by Rowe, Andrew
“Eshav!” the Rethri woman called. It was a popular Liadran expletive, and Jonan grinned in spite of himself. He loved winning.
Jonan half-ran, half-stumbled his way back to the stairway, which came up on him much faster at a running pace. A hand caught his shoulder just as he reached the stairs, and he spun, a ball of fire forming in his hand.
The Rethri woman, her features still entirely wrapped in shadow, stood unarmed behind him. Jonan hissed as his glove caught fire and hurled his sphere of flame into the floor. His will forced the sphere to combust, the explosion hurling the pair apart. Jonan slammed into the wall next to the stairs, his eyes swimming, his body convulsing from the sudden expenditure of too much heat.
Without so much as a moment of hesitation, the shadow-wrapped Rethri bounded back to her feet. The darkness around her seemed to have absorbed the detonation of his spell harmlessly – unlike his shadow, her shroud had not dissipated at the touch of flame.
She loomed over him now, but Jonan’s head was swimming, and it took all his will just to push himself into a sitting position.
“I was careless to expect that your illusions meant you would be harmless,” the Rethri woman said. “But you chose not to hit me directly with your fire, when you easily could have.”
Jonan lifted a hand to the back of his head, feeling something wet. Blood, probably. Great. “Yeah, I don’t always make the best decisions.”
“Neither do I,” she said, turning around. “Your invisibility spell is down. You will need to recast it before you leave. Never come here again.”
She seemed to glide along the floor as she left, making no sound that he could recognize. He felt a measure of gratitude that she had chosen to leave, though it was hard to feel too positive when his head felt like it was about ready to combust.
Rubbing his temples, Jonan slowly pushed himself to his feet. He nearly collapsed, catching himself on the opposite wall and shivering for several moments.
Gods, I need to not do that again.
He reached into his pouch, withdrawing his glasses kit. After a few moments of fumbling, he opened it to produce a heavier pair, tucking his current glasses inside. The heavier glasses eased the blur of his vision, and he waved a hand to renew his invisibility.
The world swam around him again, but he couldn’t tell how much of that came from the over-expenditure of sorcery and how much of it came from his head injury. I’ll need to get that looked at, he noted, half-consciously staggering to the stairs. He was forced to awkwardly dodge a handful of guards as they rushed the stairway, apparently reacting to the woman’s earlier call.
Jonan’s head pulsed with agony as he made his way to exit from the same entrance he had entered, finding an opportunity to sneak out the door as a concerned looking man shouldered it open to leave. He neither saw nor heard any sign of Lydia – but he hadn’t planned to. And right now, he barely had the strength to shiver his way back home on his own.
Jonan woke in a bed he had never slept in before. His eyes cracked open, showing him only a vaguely room-shaped blur. A heavy layer of blankets entombed him, and he brushed them aside, hands searching for glasses.
A red-crowned blur loomed over him a moment later. Startled, Jonan pushed himself backward and upright.
“Looking for these?” came an amused voice from the crimson blur. A pale blur – a hand, he realized, as it approached – offered him an object. Glasses. He snagged them out of the hand greedily, donning the spectacles in an instant.
Lydia formed in front of him, and his memories cleared somewhat along with his vision. He was in his home – in his false bedchamber, the one above his real one. He had managed to stumble this far on his own – Lydia must have found him shortly thereafter.
“Thank you,” he managed to mumble. A shiver ran through him, and he pulled the pile of blankets back atop him. Lydia withdrew from her looming, but only to take a seat at a nearby chair. He tilted his head toward her, noting that she was carrying a half-closed book in her off-hand, a stray finger marking her place within the pages. “How long have I been out?”
“Just about an hour.” Lydia flipped the book back open, looked at something, and then closed it completely and set it aside. “If you keep shivering like that, I’m going to need to take you to the palace for treatment.”
“Oh, that would end well,” Jonan mumbled.
“I see your sense of humor is uninjured, at least. How about the rest of you?” Lydia leaned forward in her chair.
“What, you didn’t check?” Jonan lifted his blankets and glanced downward half-heartedly. “The important bits seem to be there.”
“I didn’t want to presume,” she replied with just a hint of laughter in her tone. “Did you find anything interesting?”
Jonan looked back at the sorceress. “Under the blankets, or at the research facility?”
Lydia folded her arms. “At the research facility.”
“Ah, it’s all business with you. Well, yes, actually. In both places. At the research facility, I discovered something rather important – there’s a room on the second floor filled with Rethri children. They appear to be unconscious, perhaps through sorcerous means. The children have some kind of burns or unusual markings around their eyes.”
“And under the blankets?” Lydia leaned forward a hint further.
“Um, what?” Jonan stammered.
“What did you find that was so interesting under the blankets?” She grinned, adjusting her glasses.
Jonan pulled back instinctively as Lydia leaned over, causing her to laugh.
“You tell me I’m all business, and then when I play along, you don’t know what to do with yourself,” Lydia pointed out.
“I was just startled, is all. Let me start over. ‘You’d really have to see it to believe it.’”
“Better,” she replied, her grin transcending into smirk. “But you need more conviction. Anyway, business. Rethri with strange marks around their eyes.”
“Right, business.” Jonan let out a sign of relief. What a strange woman. “The markings were in a circular shape. I think they were deliberate, given that Rethri eyes are tied to their Dominions.”
Lydia’s expression shifted into a glower. “Tell me more about these marks.”
“Not much to say, I’m afraid. They looked like blisters, possibly from burns. They were in a roughly circular shape.”
“Did they look like letters?”
I wish I knew. “None that I could identify, but if this was done through some kind of branding process, blisters and scabs could easily conceal the original shape of the markings.”
Lydia glanced away from him, her expression grim. “Sounds like they could be the same type of markings that you found around the esharen.”
“Potentially,” he admitted. “I thought of that, but it was too hard to tell.”
“Did you check several different people to see the marks on any of them were easier to identify?”
I probably should have prioritized that, he considered, but I had other things on my mind.
“I didn’t get a chance to do much poking around. Someone discovered me in the room – in spite of my invisibility. I promise, I wasn’t making a lot of noise, either. She was a Rethri woman – wearing the robes of a court sorceress.”
Lydia sat up straight in her chair. “A Rethri woman? What did she look like?”
“Looked like she was about your age, indigo eyes, brown hair, skin was about as dark as mine,” he explained.
Lydia steepled her fingers, then rested her chin on them. “We have a problem. That wasn’t a court sorceress.”
Jonan quirked a brow. “Oh?”
“There’s no court sorceress that fits that description. I’m fairly sure you’ve just described Vorain, the fourth god of Orlyn.”
Jonan shivered, and he couldn’t be sure it was due to the cold that lingered in his veins. “Well,” he considered, “That complicates things. But at least she wasn’t trying to kill me.”
> Lydia quirked a brow. “What happened when she discovered you?”
“I should mention that she passed me once earlier, on the way to the room – and I didn’t think she noticed me at the time. I followed an older human man into the room with the Rethri, and then she got his attention and led him outside. That was when she came in and found me. She told me she knew I was there, and she wanted to talk.”
“What did she want to talk about?” Lydia cracked her fingers, leaning forward again.
“She wanted me to surrender. I told her I was there looking to find kidnapped Rethri. She told me the kids I had found were not captured – they were plague victims that were being treated. I insisted that they probably weren’t, given how regular the burns were around their eyes. That was most likely a mistake,” he continued, noting that Lydia was leaning closer, apparently transfixed by his story.
“So, the sorceress – or goddess, if you prefer – blocked the doorway. She wanted me to appear, and to surrender. I think she really did want to protect those children. I refused, of course. I was forced to dazzle her with some astounding spellwork – it really was quite impressive, you should have been there – and flee the area.”
Lydia closed her eyes after that, apparently contemplating in silence for a moment.
“I’d show you the spells I used, but I’m afraid I’m a bit too shivery at the moment. And also half-blind.” The world around him was sharper with his glasses on, but anything more than a few paces past Lydia was still barely recognizable.
“That’s fine,” Lydia said absently, waving a hand with a dismissive gesture. And then she went quiet again.
I guess she needs a moment. He sat up, taking a moment to consider for himself. His head swam in the opposite direction, reminding him of his brief head-to-wall collision. That’s going to be irritating for a while.
Okay, what do I know?
Rethri woman is apparently not a sorceress. She’s a goddess, or whatever passes for one around here. There’s something that feels off about that.
Several things, actually. Let’s break this down. Rethri were supposed to be kidnapped. There are Rethri here, but at least one of them appears to be operating of her own free will. She could have been coerced, but I have no evidence of that. She’s probably been here for quite a while, if she’s a ‘goddess’. I think I remember hearing the most recent god of theirs is Myros, and even he has been around a few years.
“I can tell you’re thinking, and that’s fine – but help me out with one quick question. What was it about my description that said ‘Vorain’ to you?” Jonan scratched at his chin, trying to piece things together in his aching mind.
“Around five years ago, a court sorceress named Vorain was raised to ‘godhood’ by Edon. Vorain was the first new god of the city after Edon claimed the queen regent was divine about ten years back. She had brown hair – I’m not sure about the skin. The stories say that her eyes turned indigo after she became a goddess.”
“Turned indigo?” Jonan muttered.
“Yeah,” Lydia replied. “That’s one of the things I’ve been thinking about. You saw her for the first time and immediately made the natural assumption that she was Rethri, since she has indigo eyes and no sclera. I should have pieced this connection together the moment you mentioned Rethri were missing, but someone’s eyes changing after they become a ‘god’ isn’t exactly typical. We just know so little about the real gods that I initially thought it was just one more piece of silly local propaganda.”
Jonan considered the implication. Could Vorain be human, but with Rethri-like eyes? Gods, is that what they’re doing to the children? Are they somehow stealing whatever essence makes Rethri eyes different from ours? If the eye color difference is somehow connected with whatever gives Rethri their extended lifespan...
“You shouldn’t blame yourself for not considering every possible fact immediately. I tried to research this place, and I clearly haven’t picked up as much of the local culture as you have – even key facts like the origin stories of their gods.” Jonan adjusted his position in the bed, turning onto his side to look directly at Lydia.
She nodded, acknowledging his remark. “You’re right, of course. No one can take every piece of data that they’ve collected in a lifetime into account all at once. I still feel like I should have noticed something was wrong about those eyes, but now we have the clue at least, so we can investigate it.”
Jonan nodded. “It’s still possible she really is Rethri – maybe she just was concealing her natural eye color before. I saw her use shadow sorcery, at the very least – and she could see through my sight sorcery. If she’s a sight sorceress herself, she could easily change the appearance of her eyes.”
“Or she could have been human this whole time, and decided at a certain point to make her eyes look like Rethri eyes,” Lydia pointed out. “Perhaps to convince Rethri to trust her.”
Jonan pondered that. “Do you think she could have been the one who convinced the Rethri to come to this city?” He shook his head. “She really sounded like she thought these children were being protected here. She could have attacked me immediately – or called for guards – and she chose to talk.”
“Maybe she knew that if you had gotten this far in your research, you weren’t alone – and she was feeding you a false lead. Either to throw off your search, or to lay a trap.” Lydia stretched suddenly, standing up. “That’s what I would do in her place.”
Jonan scoffed at that. “That’d be playing an awfully long con. You’d really do something like that?”
Lydia looked down at him, shaking her head. “I’ve been a court sorceress of Orlyn for two years.”
“Point taken,” he replied with a nod. “Okay, so maybe she’s crazy devious like you apparently are. We can consider that. It’s also possible that she’s been deceived herself – or blackmailed, maybe.”
“That sounds like a stretch. It sounds like you want to believe her,” Lydia pointed out.
You’re not wrong. But she seemed so...sincere. “Maybe,” he said hesitantly, “But that older man I saw. She was very polite to him, like she reported to him. If she’s a goddess, that doesn’t really make any sense.”
“What did he look like?” Lydia asked.
“Maybe an inch or two taller than Taelien, short gray hair, white tunic, no spectacles,” Jonan rattled off. “I didn’t catch a lot of other details.”
“That’s fine, I know who you’re talking about. I met him – that’s Raymond Lorel, the facility’s director. He rattled off all sorts of things to me about what they are supposedly researching there. He didn’t mention anything medical, nor about children. He gave me a very guided tour of the building. Showed me some alchemical labs, nothing too impressive. I think the tour was designed to bore me into wanting to leave. The important part is that he’s didn’t look like Edon,” Lydia explained.
“Hrm.” Well, that throws a hole in the most obvious explanation. “You said you’ve met Edon before. Was there no resemblance? Could it be the same man, but perhaps bereft of illusion magic to make him appear younger?”
“Not a bad thought,” Lydia admitted, pushing up against the wall in another stretching exercise. “No, they didn’t look all that similar, but an illusion can conceal more than age. As I’m sure you know already, given your occupation. So, yes, they could be the same person.”
“And I take it you didn’t have a chance to check him with knowledge sorcery?”
“No,” Lydia scoffed. “That’s normally considered rude.”
Jonan chuckled softly. “That didn’t stop you from using it on me.”
“There were somewhat different circumstances behind that,” she said, turning around with a half-smirk. “But you have a point. Please forgive me for dispelling your invisibility, capturing you, and interrogating you a little.”
“I think I can find it in my heart to forgive you.” Jonan rolled his eyes. “Still, if you can find the justification, you should be rude to that
man, too. You can apologize to him later.”
Lydia shrugged. “I’ll consider it, but Raymond is a well-established scholar, and he’s got quite a bit of financial backing. He has powerful friends that we wouldn’t want to drag into this.”
“Those friends may already be ‘into this’, if having a goddess on a leash is any indication,” Jonan pointed out.
“I most sincerely doubt that he keeps her on a leash. That would be even ruder than using knowledge sorcery on someone without permission.”
Jonan sighed. “I see your point. If she does work for him in some capacity, it’s probably not out of any actual subservience – unless he’s Edon, of course. Or Myros, but that seems unlikely, given that Myros is supposed to be younger.”
“Yes, Myros is only supposed to be around our age. He was a talented member of the Queensguard, and he was apparently raised to divinity for defending her against a ‘rival god from another land’. An interesting story, but yes, I agree, Raymond does not fit Myros’ description. It’s possible that Raymond could be blackmailing Vorain somehow, as you mentioned earlier.”
“I don’t think I said blackmail.” Jonan rubbed at his temples. “But maybe I did. It’s hard to think with the walls spinning so quickly. I think I need a break from this.”
“Well, we’ve covered a lot of ground in this discussion already. You’ve gathered some excellent information. I think you can take a break while we consider all this. Are you feeling well enough to go back to sleep?” Lydia asked.
Jonan shrugged his left shoulder. “I could try. I’m still feeling awfully cold.”
“Sorcery exhaustion,” Lydia said matter-of-factly. “I was worried at first, but if you can hold a conversation with this little difficulty, you shouldn’t need any medical help.”
“It’d be much easier to keep warm with some company, though,” Jonan pointed out.
“I’ll see if Taelien is up,” she said in the same tone, walking toward the door.