxious. Fred was teasing Mara for her first incarceration. Twitcher was reviewing the flash cards they’d been given, and Arthur simply seemed to be lost in thought. Solvi, to put her mind at ease more than anything, hung back to check for tails. As she passed the terraced houses towards their appointed meeting place, Solvi happened to glance into an alleyway.
Staring back at her were two flaming orbs floating where a man’s eyes would be. Her breath hitched in her throat as a misty, half formed hand stretched forth into the weak daylight that remained to them.
“Guard her well. Do not trust them.” The spectre spoke in a barely audible whisper, forcing Solvi to strain her ears in case it spoke once more. But no, with its missive delivered the orbs faded from view. The orsan woman withdrew from the alleyway, surly as she followed Twitcher. Yet another lie. If the spirit could manifest as he chose, why the circle? Solvi became consumed by paranoia as she walked, almost walking past the grand officious building they had been told to report to.
The party entered the cramped halls of the building only to be greeted by a dejected-looking young man with lank brown hair and a markedly tatty suit. He spoke Gardish after a fashion though it was clear that he’d been chosen based purely on the short straw as he began sifting through the mounds of paperwork the Idharan state demanded for visitors of certain backgrounds. Mercifully, this gambit of bureaucracy was circumvented by the arrival of a winded Rochefort who, clutching his tricorn to his chest, handed the young man a letter bearing the University’s seal.
“Apologies, I was so eager to be off I forgot to deliver Renaud’s letter!” Rochefort smiled wanly as he recovered his composure. Solvi affixed a suspicious glare his way whilst Mara did not even grant the man a glance. The young man, who had Mara’s attention, busied himself stamping whatever documents he had to with surprising haste. As he passed Mara their permission slips, he gave her a smile that was far too wide and far too invested to be genuine. As the mage took the party’s papers, she swore she saw a bead of sweat travelling down the man’s forehead. She happened to glance down and noted what might have caused the man’s distress. Their sponsor was the countess. Marie Bourbon, it seemed, was not a woman to cross lightly.
“Renaud has also inquired as to whether you are keeping up with your studies. He wishes me to convey your answer upon my return.” Rochefort asked pointedly, his eyes boring into Mara’s back until the woman deigned to lazily look over her shoulder at the man. Fred looked to Solvi with a curious eye, only to receive a slow shake of the head in response.
“Tell my sora to stop mithering over every little detail. He has a god’s toy to play with now.” Mara grunted, returning her attention to the slips of paper as she handed the seal-stamped documents to each of her compatriots. Fred took a moment to read his and pulled an almost comically aghast face. Arthur, likewise, seemed to dislike his assignment.
“You got me listed as a nightsoil man?!” Fred demanded with an angry curl of his lip in Mara’s direction, who regarded him with a relaxed posture.
“It seemed a natural cover for your true purpose. Besides, it fits since you’re so full of sh-.”
“Enough.” Solvi warned suddenly. The two stared at each other, Solvi shifting the halberd on her back into a more comfortable position. Mara seemed to take this as provocation but did not rise to it, knowing all too well what violence in Idharan cities meant. Instead, the pair satisfied themselves by awkwardly pushing themselves through the door at the same time. Twitcher grunted a word that Fred and Arthur had become familiar with due to their constant use. Fedani. To an Elysian, the two had agreed, the word meant idiots. Fred, a connoisseur of swearing, had determined that in modern elvish it had simply become a commonplace curse word.
Mara and Solvi walked with competitive zeal, followed by their unfortunate cohorts, towards the magnificent mansion that sat upon the capitol hill of the city. As they walked, a young elf man handed them a leaflet once he spied Mara’s necklace. The one that bore her family crest in its purple heart. Since she’d worn it more openly, elves of a certain persuasion made it their business to genuflect in her presence. Solvi huffed with amusement, remembering how often she was mistaken for a human before she did so.
“Solvi, this is serious.” Mara spoke in a low voice after they were out of earshot from the young man. She held up the leaflet to the taller woman, who still tried to look angry with her. The leaflet bore the eight Miran flames, along with the Sunburst Army’s name emblazoned upon it. What attracted Solvi’s eye was not the presence of awful people but the claim being made. That three nights thence, the Sunburst Army would be holding a rally in which their glorious leader would be present. “Seems the coward has finally elected to show themselves. We might finally know why they were stealing people.” Mara conspired, all trace of their previous tiff vanishing as their old obsession reared its head. The rest of the party, Twitcher included, rolled their collective eyes at this development.
“If we can get in, we can crack skulls until they tell us.” Solvi grinned back.
Chapter 13
He was in a forest. A beautiful, leafy forest in which the birdsong mingled with the content babbling of the settlement beneath it. He looked to his task. The hands that held his components were pale. His fingernails were darkened by the purple tips beneath them. Still, nothing to be concerned about. Entirely expected given what his teacher had told him. He continued cleaning the skull between his fingers with a sharp stone and warm water from a heated hand.
“Armin! Armin!” Little Vanya cried out. The elvish child was like a niece to him. “They’re coming!” This was no game or false alarm. The skull would wait. He would soon be adding many more to his collection.
He came upon them with his contingent of volunteers. They were foolishly thrashing the brush, careful of the traps he and his survivors had laid. Of course, the soldiers of Yan in their resplendent greens and sturdy armour would think themselves mighty enough to enter his domain without invitation. Although, curiously, as he raised his hand to summon his familiars, one of his subordinates pointed out the flag of truce flying from their standards. It would not be the first time he’d done unspeakable things in pursuit of vengeance. Yet intrigue stayed his hand.
He met them within a glade far from his settlement, seated upon a stump as if it were a throne. Though the fine fur robes of his father were tattered and muddy, he presented himself as the lord he was. The Van Brenin name would still command respect to these humans. And there their leader was, pattering along like a child in his father’s armour. Corpulent and inconsequential, with a fat moustache and sanctimonious pomposity. Relund, the wiry second in command, gave his lord a missive of terms after racing back from the fetid maggot that dared call himself Lord Cato. Humans with titles. Such novelty.
“Your terms are laughable.” He spoke in familiar smooth tones, voice invested with the command of generations. “I am to entrust those I saved to the nation that murdered their families? My family?” He continued with a mocking, hostile grin.
“Emperor Agrius-.”
“Oh, another one, is it? How many have I outlasted? Five? Egalitarian project going well, Lord Cato?” He cut the man off with particular malice placed on the honorific, mocking Cato to his face. The ridiculous little hypocrisies that made up their society grew more naked by the day. “Hard to run an empire whilst Ardan is blowing up city districts on the regular, eh?” He added an additional jab, remembering well how this boy’s father had cursed all elves for birthing Ardan.
“Bernard died to bring down his student. Haven’t enough people died for your pride?” Cato retorted, cutting him to the quick. That such a vibrant soul as Ardan could be laid to waste by a human was unfathomable. “You can’t save them all, Armin. But right here, right now, you can save yourself and them. Think of the children, of Vanya. Think of my boys and their families. On the mercy of the gods, Armin, think about yourself! Look at what you’ve done!” Cato’s tone rose in tenor. His passion and exaltation gave the elf pause. He looked between his boots to the puddle that rested there. And in his reflection, he saw a creature that resembled the young man he once was. The corruption of necromancy which, in his desperation, had let fester within him had stripped his skin of pallor. His once mousy brown hair now bore the sheen of a raven’s wing. The whites of his eyes had been consumed by the darkness of necrotic energy. His mind became consumed by that pitch, creeping into the edges of his sight. With the sensation of falling, Arthur felt himself slip from time into sleep once more.
“Wake up you drunk git!” Fred shouted, giving Arthur a slap across the cheek. The cleric woke, head pounding and ears ringing as he swore to himself never to drink that much again. The cleric rubbed his cheek, still existing in the hinterland between sleep and wakefulness. In the wooden ribs of the ship, he still saw the trees. In the concerned crew gathered around him, he saw those he had to protect. By any means.
“Vanya? Where’s Vanya?” Arthur slurred out, only to receive another slap from Fred. Arthur recoiled and rebelled, mind reeling as he attempted to gather himself. The low huts of thatch and clay dissipated into the wooden walls and the Idharan crewmen were present once more. The dream had clung so readily to the waking world that Arthur had been sure that he’d be trapped in the ghost’s memories forever. “Pretty clever, shearing off your own manifestation to power a spell. And here I was told that ghosts couldn’t use magic.” Arthur grumbled, hauling himself to his feet using Fred as a fulcrum. The smaller man grumbled whilst supporting Arthur, who noticed that Solvi had mysteriously vanished from the galley. Noticing his partner’s gaze, Fred smirked up at him all too confidently.
“Dunno who Vanya is but Solvi’s gone and tried to get Mara out of ‘er room.” Fred sat down across from Arthur, who soothed his aching head with a clear drink offered to him by the crew. One sip told him that it wasn’t just water. Arthur looked to the crew gathered with a perceptive eye, noting the disturbed expressions. These personnel were veterans, going by their age. That, and it was incredibly hard to be in Idharan citizen and not in the army. The jaws of their war machine hungered for flesh the world over, did they expect to be exempt? Fred chuckled to himself, taking an immodest bite of the cheese slice he’d found on the table behind him.
“Didn’ expect the ghosts to show up ‘fore we got to vampire country.” Fred observed to the largely unresponsive room. It seemed nobody was in the mood for his japes. Arthur looked to him with a curious expression. “Oh, that’s right! Princess was sleepin’. Turns out you weren’ the only ones who got a spooky visit. Ol’ Rattlebones was payin’ a visit to everyone on the night shift.” The skitti explained, gesturing to the darker uniforms the crew wore. Arthur nodded, pulling his armlet over his bicep as he began to hurriedly gather up some modicum of breakfast from the leftovers of the mess hall. He had to wonder how Fred had come to know this but had known him long enough not to question his nocturnal activities.
The pair hurried to the rooms used by Mara, only to see Solvi knocking insistently on the door. Twitcher leaned upon the wall behind her, arms crossed as they enjoyed the spectacle of the larger woman trying to entice the mage from her studies, or whatever it was that mages did in their spare time. Eventually, Solvi’s insistence bore fruit in the form of the door snapping open and a masked head poking out of it.
“What is it?” Mara asked tersely, one hand leaning on the doorframe whilst the other conspicuously held itself behind her back. Fred nudged Arthur in the side, only to almost get shoved over in response. “I’m working on a project and don’t have time for spurious rumours.” Mara hedged as Solvi began to explain the ghost sightings. Solvi once again began to speak before Mara cut her off. “Ghosts typically require a specific haunting location. Since this alleged spectre is haunting the sky over the Bay of Fangs, I daresay the crew are imagining things.” She explained with an exasperated air, prompting Arthur to step forward with a firm set to his jaw. Mara shrank back into her room as the man approached, as if afraid he would strike her. As a healer, Arthur would never do such a thing to the undeserving. Though he could certainly think about doing it.
“You might want to share your work. It would go a long way to explaining to the crew why you won’t help them.” Arthur spoke with full gravitas, a surprising authority filling his voice that made Fred instinctually want to punch him in the kidney. He’d heard that voice coming from one too many self-righteous types. “After all, you very specifically left out that ghosts can haunt objects as well as places.” Arthur pushed past the garbling Mara into her cabin. Or rather, cabins.
Fred whistled with astonishment as he followed his compatriot into the spacious room that appeared to have been constructed from the space of four cabins. It had a large, luxurious bed with thick blankets and fluffy pillows. The room appeared to have an en suite, desk and even bookshelves replete with weighty tomes on, from Fred’s eyeline, Idharan history and biographies of the nobility. It appeared to be built into the back of the ship. Rather than a dingy porthole like Fred had, Mara had a grand diamond-pattern window that looked out upon the patchwork of farms and villages below them.
“If it’ll get you off my back, I’ll prepare a means to imprison the ghost in a new object. It won’t be able to manifest in this new vessel.” Mara sighed, crossing her cabin to sit herself once more at her desk. Arthur snuck a glance at the books she’d been using. All manner of vile illustrations coated the pages of these tomes, with scrawling handwritten commentary beside them. Some Arthur recognized as arcanography, others as anatomical drawings. Still more he could not fathom yet resembled maps. Beneath, on fresh paper, Mara had created an approximation of these maps whilst red ink snaked through each individual environ. “Alternately, Solvi can just whack it with the Guillotine since it seems determined to misbehave.” Mara invited her roommate, who scowled in return. Something about Mara’s demeanour stuck out to Arthur, however. As he nodded and began to leave the room, he took Solvi by the elbow and guided her towards the top deck. Fred followed more out of boredom than anything else, it seemed.
Astride the top deck of the Sanlater, huddled within the shadow of the prow, the three of them shared Arthur’s meagre pilfered breakfast. The shell created by the ship’s cores allowed life to be sustained but did little to reduce the chill and whipping winds of the upper atmosphere. The main bulk of the energy, if Solvi recalled her manual reading from the previous night, was used to avoid the ship being flung off into Auryth’s rings by a wayward wind. It was this singular spell that had granted the skies to Idhara’s wooden trade ships.
“Dunno why you let ‘er talk to you like that all the time.” Fred commented, seemingly apropos of nothing. Arthur perked up almost immediately and issued a frantic warning look over Solvi’s shoulder, drawing his flattened fingers across his throat dramatically. “Wha’? If it was me, I’d have given her a right batterin’.” Fred appended, seemingly unaware of the hole he was digging himself. Arthur had seen Solvi lay men out like bearskin rugs for commenting on her relationship to Mara. Though perhaps surprisingly, Solvi sighed into her bread before swallowing the portion she’d been chewing.
“She doesn’t mean it. Any of it.” Solvi spoke solemnly, gazing sadly towards the bridge of the ship. “I owe her my life. She was kind, even to people who treated her worse than she treats me.” The continuation was matter of fact, as if Solvi were grimly determined to say her piece before Fred could interject. Yet as the thoughts of the next part coalesced, Arthur saw a hardness enter Solvi’s gaze. It built and built until even Fred, not known for his tact, saw the rage upon the older woman’s features. “That man is a poison. Since the expedition, she speaks with his voice. Sometimes she speaks with another’s. And the longer this goes on, the less of her I hear.” Solvi choked, her voice breaking. Arthur placed a consoling arm on the woman’s shoulders, Fred not knowing what to do with himself. Eventually, he gruffly yet reassuringly patted her arm. Though as Solvi seemed to regain control of herself, it seemed Fred had not yet run out of feet to jam into his mouth.
“Could always go for someone who don’t have crazy in-laws.” Fred suggested with a twitching whisker, which Arthur knew to be the skitti version of a cheeky grin. Solvi’s head however snapped up in response to this question, the anger returning with a fist not far behind. “I meant nothin’ by it! Just sayin’ if yer gonna go for anyone, go fer someone who ain’t got seven hundred years after you popped yer clogs.” Fred babbled attempting to save face. Arthur had already been preparing his bandages for Fred’s comeuppance when the Orsana did a curious thing. She smiled almost condescendingly towards the skitti, who bristled at the insult.
“What drove us apart was not the potential that she would one day stand over my grave.” Solvi explained as if speaking to a child, causing Fred to grumble into his cheese. He was doing little to dispel the stereotype about skitti and their fascination with dairy. Though, Arthur supposed, having over two hundred varieties of cheese didn’t help much either.
“So, what’s the problem? She a snorer?” Fred asked through a mouthful.
“She thinks she’s hideous.” Solvi shrugged, getting to her feet and cracking her back with a grunt of satisfaction. Without a word to the other two, she walked off towards the bridge through the throngs of crewmen securing the sails for their imminent arrival. Arthur took his watch from beneath his cassock and frowned. A few hours to their arrival, it seemed. After relaying this to Fred, the two of them quickly polished off their breakfast and scurried to their rooms before Twitcher raided their supplies for trinkets, as they were wont to do.
Upon returning to their quarters, the trio found the deck abuzz with various crew members milling about. Captain Rochefort and a contingent of his staff appeared to be struggling with a very irate Mara. She writhed in their grasp, cursing them for fools and explaining in painstaking detail every element of the spell she planned to use. Unfortunately, none of those assembled seemed to be mages and thus, were deaf to her insistent cries for release. Eventually, they successfully tossed the short woman into her quarters and slammed the door. There was a definitive thud on the other side, as if Mara had run at the door.
Fred was bent double, heaving breath into his lungs against the tide of laughter that tried to escape him. After the irritating superiority of her tone earlier, the sight of the mage being manhandled into her room like a naughty child sent him into fits. Arthur, however, was considerably more restrained when several burlier sailors rounded the corner carrying a bound-up Twitcher. They wriggled and thrashed in the crew’s bonds, spouting what were definitely curses in Elysian. The Revcel was firmly tossed into their cabin, just after Captain Rochefort untied the rope restraining them.
“I’m not going to have to confine the rest of you to quarters, am I?” Captain Rochefort sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Despite Fred’s incessant giggling which he valiantly attempted to tamp down, the rest of the party were the picture of innocence and ignorance. Rochefort visibly relaxed, straightening his skewed tricorn. “I was enjoying my breakfast with the quartermaster and the countess’ sister when my cabin boy brings me a message. My engineers tell me that this strange, masked mage was sitting in a ritual circle with an automaton. Speaking in a language they’d never heard. I investigate, only to see Mara and your metal friend casting some sort of spell on my ship!” Captain Rochefort explained with a pained expression, remembering the difficulty in subduing the metal one. Especially with the arm swords involved. Solvi and Arthur shared a look whilst Fred erupted into fresh fits of laughter. “I must ask that you not use magic near the engine room. Or attack the crew.” Rochefort added with a plastic smile before pushing past them to return to the bridge and, presumably, his breakfast with his notaries. With the captain gone, the rest of the crew returned to their labours now that the excitement had died down and the opportunity for rubbernecking was gone.
It was with some trepidation that the group sidled over to Mara’s door only to hear her fuming within, uttering all manner of unsavoury threats and curses in elvish. Solvi and Arthur quickly played a round of the finger guessing game, Arthur coming out on top. With a subdued celebration and less subtle punch of the air, he sidled away from the door and allowed Solvi to speak through it.
“So, what were you doing in the engines, Mara?” Solvi called through the door, giving Arthur a withering look as elvish curses stopped, and a grim silence fell upon them all collectively. Solvi began to repeat her question before Mara huffed loudly enough to cut her off.
“I was trying to rid these ignorant buffoons of their ghost problem.” Mara explained loudly enough for even Arthur to hear, prompting a raised eyebrow. Bold of her, to tackle an exorcism on her own. Especially after he’d failed. “He cannot control his manifestations. Sometimes it’s his voice, sometimes his body, one crewman saw nothing but a hand.” Mara continued with obvious irritation, her pacing audible to Solvi through the door. “But there was a pattern that I divined. His next accessible manifestation will be in the engine room. After that, he’ll take so long to manifest again that the next time he appears will probably be the countess’ manor.”
With a grim acceptance of these tidings, the rest of the party looked to each other to determine what they could do about this spectre. Fred contemplated his rifle, knowing that its magical rounds would most likely damage their ethereal guest. Arthur, on the other hand, seemed spooked by the entire prospect as he shook his head to the notion of fighting the ghost.
“I don’t think a spirit such as him would be banished by a bludgeoning and rites. He is not merely an echo of the hereafter but a sentient manifestation. Such ghosts are rare.” Arthur warned, tempering his comrades’ martial enthusiasm. The clerics of Sirona had spent many centuries perfecting methods of enforcing the natural cycle, almost compelling Fred to take his friend at face value as he leant on the rifle with a sceptical glint in his eye. “The fact that he is capable of using magic without corporeal form is staggeringly rare. I can scarcely think of another, even from the annals of my mentor.” Arthur continued with his grave tone undiminished. He then seemed to take stock and indicated to the captain’s quarters before setting off. Solvi and Fred were left in the corridor with an irate mage, the larger of the two pacing. Her military mind would not release the thought that this ghost meant them harm. Twice she had seen him, twice he had been hostile. The engine room was the perfect spot for a sabotage.
“Are you playing coy with me, Mara?” Solvi demanded through the door, seeming to startle the mage as something thudded to the floor. After a few moments of scrambling, Solvi felt her suspicions harden. “Your mask’s mist, talking to nobody, powers beyond you. Do you know anything more of this ghost?” Solvi asked fervently. Her voice rose though she did not quite understand why. Fred’s words had galvanized something within her, forcing the resentment to the surface once more. It seemed Mara sensed it for she did not answer, a span of silence growing between them.
“These are all explainable phenomena. The mist is exhaust from my spells. I think out loud.” Mara began, her voice neutral and muted through the door. “I’m more capable than you think I am.” Her voice echoed directly in Solvi’s ear, causing her to flinch away from the door. Magical theatrics could buy Mara a few admirers from the uninitiated, but Solvi was the daughter of a shaman. She would not be swayed by cheap tricks. Fred gripped her arm, looking up to her with caution in his eye. A silent understanding passed between the two. Where Fred begged restraint, Solvi yearned to express that which had been tormenting her.
“Spells exhaust visible light. It’s curious how you only think aloud when you don’t know someone’s listening. I don’t know why you’re lying to me Mara, but Rochefort is right. You need to be confined to quarters.” Solvi spat, malignity colouring every syllable. She did not wait for a reply and began walking towards her cabin. Fred winced as the door slammed shut, causing him to walk to Twitcher’s cabin and knock on the door with a cautious optimism on his features.
“Don’ suppose you’d be up for a drink tonight?” Fred called through the door, more hoping to avoid drinking alone than anything.
“Ligoden thruch!” Twitcher shouted through the door, not requiring a translation given the tone. Fred coughed, righting himself and convincing himself that perhaps a drink really wasn’t necessary with Idhara so close. Perhaps he could try one of those lovely wines he’d heard so much about!
The winter months and latitude had stripped Idhara’s coastline of its daylight and what little remained had been consumed by thick grey snow clouds. As Lureaux, the capital of the province the countess oversaw, came into view Solvi gasped.
The city nestled against the coastline with broad harbour walls to protect from the raging sea. Dramatic mountains speared skywards with their peaks bathed in white. The glens and valleys that led to these mountains were covered in a dark green carpet of evergreen trees making the city itself seem to be an island of warm orange stars in a sea of nature.
As the Sanlater flew ever closer those party members not confined to quarters could see swarms of ships of every size sailing into and out of the port city, some baring heraldry that Solvi had never seen. Junks from far of lands met with the stately metal armoured Idharan navy vessels on shore leave. They could see throngs of people conducting business in the twilight on the docks, their noisy commerce echoing across the water to the ship as it swung low to dock. The helmsman brought their vessel into the hangar smoothly, drawing remarks from Fred at how recently skitti had been called in to build this extension to the city. Arthur, as he alighted from the craft to help with his luggage, noted the sheer beauty of the architecture as Idharans called back to the elegant curls and arches of elvish buildings only to combine them with the boxy pragmatism of humanity’s offerings. Vampires had added their own flair for the dramatic with stained glass windows decorating the more opulent buildings whilst the rest garnered and almost quaint appeal with their slate rooves and picturesque covering of snow.
Captain Rochefort and a cohort of his crew escorted Mara and Twitcher from their rooms and practically shoved them off the vessel with an agreeable smile and an earnest hope they would enjoy their time in Lureaux. Perhaps less earnest where the two elves were concerned. And whilst Mara’s luggage consisted of a bag of reagents and a trunk replacement clothes, Twitcher inexplicably possessed a retinue of manservants with various boxes. As they made their way from the hangar to the city proper, they nodded with approval as if the vampires had built their city purely to impress one Elysian ancestor.
As the group left as a whole, Solvi found something niggling at the back of her mind. An incessant unease. Their shared walk down the curling paved street towards ground level left her unsettlingly convinced that they were being watched. Unsure whether paranoia concerning the Heldothir, she looked to her comrades. None of them seemed to be anxious. Fred was teasing Mara for her first incarceration. Twitcher was reviewing the flash cards they’d been given, and Arthur simply seemed to be lost in thought. Solvi, to put her mind at ease more than anything, hung back to check for tails. As she passed the terraced houses towards their appointed meeting place, Solvi happened to glance into an alleyway.
Staring back at her were two flaming orbs floating where a man’s eyes would be. Her breath hitched in her throat as a misty, half formed hand stretched forth into the weak daylight that remained to them.
“Guard her well. Do not trust them.” The spectre spoke in a barely audible whisper, forcing Solvi to strain her ears in case it spoke once more. But no, with its missive delivered the orbs faded from view. The orsan woman withdrew from the alleyway, surly as she followed Twitcher. Yet another lie. If the spirit could manifest as he chose, why the circle? Solvi became consumed by paranoia as she walked, almost walking past the grand officious building they had been told to report to.
The party entered the cramped halls of the building only to be greeted by a dejected-looking young man with lank brown hair and a markedly tatty suit. He spoke Gardish after a fashion though it was clear that he’d been chosen based purely on the short straw as he began sifting through the mounds of paperwork the Idharan state demanded for visitors of certain backgrounds. Mercifully, this gambit of bureaucracy was circumvented by the arrival of a winded Rochefort who, clutching his tricorn to his chest, handed the young man a letter bearing the University’s seal.
“Apologies, I was so eager to be off I forgot to deliver Renaud’s letter!” Rochefort smiled wanly as he recovered his composure. Solvi affixed a suspicious glare his way whilst Mara did not even grant the man a glance. The young man, who had Mara’s attention, busied himself stamping whatever documents he had to with surprising haste. As he passed Mara their permission slips, he gave her a smile that was far too wide and far too invested to be genuine. As the mage took the party’s papers, she swore she saw a bead of sweat travelling down the man’s forehead. She happened to glance down and noted what might have caused the man’s distress. Their sponsor was the countess. Marie Bourbon, it seemed, was not a woman to cross lightly.
“Renaud has also inquired as to whether you are keeping up with your studies. He wishes me to convey your answer upon my return.” Rochefort asked pointedly, his eyes boring into Mara’s back until the woman deigned to lazily look over her shoulder at the man. Fred looked to Solvi with a curious eye, only to receive a slow shake of the head in response.
“Tell my sora to stop mithering over every little detail. He has a god’s toy to play with now.” Mara grunted, returning her attention to the slips of paper as she handed the seal-stamped documents to each of her compatriots. Fred took a moment to read his and pulled an almost comically aghast face. Arthur, likewise, seemed to dislike his assignment.
“You got me listed as a nightsoil man?!” Fred demanded with an angry curl of his lip in Mara’s direction, who regarded him with a relaxed posture.
“It seemed a natural cover for your true purpose. Besides, it fits since you’re so full of sh-.”
“Enough.” Solvi warned suddenly. The two stared at each other, Solvi shifting the halberd on her back into a more comfortable position. Mara seemed to take this as provocation but did not rise to it, knowing all too well what violence in Idharan cities meant. Instead, the pair satisfied themselves by awkwardly pushing themselves through the door at the same time. Twitcher grunted a word that Fred and Arthur had become familiar with due to their constant use. Fedani. To an Elysian, the two had agreed, the word meant idiots. Fred, a connoisseur of swearing, had determined that in modern elvish it had simply become a commonplace curse word.
Mara and Solvi walked with competitive zeal, followed by their unfortunate cohorts, towards the magnificent mansion that sat upon the capitol hill of the city. As they walked, a young elf man handed them a leaflet once he spied Mara’s necklace. The one that bore her family crest in its purple heart. Since she’d worn it more openly, elves of a certain persuasion made it their business to genuflect in her presence. Solvi huffed with amusement, remembering how often she was mistaken for a human before she did so.
“Solvi, this is serious.” Mara spoke in a low voice after they were out of earshot from the young man. She held up the leaflet to the taller woman, who still tried to look angry with her. The leaflet bore the eight Miran flames, along with the Sunburst Army’s name emblazoned upon it. What attracted Solvi’s eye was not the presence of awful people but the claim being made. That three nights thence, the Sunburst Army would be holding a rally in which their glorious leader would be present. “Seems the coward has finally elected to show themselves. We might finally know why they were stealing people.” Mara conspired, all trace of their previous tiff vanishing as their old obsession reared its head. The rest of the party, Twitcher included, rolled their collective eyes at this development.
“If we can get in, we can crack skulls until they tell us.” Solvi grinned back.
