"Pardon the uhh furniture, we obviously don't use the inn much. I'm sure these surroundings aren't quite what ya'll are used to in the city," uttered Munnor with a hint of embarrassment. "We'll make ya'll feel right at 'ome though. The inn keeper is most likely down in the basement sleeping. We can 'ead on up now, I think 'eila is upstairs watching them, she's one of the town seamstresses.”
"Thank you, good mayor," Thelais began but paused for a moment as she swept her gaze across the filthy surroundings and repressed a shutter, "but we will make our own lodgings tonight out in the desert."
Rordun motioned to his soldiers; five of the men went outside to set up a perimeter while the other five began spreading out along the bottom floor. Munnor, Sielan, Thelais and Rordun headed up the incredibly narrow and steep staircase to the second floor. The steps creaked so badly that Sielan was fairly certain they would crash through at any moment and find themselves on top of the sleeping inn keeper in the basement. Despite her fears, they safely reached the top floor which was a wide-open area with sporadic support beams. In the far corner lay three bodies on blankets masked in shadows. Next to them was a small table which held a single burning candle giving off the only light in the windowless room. A small figure sat on a stool next to the table staring at the newcomers as they crossed the cavernous open floor.
The woman known as Heila stood as they approached and did a small curtsey. "It's an honor to meet you all, I've long heard of the legends of both of you."
"Thank you for the kind words," responded Sielan. "While the mistress of flame inspects these bodies, I would like to ask you some questions. Would you mind accompanying Rordun and me downstairs to give Thelais some privacy in her examination?"
"Of course, milady," spoke Heila as she stood up and began walking to the staircase. When the seamstress arrived in front of the group, she stepped close to Thelais and leaned in, whispering to the pyromancer in the process. "They have changed; they are not as they once were."
Thelais gave Heila an inquisitive look, but quickly realized the girl had been deeply disturbed by the Vesnians she had been looking over. Heila gave the pyromancer a concerned look and then continued past. Thelais slightly turned to follow her movement and noticed Rordun was eyeing the pyromancer. The mistress of flame faintly shook her head while looking at Rordun and he nodded in understanding, turning and following the group back downstairs.
After the group had descended the staircase Thelais turned and approached the far corner where the corpses were kept. Thelais whispered a word and waved her hand summoning the first and most basic spell a pyromancer learns. From her hand burst forth two floating orbs of light. She gracefully flipped her hand and the glow orbs floated into the air above her, shining immense white light throughout the dilapidated room.
Thelais looked down at the catatonic Vesnians and felt her throat tighten in shock at the sight before her. The bodies lay on filthy blankets and appeared to still be wearing the clothes they were in when they passed. What shocked her though was their physical appearances. The flesh of all three was stark white to the point where their skin was almost translucent, and she could see dark veins racing throughout their bodies. She took a step back, never had she seen anything like this. Several times she had conducted autopsies of deceased Phlebos, but never had she seen any that looked like this, nor had she ever read about anything like this in any of the medical and anatomy books in the Aun City library.
With the initial shock over, Thelais stepped forward and knelt. While her fine and delicate robes were now covered in dust and dirt, her face and hands were somehow still clean and pristine, almost as if the Three wouldn't allow their elegant child to be anything other than beautiful perfection. The closest body to her was that of the blacksmith Dordor. He was short for a male Phlebos and his belly was a bit larger than normal. Overall, his physical appearance was similar to Munnor's. The blacksmith's hands were rough and calloused with many scars and scabs, a feature not unexpected from someone in his profession. A short beard graced his face, the hairs of the beard and those on his head were likewise a bright white color matching his almost translucent flesh.
Thelais placed her hand on his forehead and was deeply disturbed by what she felt. Dordor's flesh was unnaturally hard. There was no bounce or cushion to his skin; it didn't even feel like flesh to the pyromancer. She tried to think of anything she could compare it to, but she hadn't the faintest clue. Compounding the unusual texture of his skin was the fact he was also stone cold. All Phlebos emitted tremendous body heat due to the fact they were birthed of flame. The few corpses that she had previously inspected, while not as hot as a living Phlebos, were still warm to the touch. Granted though, never had a Vesnian been left in a state of death for so long. Normally once a Phlebos was pronounced dead, the body was cremated within a day or two so no studies had ever been done as to what occurs to a Vesnian corpse over a long period of time.
The question Thelais now faced was whether these bodies had changed because it was a natural stage in Vesnian decomposition or because a special malady was afflicting them which caused their bodies to change so drastically. One thing was for certain as far as Thelais could see: these three were dead and not coming back. Thelais closed her eyes and whispered words casting another basic spell over the corpses of the three Phlebos before her. It was a spell that would detect any trace of residual magic, but nothing was to be found. Thelais easily enough ruled out that these three had not been killed by magical means.
Thelais sighed at what she had to do next, but the pyromancer had to be thorough in her search, she had to rule out disease. The mistress of flame reached into the folds of her thick and heavy red robes and pulled out a small and serrated blade. Thelais whispered a prayer to the Three asking forgiveness for what she was about to do and then plunged the blade into the chest of Dordor. With sickening crunches and great exertion, she slowly cut the blacksmith wide open. She struggled sawing towards his abdomen as his hardened skin made the job extremely difficult. When she was done, she dropped the blade at her side and with both hands pulled back the two sides of the incision.
The mistress of flame looked around in Dordor's chest cavity but saw no immediate signs of disease, his organs were all the same as his flesh though. They were hardened, almost translucent white and gave off an odd odor. The smell was not that of rotting flesh however and just as she could not make sense of the feel of the flesh, nor could she make sense of the smell. Aside from the obvious drastic changes in the body, Thelais couldn't help but feel she was overlooking something else in her inspection. She sat next to the corpse staring at the body and racking her brain for what she was missing and then it dawned on her. Dordor's blood, or rather the lack of it. Despite Thelais literally cutting open the man she had not seen a single drop of blood.
Thelais reached down and grabbed her serrated dagger again and, after a brief pause, reached into Dordor's body and gripped his hardened heart with one hand. With her other hand she plunged the dagger into the heart and cut it open. When she pulled the blade out white powder began pouring from his punctured heart. It looked almost like sand but when she touched it the substance was clearly something else. Her head pounding and heart racing, Thelais ripped open a hole in Dordor's pants and stabbed into his thigh sawing through Dordor's leg to get to the main femoral artery. Grunting, she pulled back the flesh and muscle of the leg and out of the artery poured more of the mysterious powdery substance.
The mistress of flame leaned back, dropping her dagger in the process, and stared at the mutilated blacksmith before her. She closed her eyes to keep the room from spinning as the true gravity of the situation started to take hold of her. When she was composed again, she picked her dagger back up and moved over to the next corpse in line, that of Lielaum. "Southern Sun save us all," Thelais whispered quietly right before she drove the dagger down into the body of the female Phlebos and began cutting her open.
* * *
Sielan and Thelais sat at a small table in
the royal tent they both shared. Encircling their large tent were the smaller tents for the soldiers accompanying them, even now in the middle of the night two armed guards stood outside their shared tent. The small table between the two women was covered in books which they had brought with them. Among the tomes were complete histories of the Red Empire, medical dictionaries detailing Vesnian anatomy and various other relevant scholarly works.
“Useless! Every page is garbage. How long has our race been around as a people? Two thousand years? Yet in those two thousand years not one Vesnian that we know of has ever reached decomposition stages, this is uncharted territory,” fumed Thelais as she vented her frustration.
“We are very efficient people I will give us that,” joked Sielan. "Makes me wonder how much more we could accomplish if we didn’t keep ourselves blinded by absolute faith.”
Thelais glared at Sielan, “I respect you Sielan and consider you my best friend, but you know I will not tolerate your slights against the Three.”
Sielan waved her hand, casually dismissing Thelais' statement. "In two thousand years of history we have never let a body rot aside from the Dallion rebellion and even then, there were no witnesses for the posthumous decomposition. While we have dissected the bodies of fallen soldiers, we always did it immediately after death and then burned the corpses. In the rare occasions of death, and they are rare, no body as far as our records show has ever lay dormant for more than two or three days at most. Furthermore, never in the history of our people have Vesnians failed to reincarnate or had their mortal bodies die while on the journey home to the Three.”
“It has to be foul play, it’s the only logical conclusion for how three people could all pass around the same time and then not reincarnate," said Thelais with a hint of desperation in her voice. "Someone here didn’t want them to come back, but why?”
Sielan snorted in amusement at the mistress of flame's suggestion of murder. "After questioning the families of each of the three corpses I don’t see any connection. While Dordor was well known due to his prominent position, the other two kept to themselves and were barely known. Bleak Water was founded about eight hundred years ago by one hundred Phlebos who migrated here by imperial edict to set up the water pumping facilities. Those one hundred founders are the same one hundred founders who live here today…well, ninety-seven now. According to Munnor there has never been any disturbances of any sort. There has never been a fight, there has never been an undead attack, there hasn't even been any arguments amongst the town folk. For the sake of the Three they don’t even have a town guard. They are simple Three fearing folk who do as the Red Empire tells them. Either those three bodies in the inn died of some sort of natural cause or Bleak Water is a dedicated and elaborate hoax for an evil cabal that lay in wait for eight hundred years before claiming their first victims.”
“What you are saying Sielan has grave implications," began Thelais. "I just want to make it abundantly clear what you are implying. While logically I would agree with you that those three were not murdered, if it was not foul play, then this will forever change the history of not just us but the Tormos as well. You are advocating that suddenly, for some unknown reason, it is possible that we are no longer immortal. If your theory is correct, I fear for what is shortly to come when the masses realize the enormity of what we face.”
Sielan leaned in close over the table and whispered to the mistress of flame. "I think that's exactly what has happened."
“I’m not arguing against your logic," Thelais pondered for a moment, "but it makes no sense. Why all of a sudden did these three become mortal? Why here? Why now?”
“Maybe it was just coincidence?” Sielan suggested the thought while leaning back again in her seat. “We’ve long seen that passing and reincarnation has no rhyme or reason. Even as we speak more individuals in other parts of the empire could be passing never to awaken. This could be just the tip of the iceberg, only time will tell at this point. Or perhaps we are wrong, and this is just some fluke incident. Maybe those three cold hard corpses are white because they royally pissed off the White Watcher."
Thelais frowned once again at the blasphemy of her friend. “Or maybe they did something that pleased her, and she saved them from this wretched town called Bleak Water.”
“Well one thing is for certain" said Sielan standing up. "We’re not going to solve this mystery tonight. Aun will be rising in a few hours and at the moment we have far more questions than answers. I say we get some sleep and tackle the issue anew in the morning."
Thelais nodded and wished her friend good night. As Thelais crawled into bed she could already tell from the heavy breathing on the other side of the tent that Sielan was fast asleep. Thelais lay on her cot staring up at the tent ceiling pondering the mysteries of the day’s discoveries. Eventually her troubled mind calmed down and the mistress of flame slipped into slumber.
* * *
She was standing on a mountain, one which she did not know as there were no mountains in Aunia. She knew it couldn’t be the Patriarch Mountain of the Tormos as that was just one single massive landform and from where she stood, all Thelais saw were mountains as far as the eye could see. Her vision shifted and she realized she wasn’t standing on a mountain; rather she was in a building that rested on the side of a vast mountain. She looked down and for miles all around her was a massive sprawling city. A sound came from behind and she turned to see the source. A man stood in the doorway whom she did not know. She tried looking at him but couldn’t see his face as his shape kept moving. He seemed more a shadow than a physical being. Suddenly she was sitting on a bed which had appeared by unknown means. The man stood above her and pushed her down so that she was lying on her back looking up.
Her first instinct was to get back up, but she couldn't. Her mind screamed to sit up and run but her body ignored her. She felt the man get on top of her and as her body tightened, she felt him slip inside of her. She looked away as the two rocked back and forth, their bodies becoming one. Thelais wanted to push the man off her but she couldn't. His heavy breathing kept growing louder and louder as the bed shook and creaked from the rocking motion.
Thelais suddenly heard another sound, this time a different man shouting from somewhere she couldn't see. “THELAIS! THELAIS!” The second unknown man was screaming her name from someplace far away.
She knew the voice; she knew who was calling out to her. She opened her eyes and woke up.
* * *
Rordun stood outside Sielan and Thelais' tent shouting their names as Aun crept over the horizon casting the first rays of light that banished Nua for another day. Sielan stepped out of the tent in her white linen shirt and pants rubbing her eyes. “What in the name of the Three are you yelling about? Thelais and I aren't deaf you know.”
“Milady," began Rordun with a troubled look in his face, "there is a new development; you and Thelais should come at once.”
At the mention of her name Thelais appeared from the tent wearing her full pyromancer regalia. Her long fiery red hair cascaded down her back flawlessly. Sielan didn’t know how Thelais did it. The pyromancer was only four hours removed from having her hands deep in Vesnian corpses and she looked like she was ready to go to the imperial ball.
“What is the matter Rordun?” Questioned Thelais, her voice as musical sounding as always.
“A runner arrived a few moments ago, I figured it best if he delivers his message right away.”
"Why is there a runner here? We just left Aun City a few days ago," said Thelais. "What could have happened in such short a time?”
Rordun motioned and an almost frail looking Phlebos male approached. This timid Vesnian was certainly not an imperial runner as he was dressed in plain brown dirty linen clothes. Thelais wondered if he was even a runner by trade. “Speak,” commanded Rordun to the runner.
The filthy runner knelt before the two women averting his gaze in the process. “I am Guorn from the village of Briny Watch to the west near the rocky
coast. I was dispatched by the mayor of our town to deliver a message to Aun City. I stopped here for shelter and water for my horse as I continue on my journey.”
“I am Thelais, mistress of flame, grand pyromancer of the Phlebos Empire, wife of Lorne, high commander of the Red Army. None save Mielor herself is above me. I am the Red Empire. Deliver your message to me Guorn of Briny Watch.”
“Milady, I come seeking assistance from the Red Empire," began Guorn. "Thirteen days ago, one of our townsfolk passed over to visit the White Watcher, however he has still not returned. Nine days ago, another villager likewise passed and has yet to return. We are growing concerned and seek aid from the empire to assist in their return.”
Thelais and Sielan quickly glanced at each other, concern written over both of their faces. Sielan knew things were going to get worse before they got better but she was hoping they would have had more time than this to prepare for what were sure to be more Phlebos deaths.
“Guorn, your message has been delivered and aid shall be given. Return to your village at once. Some of us shall follow to offer assistance. Rordun, would some of your men kindly escort Guorn to his destination, I want to ensure he makes it back safely.” Sielan intoned her statement to inform Rordun that she wanted this man under constant surveillance to make sure word didn't spread.
Rordun nodded in complete understanding and forcefully grabbed the runner's shoulder. “At once milady, I’ll have two of my soldiers escort Guorn back to Briny Watch. Come with me lad, I’ll introduce you to your traveling companions.” He guided the dirty messenger away from the ladies and toward a few of the soldiers idling around the camp.
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