Wrath of the Risen God: Arcane Renaissance Book Three

by Tim Paulson

  Celia couldn't help but roll her eyes at the suggestion that she even had the option to move, but rather than curse at her, Vex smiled in response. He'd meant it as a joke! Oh, how different it would be spending time with someone with a sense of humor!

  Vex moved his arms once again. This time there was a low flash of purple light. She felt no different.

  “That's incredible!” Kev said. “I can still smell her, obviously, but... all I can see is her shadow!”

  “Humans use primarily their sight for detection. As long as you can keep us near the edge of buildings as we move north, we should remain undetected,” Vex said. “Now hold still, I need to do it to us.”

  Kev took them along the edge of a canal wall for most of the journey. It served well. Celia did her best to remain conscious during the journey but with the warmth from Kev's body and the morning's stress, she ended up dozing for at least thirty minutes. Before she knew it they'd arrived at Spuistraat with the Paleisstraat bridge and the palace looming in the background.

  “What is that stench?” a man dressed like a technician exclaimed, holding his nose.

  “I don't know!” responded his companion, a tall woman with dark hair, carrying a large wrench. “It smells like a barrel of rotting fish!”

  Celia frowned, wishing they could have paused to dip her in the canal. Though the canals were generally disgusting in their own right, nothing could have worsened the scent that currently came from her skin.

  “Left here,” whispered Vex. “The bake shop.”

  Drool dropped on Celia's elbow from above.

  “Hey!” she whispered.

  “Sorry...” Kev replied. “The baked goods smell so good!”

  Celia couldn't smell any- “Oh...” she said as the luscious scent of freshly baked bread filled her nostrils. She took a long deep breath, drinking it like life's own essence.

  Kev pulled the door open, causing a bell to jingle.

  “We should remove that spell,” Celia said, looking around. They were the only customers at the moment. Apparently they'd arrived either just before or just past lunch. Oddly, the place looked familiar somehow. It felt like she'd been here before. Had she?

  “Let's give it a moment first,” Vex replied.

  “Give what a moment?” said a voice from the other side of the counter. Celia recognized it immediately. Ina.

  Of course, Celia had been here with Giselle and her gaggle of tag-along children.

  There was the sound of a small stool being pushed across the floor before Ina's dog-like head appeared above the counter. She looked around for a moment, before her round ears, like little saucers, pointed directly at them.

  “I can hear you breathing whomever you are,” she said, looking a bit nervous. “I have a pistol behind this counter.”

  “You do not!” Celia said weakly.

  At that, Vex waved an arm and the illusion faded, revealing all three of them in the entrance of the bakery.

  “Augh! Celia? Are you alright?”

  “She is very tired and hungry,” Kev said, “as am I.”

  “Well we've lots of food here, that's for sure,” Ina said, climbing down from the countertop. She ran out from behind it and closed the front door, clicking the latch and flipping the sign over. “Come, sit... but perhaps in the back. Our customers are sensitive to dierlijt in this part of the city. I'm already an issue, but an akkikul? That would not help our reputation. I'm sorry to say.”

  Kev nodded. “I understand.”

  Ina gestured toward the back, holding the counter slide open. “I see you've another walking talking doll on your shoulder there.”

  “You know of the demons?” Kev asked, his eyes wide.

  Ina waved her hand. “Oh yes, it's old hat for me. I just got rid of one actually. Harald his name was.”

  Celia groaned. “Oh... him.”

  “I'm Vex Thibauld, a wizard and I promise not to trouble you for long. I came here looking for someone you might know, a friend,” Vex said from Kev's shoulder.

  “Well if you know him, I'm pretty sure I know who you're talking about,” Ina said, “Put Celia down here... whoa! I thought that smell was from outside... that's you?”

  “Yes...” Celia replied.

  “First, a bath,” Ina said “Then we can talk about food. I can't have customers retching the moment they enter our bakery! That kind of thing hurts a business.”

  “Can you tell me where my friend is?” Vex asked again.

  “Why tell you?” Ina replied. She cupped her hands and yelled up a stairwell that led to the bakery's second floor. “Daniel! Get down here. I need your help.”

  A clacking sound began, like a young boy beating a stick against a wooden fence, and a dark form emerged from the stair. A skull head with red glowing eyes peered around the corner. When it caught sight of Vex it paused as if stunned. Then it rushed downstairs to stand in front of Kev, who shrunk as if the creature meant to devour him.

  “It's fine, he's nice enough,” Ina said. “Though he can't talk so it's-” Ina stopped in the middle of her sentence.

  Daniel was gesticulating wildly as if recounting some incredible story.

  “Yes... Of course... Did you really? That's good,” Vex was saying, as if he understood every bit of it, though no words were being spoken.

  “You can hear him?” Ina asked, shocked.

  “Of course I can, skull acolytes are made by Salmu wizards like myself. He doesn't speak, he sends thoughts directly to my mind.”

  “I see,” Ina said, staring.

  She did not see, that much Celia could tell.

  “Daniel says you're a good host, that you treat him well.”

  Ina blinked. “Thank you.”

  “He also says your mother is ill. He's been helping to take care of her.”

  Ina nodded. “Right, she's sleeping now but has already begun to recover. I think it will still be a few days before she can run the bakery again. I've been doing my best but... it's not going well, honestly,” she said, looking down.

  Vex seemed to consider this before he looked to Celia. “Let's get Celia a bath and some food. I don't have any of your currency to compensate you,” Vex said, “but I have an idea.”

  Daniel carried Celia upstairs where she had the most luxurious bath in years. It was a big metal washtub, not the deep curved baths of Aeyrdfeld, but she didn't care. The water was hot, the soap smelled like lavender, it was divine. After finally extracting herself from the cooling waters, Celia paused in front of a full-length mirror, inspecting what was left of her body.

  She'd been comely before, never shapely, but at least relatively well proportioned. Now that was gone. The girl that stared back at her was gaunt and unfamiliar. Ribs visible, hips shrunken to almost nothing. Her chest had already been small, now it may as well have never existed. Surely he would hate her.

  Her stomach growled, reminding her it had its own priorities. Food would move her toward solving both problems, only she was currently naked.

  The cloth bag they'd put on her in that jail was nearly rotted to shreds. Ina had laid out some clothes on a rack next to the washtub. Celia recognized them immediately as Giselle's taste: Relatively modest, light or brightly colored, with some dainty lace along the edge. Gross. Still, it was all she had and Celia would take it.

  There were undergarments, socks, and boots as well. She put all of it on. The winter was already cold and getting colder and it had been a long time since she'd truly felt warm.

  When she arrived downstairs she found Daniel and Vex together, apparently having a silent conversation given the movements of Daniel's slick black appendages. On the other side of the bakery Ina was working with Kev helping her. The two of them were moving bread out of a large wood-fired oven.

  Ina turned to Celia. “Oh good, you're back. Kev and I made you a big plate and there's lots of fresh bread with it. Eat as much as you want. We've been closed so much today, I doubt even half of this will be sold.”

  “You do
the designs yourself?” Kev asked, holding the big flat wooden paddle that pushed the bread around inside the oven. Even though he was younger, he was a head taller than Ina and though he too was malnourished, he held the paddle with little trouble.

  “Oh yes,” Ina replied. “I have hundreds of designs I've planned. Someday I want to own my own dress shop where I'll make the most incredible gowns and suits and so many things. Not just for humans, but for dierlijt too. We have so little to choose from for clothes. Most of us just modify human clothes, but our eyes see differently so the colors they like aren't what we would prefer.”

  “You're so right!” Kev replied. “So many of them wear blacks and grays now too, so boring!”

  Celia couldn't help but smile at the two of them. She was glad Kev had found a friend. He wouldn't ever be able to return to his clen, not after helping her. Surely there had been some sort of scuffle when Vex was revived but neither of them had talked about it. As far as she remembered anyway, she'd been asleep for much of the journey.

  The food consisted of a large carafe of fresh milk, four enormous Divarian soft pretzels with butter, and salt sprinkled on them, a massive chunk of light yellow cheese, some sliced salamis, and some pickled kerits, sweet roots, and onions. It was a feast and she ate every bite. Her stomach fought her for a while, retching at the full feeling, but there was no chance Celia was going to let a single morsel leave her.

  After some time, Daniel appeared at her side. He was holding Vex in two of his appendages.

  “How do you feel?” Vex asked her.

  She nodded, tears threatened to well up again but she choked them back. There'd been enough tears for her. It was time to be strong again.

  “Thank you for coming for me.”

  The doll held up a hand. “I owe much to you. You're the reason I'm conscious and not taking up space in Christine's little bag of rocks.”

  Celia's lips hardened into a thin line. “That's the thing... I stole you from her and then I stopped taking care of her foolish daughter.”

  The doll lifted an eyebrow. “Well, you needn't worry about it. I've plans that will sever us both from her influence.”

  Celia shook her head. “I don't fear her. What I fear are the people I wronged in the past. She bought my allegiance from them. Now that I've violated her terms, they'll find out... and they'll come for me.”

  Vex cocked his head. “Who are they?”

  “They call themselves The Men of the Bell, they're a group of assassins and extortionists.”

  “Are they wizards?”

  “No.”

  “Then forget about them.”

  “Oh,” Celia said.

  “We have more pressing interests.”

  Celia raised both eyebrows. “And those are?”

  “First... I'd like to ask you something.”

  Celia felt her chest tighten, combined with the prodigious tension in her overfull stomach, the effect was downright painful. “What?” she asked, almost whispering.

  “Will you... be my partner?”

  * * *

  Giselle sat in a wooden chair in a room that had once been the quarters of Helen, a jovial middle-aged woman with a mild lisp who'd been one of the Halett maid staff. Yet instead of having a chat about changing the curtains more often over a cup of steaming hot tea, Giselle's hands were bound behind her by metal cuffs that bit at the flesh of her wrists. To her right sat Piotr who'd been humming to himself happily for the past ten minutes.

  Harald, however, was gone. He'd gone limp when they'd been discovered, Giselle presumed so he might be able to rescue them later, but it had been an hour now and nothing. With the humming, the tight cuffs, and the lack of Harald, Giselle's temper was starting to get the better of her. She could feel it coming on and had tried to keep her mouth shut, but as the weaselman kept humming, her thoughts drifted more and more often toward slapping him in his fuzzy mouth.

  “Can you shut up?” she asked.

  The weaselman looked over. “I am annoy you?”

  “Please stop. You're giving me a headache,” she replied.

  The weaselman looked surprised. “You're testy one. I not remember you like this from before.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” she snapped back.

  “You no like me then too, but you not like this.”

  “Like what? Emotional?” Giselle scowled at him. “Are you going to make some comment about women in stressful situations?”

  Piotr looked back toward the front of the room. “Not women... you. Something... different. You smell different too.”

  Giselle's eyes widened. “Don't you think I know? I haven't been home in months! I still wake up from dreams about Benny's horrible face and I'm drenched in sweat. I hate that! I finally get here and I just want a moment in my own room, to, you know... see some of my old clothes or wear some perfume, and it's all...” tears poured from her eyes. “It's all gone! Aaron isn't here... My mother isn't either... Maybe father is gone forever. I don't even know where my brother's gone!” She was sobbing now, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I just want it all to go back to the way it was!”

  Piotr looked stricken. “I... sorry... I am not meaning make you cry.”

  Giselle's lip quivered. She didn't want to be crying either. She just was.

  There was a thumping of boots and a few hurried words in Ganex from outside the door. Then it opened. Standing in the doorway was a tall man with broad shoulders and a crisp red Ganex uniform. Giselle did not know the imperial ranks but from all the ribbons and bits hanging from his shoulders and chest, she guessed he was important.

  “Crying are we?” the man asked as he nodded to the two guards outside the door. They closed it behind him. He then took a chair from the side of the room and placed it in the center, sat down, and crossed his legs.

  “She is crying, I am humming,” Piotr replied.

  “Is that so? Do you feel that being caught stealing from my officers is a reason to hum?”

  “Definitely,” Piotr replied. “Stealing from Ganex is pleasure.”

  Giselle was trying to stop crying, but it wasn't working very well. The tears kept coming.

  “From your accent, I'd assume you're from Lepszy,” the Ganex officer said, leaning back. Hard brown eyes studied both of them. “That would explain your demeanor.”

  The flow of tears was finally starting to ebb but Giselle was left trying to sniffle away the snot running from her nose.

  “Here, let me get that for you,” the officer said as he produced a white kerchief fringed with lace from a pocket of his waistcoat. As he leaned forward to dab Giselle's nose she responded by leaning toward him, mortified to be forced to do so.

  To her right, Piotr's long neck craned in and he took three long sniffs.

  “You are no Ganex!” he said.

  The officer paused mid swipe, half an inch from Giselle's face.

  “What are you talking about weaselman!” he said.

  Giselle tried to lean forward, just a bit more, trying to clean her nose but couldn't quite make it.

  “It is truth!” Piotr said, pulling his arms from behind his back and crossing them in front of his body as he leaned back in his chair.

  Giselle wobbled on her chair, nearly tipping, that's why it took her a few seconds to realize that Piotr had removed his own cuffs!

  “You have a very good nose,” the officer said, gesturing with the hand holding the cloth that Giselle very much wanted to use.

  “Better than average for my kind,” Piotr said, “but not best.”

  “Please... please give me the cloth,” Giselle said.

  The officer looked back at her, grimacing. “Sorry about that. Your friend caught me off guard,” he said as he leaned back and wiped her nose.

  “Oh thank goodness,” Giselle said.

  “You are not a human, but I don't know your smell. What are you?” Piotr asked, leaning forward, his tiny nose working as his long whiskers twitched.

  Th
e officer sighed. “Fine,” he said, standing. Then he spun around. When he faced them again, only a second later, he was a weaselman.

  Giselle's eyes widened. “That's incredible! Is it sorcery?”

  Piotr only shook his head. “No... no. Not good. Should not have chosen weaselman.”

  The other weaselman, who was a little taller than Piotr with darker markings, tilted his head. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I know smell of my own kind better than any. Your imitation is poor.”

  The other weaselman grumbled. “The humans are never this difficult.”

  Piotr shrugged. “Is not my fault humans cannot smell.”

  Giselle frowned. “We can, just not very well, I suppose.”

  Piotr shrugged. “Well?”

  The darker weaselman sighed and changed into a young human woman. “Will you accept this?”

  “Is not you,” Piotr replied.

  “This is all you get,” the young woman said.

  Piotr shrugged. “Is cute girl, I guess. No complaint.”

  “What is going on here?” Giselle exclaimed, frustrated. “Who are you? How can you change like that?”

  The girl pointed at Giselle. “You can call me Veronica. I'm not going to tell you my secret, sorry, but I can tell you why I'm here: I need your help.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The Ganex guards told me you were brought in with a doll. The doll is now gone. That doll... It wasn't Harald was it?”

  “How did you know?!” Giselle asked.

  Veronica frowned. “I'd hoped it wasn't.”

  “What do you mean? What's wrong with Harald?”

  “Nothing is wrong with him, he's just another asset for her, if she's found him.”

  Giselle struggled at her cuffs. “Please... if you're not going to interrogate us, could you at least release these metal things?”

  “Oh, yes... Let me find the key,” Veronica said, fishing in the cloak she now wore. The Ganex officer's uniform was nowhere to be seen. Apparently whatever power she had to change herself, it included the clothes. Was this magic? It had to be!

  Piotr jumped up. “Do not bother,” he said stepping in behind Giselle.

  A few clicks and her wrists came free.

  “Thank God!” Giselle said, rubbing her aching wrists with her hands. “Tell me again... You're...”