He sipped his ale and smoked his pipe. It had a short bowl, a short stem, and was made of a nice hard briar. Long pipes weren’t his style; a churchwarden couldn’t comfortably be held in his jaw, and the smoke was cold by the time it hit his mouth. The heat was half the flavor to Elon, and he didn’t want the responsibility of holding it in his hand.
With one hand, beer and his cheese plate. With the other, a book taken from Lea’s personal library. Terror on the High Seas: An Autobiographical Chronicle of the Pirate Lord Cyrio Viaxy. He had heard about the pirate captain Viaxy, an oddly large Rilarian for a male, a fact that garnered him the respect necessary to command his own fleet.
Something about the biography grabbed his attention, so he asked to borrow it. Lea was hesitant at first, but she gave it up on the promise Elon would take care of it. Elon had scoffed at her, thinking back to his long and storied past with books. He was enjoying the story so far.
Just as he took the last sip of the ale, a Northman woman appeared at his table in a flowy dress and a tight corset, nearly squeezing her few-sizes-too-large breasts right out of it.
“Refill, m’lord?”
“M’lord? I’m no lord, m’lady.”
“And I’m no lady.”
“It sounds nice to say.”
“It does, doesn’t it? Come on, m’lord is hardly a proper title anymore.”
“You have a fair point.”
“Anyway, refill, Master mage?”
“I wouldn’t argue that title, but I know you mean it as a title, not a remark of skill.”
“You want your damn refill or not?”
“Please.” He smirked amusedly and pushed his glass her way. She returned the smirk and walked off. “Oh, m’lady? Can I get a meat pie?”
“On its way.”
He found himself lost partially in the book, but also in his own mind. As he sat, pipe in mouth, book in one hand, beer in the other, he pondered his place in the keep and where this whole ordeal was going. He found Lea to be an equally intelligent soul, though one who took herself too seriously. It also annoyed him that, despite her humble upbringings, she stood atop a horse higher than Elon’s without trouble.
Like you wouldn’t. Like you don’t.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
She’s smart, if a little paranoid that everyone’s out to get her. You just don’t like her ‘cause she’s smarter than you.
She’s not smarter than me. She just has formulas.
That she made.
Shut it.
It bothers you that she’s smarter than you, so you’re looking for flaws.
Shut up, other me. Don’t wanna hear it.
A single-serving meat pie slid between his hands along with a pipe rest. He used the latter and bit into the pie. Juicy, thick, full of just the right balance of spices and veggies, cooked perfectly, just right. As the staff increased and the town grew exponentially in size, the meals would slowly grow less appetizing, so he savored the meals he got out of the town for the moment.
The labs weaseled into his head, making him think of the summoning room, Lea’s alchemy labs, her office papers, the “experiment” room, and his stomach grew weary. What the fuck is she up to? I swear, something’s happening here that ain’t good.
You worry over nothing.
I worry that I’m helping a lunatic achieve something terrible.
She’s not a lunatic, she’s more intelligent than you and is decidedly better with people than you.
It’s true, but something seems... manic.
And you’re not? She’s a woman of knowledge seeking it, just like you, except she takes it seriously. Rather than play with power, she’s actually researching and bending magics to her will. You just play, she works.
So what, I’m jealous?
Probably. Also, scared.
I can beat her if things go south.
The fact that you think things could go south speaks more to your character than hers. Always looking for a fight, beating down anyone who provokes you. In fact, your attitude is proving her paranoia you were mocking not long ago.
What? I’m worried about her.
No, you’re feeling threatened by her. There’s a difference.
Fuck you and your differences.
That’s the spirit.
Chapter 42: Final Touches
The City of Kandra, Octavian Prefecture
Fires rose into the sky as words washed over Lea, bypassing her brain completely as she stared at the pyre. A tower of wood was built in the center of town and covered in thousands of dried herbs. Hundreds of people watched the fires burn as the head priest of Ril’Sek spoke of death and what it meant. A priest of Ik’Thar waited for her turn to speak, her role being arbiter, ‘leading the spirit to the afterlife.’
Lea didn’t much care for the spirituality of the affair, but the service was beautiful. The queen cleared the central square, paying vendors to move or take a dess off. The pyre burned as guardsmen and civilians both watched. Lea sat in an area blocked off by guards, inside of which stood eight other figures. She recognized few of them, but knew seven were members of Ani’s strike team. The eighth was the queen herself, standing tall and indomitable watching the fires.
She’d seen paintings of Andorlash Octavian before, but she’d never seen her in person, let alone so close. She towered above everyone there and stood with perfect posture, a stern look on her face as the smoke rose. Her cobalt hair fell in a thick, tight fishtail braid down her pitch black cloak lined with white fur. Despite the sun reaching into in the sky by now, the mountains walling Kandra in still blocked it, so the cold of winter persisted.
She knew from Ani that Octavian was Half-Frostborne, her mother having hailed from the frozen northern tundra, but Lea swore looking at her she was full-blooded. Her muscles burst even under the loose cloak. Her neck and jaw were obviously a warrior’s; she was born to fight, if not lead battles.
From before the burning, she could tell from her speech why people followed her into war. Her voice was empowering and inspiring. Every word that fell from her lips wormed into her soul and struck her on whatever emotional level the queen desired. The entire crowd wept from her eulogy, including the ever-staunch guards meant to stand tall. Lea cringed internally at the thought of her ferreting out the truth about her. The Kandrian military force would tear her to shreds in an instant.
At the moment, however, she hardly even noticed the queen of Antra standing just to her side. Her eyes were fixed on the fires burning the body of her sister that towered easily twenty meters into the sky. Anixemeter’s body was out of sight completely, but the symbolism of it wasn’t lost.
Lea herself lit the first fire on the pyre, and each of the squad members lit a separate area. As the fires burned upwards, Queen Octavian lit an arrow, drew a bow, and fired it directly into the air. It flew into the sky before dropping down and landing somewhere atop the pyre where Ani’s body laid slathered in pitch. She could tell it landed true, as the top burst into glorious blue flames the second it hit.
The queen herself had shaken her hand and offered her condolences, tearing up as she looked down at her. Lea looked more like Ani than she ever had, something she regularly forgot. Now, the queen stood straight-faced watching the pyre. Lea figured it was to avoid weeping in front of the city. If she did at all, it would be behind closed doors away from any other sentient being.
As the fires licked the wood, supports collapsed and the top dropped a level, then another, then another. The way the structure was built, the outer supports were thick and held strong so as not to topple or explode. It fell elegantly and precisely how the architects planned it. When the top layer fell to the ground, a mage somewhere gathered the support poles arcanely at their tips, bringing them together forming a cone.
The bonfire burned and tears drained from Lea’s face. A thought rang through from somewhere far in the depths of her mind.
Finally.
Her office door swung open, and past the doorway, she saw a blond Northman and a green-haired Nojernan sharing a quick kiss before she waved into the room and rushed off. Elon strode in and planted himself into a seat.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“First off, welcome back. I’m sorry I couldn’t make the service.”
“It was beautiful. The queen pulled out all the stops for it. It felt like the whole metropolis showed up to pay homage.”
“Good.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you told me to do some research into a mayor, and I gathered this list of people after a quick poll. I’d personally vote for Mrs. Thalia Macaluso. She has experience in two city councils and was mayor of a small town in Vol’Tyr for a few dozen turns. Technically, she doesn’t live here yet, but her wife is one of the builders and a friend of Liz’s.”
“Oh yeah? You met her?”
“Obviously not, or I’d have remarked on her more personally.”
“Fair. Set up an interview with her and the next top five. Anything else?”
“Well... No update on the Chief, but... I’ve been looking into something. I do research, Lea. I’m a research assistant, I find things out, and I test them out. I ain’t much for public relations, and you only have me on that because of my strength and knack for the teleportive arts. Well, I had an idea.”
“Do tell.” Lea leaned back in her chair and patted her lap, letting Amber jump up into it.
Hey there.
Hi.
Listen in, I’ll be curious of your opinion.
‘Kay.
“In Arghan’Sul Penitentiary, the prison my old friend is currently in—”
“Arianrhod NicCarmaig.”
He stared at her blankly. “Yeah, Cherry. Rhod. Yeah, sorry. Weird to hear her real name. Yes, her. Well, I was... checking in on her and looked into who she was locked up with. Turns out, her cellmate is one Osadoguhn Viaxy.”
“As in Cyrio Viaxy?”
“One of his daughters, the only one in ‘The Biz,’ it seems, at least properly. While talking to some contacts, I’ve come to realize that Miss Viaxy was quite the active assassin in Gorenya, hired on very early by the G.G.A.—”
“I’m sorry, G.G.A.?”
He glared. “The Gorenyan Guild of Assassins.”
“Thank you.”
“May I finish, now?”
“Yes, please continue.”
He sighed. “She worked for the G.G.A. a long time, long enough that their files on her are more than extensive; though regrettably, they’re obnoxious to get hands on. By that I mean impossible for me. What I do know, however, is her kill count is well into the hundreds, and she’s known locally as ‘The Bloodletter,’ known particularly for leaving a scene afterwards. She’s messy; very, very messy.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m getting there. So, she’s locked up in the Pen, which, for the record, G.G.A. members don’t tend to go to prison unless they’re sloppy, really at the wrong place at the most wrong of times, or if they got set up. She is in there for killing the Secundus of Arghan’Sul.”
“Alasdair Torbanson! I remember that, I was actually in town that evening in the hospital. My sister was lamenting his death; they were good buddies back in the Octavian Rebellion.”
“Why were you in Arghan’Sul? You’re from Voorhaven.”
She chuckled. “Actually, it was because I tried to saw off my own legs. I got sick of the necrotic tissue, so I tried to lob ‘em off. Passed out partway through, and Ani ported me over and...” Lea’s voice trailed off for a second, then snapped back along with her face, to business mode. “Go on.”
“Well, she killed the secundus, and the guards burst in right as she stabbed him. Those guards walked in, mind you, without provocation. The arresting notes make it pretty obvious is was a setup. Now, they tried to pin as much on her as possible, but only got her for Torbanson, a prison guard and a prison scribe, both killed during an attempted breakout. Turns out, she wasn’t very learned, meaning she didn’t know you don’t just break out of Arghan’Pen.”
Lea stared expectantly. “So one thing I did find after looking through was that, without proper evidence, there’s not a ‘real’ case; they believe she was tied to a previous incident very similar in nature. There was an assassination in Terathor of their secundus, Artemisia Karmath, and visiting secundus of Unim, Irileth Caine. They both got killed cleanly, but during the escape, one of the two assassins got taken. One Liam Marcus Albreight. They never tied Viaxy to it, but there’s some shaky evidence and testimony saying so.
“His capture was damn similar. Guards were strangely at the perfect place at the perfect time, as in a battalion of guards just so happened to walk onto a very specific rooftop just as they were escaping. I believe Viaxy escaping was a fluke. Also, after some digging, I found that, indeed, Viaxy and Albreight were partners in crime until his capture. Awful suspicious, don’cha think? Two partners, one gets caught while the other escapes, and the other gets caught just twelve turns later?”
“Indeed...” She looked expectantly, fingers steepled while Amber sat calmly on her lap. “Still waiting for where this is going…”
“Fuckin’ shit, Lea. I’m getting there. I looked into them, and wouldn’t you know, there’s some awful fuckin’ handy information in here. For one, rather than Viaxy’s penchant for a show, Albreight was known for getting in and out never seen. Hell, many of his kills have gone on the record as a disappearance. When he’s paid to, he can get in, kill, obtain the body, and escape without a single sign of struggle, just like the person got up and walked into the ocean.
“Secondly, the man’s stupidly charismatic. He’s silver-tongued, great with people, and great at getting his way. Tie that in with perfect stealth and the access to a veritable legion of contacts, I think this man could be of great use to us.”
“And why do you think that?”
“I suck with people, Lea. I’m brash, I’m perhaps a bit thickheaded, a bit abrasive.”
“Not arguing any of these points.”
“Fuck you. If we hooked him up with teleportation, he’d be set.”
“We don’t have any wheat? Fuck it, let’s make the bread anyway.”
“No, no, there’s actually a way around this.”
“If you or I teleported him everywhere, that’d hardly be convenient.”
“Or, you can just interrupt me with your own stupid plan that doesn’t work so you don’t ever hear mine that does.”
They stared at each other for a short bit. “No, not abrasive at all.”
“Fuck you. Now, you read my record, you know my past, what I did.”
“I do, as a matter of fact, and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about a very specific piece of that past that you’re probably about to bring up.”
“You read the piece about me burning a jock’s arm off?”
“Yes, Jeremiah Eriford if I remember correctly. Star ulama player for your school, never got back on the field after that, sadly enough. He’s not that crippled, he could do it if he really wanted.”
“Whatever. Fuck him. The point is, did you see how I burned it off?”
“The report says you inscribed a fireball into his arm, but that makes no sense.”
“I specialize in Alteration, which usually means catching a fireball, modifying an enchantment, maybe if you’re really good, changing a fireball into a force or frostball. I just did what came naturally to me, I caught a fireball and, like changing fire to force, I changed it from ball to rune, from physical to an enchantment.”
“And then, what, just s
lapped it on him?”
“Yeah.”
“That doesn’t work. For one, you don’t just change a ball to a rune. For two, we’ve tried enchanting flesh with tattoos and even just simple painting on. The spell can’t draw properly from the organic source.”
“I think it was because it was a basic fireball. The molten heat of it scarred his flesh and inscribed onto the ash, pretty much. When they’re burnt off, they cease to restore, like necrotic flesh you’re so very familiar with, so they become a solid, regular object like paper or a rock.”
“So what you’re saying is we could enchant someone if, rather than tattooing or painting, we branded them?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, we’d need to do a test, first. Several tests. I won’t brand a man that doesn’t need it until I’m sure it works.”
“Whatever needs done.”
“Tell you what. You’re right on every other point. This man sounds useful, potentially important, and like a useful piece of our community. Let’s get ahold of him. And... you said no one breaks out of Arghan’Sul Penitentiary. How about breaking in?”
Epilogue
The City of Arghan'Sul, Ghostfire Prefecture
Liam laid back on his bed, thinking curiously on the new cells they were given. They seemed much more open with more quality accoutrements. Yes, he had a roommate, but the ability to talk to someone kept him sane. Granted, he wasn’t great company. He slept most of the time, and when he was awake, he responded in grunts. Still, another person was nice enough.
He rolled off the top bunk to see his Atrok roommate sleeping soundly on the bunk below. Liam strolled over to the desk and picked up one of several books he’d collected recently. He couldn’t trouble himself with fiction. Why waste time reading something that never happened? No, he stuck to history, learning from the past to better augment his future.
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