The rainbows of Cassis always disturbed Tallin.
They were unlike the ones that would appear just after storms and rain specifically in color; these were a faded gradient of violet, and there were too many of them arching over the cityscape. They were a byproduct, he knew, of the magi imported from Andaan, and their secretive works.
Tallin and Andear had agreed in the days prior they would not linger here. News had reached them that Saunturil had begun yet another invasion of a northern Servancy, this time the domain belonging to the drake Balthsaar, which made Cassis a prime target for the dragon’s ire. As unlikely as it was for Balthsaar to cross the River Westdrake and enter the Kingdom’s borders proper, such a thing was not unprecedented, and the whole prospect was more than enough to give Cassis an energy that made the hairs on your neck stand. Tallin never had the ambition nor want to involve himself in the politics or struggles of Vandersur’s kingdoms, and certainly did not plan to now. In blunt, the whole affair meant little to him, and would continue to mean little – assuming the state of things did not affect his own line of work. He suspected Andear felt the same, though perhaps the bearded woodsman was even less interested in thinking about it. The matter was likely far more simple to him: there are dragons afoot, so let us be hasty.
The two walked through the quiet streets, surrounded by tall, whitewashed buildings, and were silent. There was so little noise that Tallin could hear the murmurs of the fountain at Aldier Square, and something so loud as a group of fleeing birds nearly made Tallin startle.
“Get your nerves in order, Tallin,” Andear grumbled. “Since finding your way out of that cave you’ve been jumpy. It’s makin’ me jumpy.”
Tallin stayed quiet for a moment. He deigned to keep the encounter with Eichtouaire to himself in fear of – Eichtouaire? Tallin squinted at the ground. That thing had never said its name to him. Eichtouaire?
Andear had stopped, turned into an alley that Tallin recognized led to Navid’s Parish, a tavern, inn, gambling house and brothel all tied together in a dusty compound of gray shacks. The compound was decidedly just as quiet as the alleys lining its perimeter, with the occasional man or couple having found their little corner to bathe in sunlight and drink. A trickster magus sat silently beneath the overhang of the gambling shack, having apparently fallen asleep thanks to the current lack of business.
Tallin saw the building housing the inn, decided to take front to assuage Andear’s concern for him, and entered through the pale wooden door. Within the inn’s reception was not a living soul, besides the still form of a vagrant leaned against a wall near the entrance – and even describing him as ‘living’ might have been debatable. Andear had to stoop slightly to avoid brushing the top of his head against the ceiling, and had it not been for the windows, Tallin suspected the entire business might remind him too much of his usual, decrepit, underground workplaces for comfort.
A dusty sphere of obsidian carved to look like an eye sat on the reception desk, and Tallin knew it had just rung a bell somewhere to announce their arrival. It was a trinket that, again, unpleasantly reminded him of his work; it was alarm trinkets like that he had to watch so carefully for when on expedition.
A few moments passed before Navid’s youngest daughter, Excia, appeared through the service door behind the reception desk. She placed a gentle hand on the sphere, which Tallin assumed deactivated it, and gave them a weary smile.
“Lookin’ for Faera?” she said. If her glassy eyes and slow demeanor were not enough, her voice was slurred. Tallin heard Andear give a snort of derision.
“Yes,” muttered Tallin. “She still in the basement?”
Excia shook her head. “Basement got overrun with mice. ‘Till we find a worthy pair of cats, she’s moved her office to a closet.” She threw a thumb over her shoulder, toward the service door from whence she came. “Back there. Follow me.”
Tallin did so, moving around the counter. She had a pleasant enough voice, Tallin supposed. Light, twittery, like a bird. Still, he could tell by the heaviness of Andear’s footsteps, and his continued silence, that the woodsman did not share Tallin’s outlook on the girl. He suspected it might be because her father was Adaani, and the heritage had given her a darker skin. Andear was always… provincial, in that unpleasant way.
Excia led the two through the dim, narrow hallway where its walls were made of daubed wattle, and they passed a door where within Tallin had once met Navid himself once, but it was unlikely that the old entrepreneur was here; it was said he spent as little time within the property of his Parish as possible. Finally, at the end of the hall was the aforementioned closet, and upon opening the door Tallin was pleasantly surprised. It was large, for a closet. Still, not quite the space you’d need for an office. Despite the limitations, Faera had clearly done her utmost to make the space presentable. Various artifacts hung from the ceiling in little nets and filled the shelves that, presumably, once held the inn’s cleaning supplies. Mostly, however, there were maps. Maps covering the walls, her desk, rolled, leaned and piled in every corner, showing Adaani deltas, ruins and village-states in Grath, coastal details of Breisia and west Bentor, and many more than Tallin did not recognize. It would appear at least half of these maps were – as expected – of subterranean structures.
Faera looked up at them, pushing messy black hair out of her face. “Gentlemen,” she said pleasantly. “Whiskey?”
Tallin smiled and opened his mouth to accept but Andear stepped closer, alongside him. “Where’s fucking Mentouri?” the woodsman snarled.
Faera tilted her head and frowned. “Job didn’t go so well?”
“It was a complete and utter bust! If I find that little shit I’m going to crush his throat with my bare hands.”
Faera looked past Tallin and Andear, gave Excia a nice smile, who promptly closed the door and left the room. “What happened to the mage? Karlisle, I think?”
“Dead,” growled Andear. Tallin did not expect him to expound on that. “And Tallin here nearly died, too.”
Faera wrinkled her nose at that. Tallin imagined she was once quite pretty. Would still be pretty, if an accident in her career hadn’t rendered half her face ruined. Burnt, torn, lopsided and an empty eye socket to boot. Tallin brought in a breath, and spoke. “Yes, Karlisle is dead. We found nothing… very material, in that so-called ‘Abenier’s Corridor’, as Mentouri named it.”
Andear huffed. “More like Abenier’s Anus. Fuck all in that hole.”
“It was mostly just… natural cavern. Regardless, we’re hoping the guild has another lead. A good one, because another bust will put us on the streets.”
Faera narrowed her eyes. “And how did Karlisle die?”
Tallin felt himself wince. Annoying, how she’d hang on slips like that.
“‘Cos he was a fucking mage and he went crazy,” Andear spat. “Tried to kill Tallin.”
Faera responded first by taking in, then letting go, a long breath of air. “This is why you should only pursue expeditions properly sanctioned by the guild. By me. Not some con on the street.”
Before Andear could bite back, Tallin spoke, raising hands he hoped were calming. “And that is why we’re here, Faera. That venture cost us. Which is why this next lead needs to be good and proper, else we’ll be put out.”
Faera sniffed. “You’re already put out.”
“As it stands, we can barely afford to feed ourselves, guildmaster,” Andear said. Tallin could practically hear his teeth grating.
Faera, unphased as always, shrugged. “I was contacted by a priestess who comes from the north on business. It’s really a job that would be safest with a third expeditioner…” – Faera pointedly looked at both Tallin and Andear – “…but it comes with a base payment, regardless of the results of the expedition, so it’ll be a safe investment of time, more or less.”
Both Tallin and Andear grimaced. “What part of the north?” asked Tallin.
Now Faera gave them a little frown. “The Servancy of Felse.”
Tallin shoulders slumped while Andear let out an exasperated groan. “A dragon priestess,” huffed Andear. “Of course.”
Felse was widely known as the only beneficent – or, at least, impartial – major wyrm that ruled a northern domain. Her Servancy was the only one in which her human and humanoid subjects served her voluntarily; it was also widely known that, for a person to serve a dragon voluntarily, they just had to be blatantly, unabashedly, insane.
“Does this have anything to do with the campaign ‘gainst Balthsaar?” muttered Tallin.
Faera shook her head. “The priestess – our client – says it doesn’t.”
Tallin swore he could hear Andear’s eyes roll in their sockets, then spoke again: “So? Are we retrieving something?”
Faera straightened, apparently pleased. “Yes! Or, I believe so. She described it as an escort, but I would not be surprised if she left the expedition with her hands full.”
“She wishes to come?” Andear asked, his voice heightening in pitch.
“Oh, quite,” sang Faera. “The three of you would be heading east, along the Westdrake until it meets with the Eastdrake, across the delta there to an island she dubbed ‘the Servant’s Outreach’.” She said ‘the Servant’s Outreach’ with a tinge of excitement in her breath; Faera always enjoyed these crumbling places getting little names like that.
Tallin thought for a moment on her direction. Maybe a week’s travel, just to get there. “And what’s the base pay?”
“Enough, I assure you. She might hail from the Servancies but she’s certainly no vagrant. I even suspect you may be able to convince her to pay per diem,” Faera said cheerfully. “I’ll write your names down for the expedition.”
Tallin wrinkled his nose. “We didn’t accept.”
Faera let loose a wide grin, half of it pretty as a sunrise, the other half grotesquely stretching her other, ruined cheek. “Tallin, sweetheart, I just gave you the directions and name of a, presumably, quite secret location. Besides, this is the only job I’ve got at the moment, and you’re lucky your peers haven’t snatched it up.” She quickly retrieved a piece of parchment, presumably the priestess’ letter, and handed it to Tallin. “Despite her possible eccentricities, please try to keep her alive. I wish you good luck, good loot, and tunnel’s light!”
…
Before meeting the priestess at the Inn Wallace outside Cassis’ eastern gate, Tallin used the majority of his coin to replace the leather jerkin that he’d lost, and this new one was a far cry from the original, lacking the iron bands that protected his shoulders, chest and belly. Beyond that, he spent the remainder of his coin on a used cloak, patched in several places and slightly too long for him, but he expected it would do well traveling alongside a river that was known for being quite terribly cold.
All told, he found himself excited to leave. Excited to travel again, and – surprising himself – he was excited for another expedition. Andear had left to purchase food, but mostly to visit a girl he was sweet on in the upper city, at the house of some artisan that likely had no idea his daughter was seeing an expeditioner. When Tallin had met Andear outside the Inn Wallace, Andear had a bit of a pale look on him, and walked past Tallin into the establishment without a word.
Whilst Navid’s Parish was nearly deserted, this particular place of respite was bustling. It was a usual stop for most folk traveling or on pilgrimage through the continent of Vandersur, and for most folk Cassis was their ultimate destination. For others, it was simply another stop in a long journey that often did not have a real end. For Tallin and Andear, it was where they would meet their dragon priestess.
She was perched by herself on a bench against the wall of the inn’s alehouse; her demeanor and appearance was certainly foreign, but such a thing did not stand out in the Inn Wallace. She had the perfectly ivory hair of someone born and raised in the Servancies, along with that angular face, brown eyes, and a slender nose. Yet – and Tallin found this odd – she was dressed like she came from the south. She wore little more than a skirt, intricate sandals, and a flowy sleeveless blouse. Her hair was done up in a bun, and she wore no jewelry. But at her side was a well-crafted, utilitarian traveling bag. Too big for her to carry. Either she had a manservant – who was nowhere to be seen – or a pony.
As Andear and Tallin approached her, she rose and gave them a smile that might have seemed guarded; but Tallin found it perfectly suitable, considering she likely found herself in a strange place surrounded by strange folk.
“Are you the expeditioners?” she asked, pleasantly tinged with the breathy accent of the Servancies. A voice like crystal, Tallin thought. Or ice, perhaps. But not quite that cold.
“Aye,” said Andear.
Tallin ran a hand through his black hair. “I’m Tallin, and this is Andear.”
“I am Anise,” she said. Tallin saw her looking them over, though she was meaning to hide it. “Are you… prepared?”
“Quite,” Tallin said quietly, then gestured at her bag. “As are you, it appears.”
Andear spoke, his voice a bit startling. “Payment first.”
“Oh, of course,” chirped Anise. She retrieved a little pouch from her bag, handed it to Andear, who proceeded to open it and look within. His brows raised, and Tallin saw his beard twist as the woodsman worked his jaw. Putting away the pouch, Andear coughed, said: “Ah. Well. Sun is still high. Let’s make some distance.”
Anise gave him a lovely smile, no longer so guarded like the last one. “Wonderful. I’m happy to see we’re all so eager!”
…
It was late in the afternoon when the whitewashed structures of Cassis disappeared behind them, but the half-tangible violet arches still loomed as if the city insisted upon peeking at their departure, though the rainbows’ visibility was waned, swallowed by the light of the sun dipping further and further west beyond Cassis.
Anise, thankfully, had a mare to carry whatever was within that bulky pack of hers. The horse was not a mere pony, but certainly more average than a destrier. Though, Tallin found the beast odd, as far as he could tell with his limited experience among horses. The white rapids of the Westdrake, only meters to their left as they walked along the road, did nothing to startle the animal – but stranger things did make it uneasy, like the quiet treeline to the right, which the beast obstinately avoided.
The mist and spray of the river often totally shrouded the road, making Tallin huddle in his cloak that quickly grew heavy with water, and Andear to furrow every muscle in his face while he did his best to stoically walk through the tempest. Anise, however, seemed to utterly and blatantly enjoy the freezing mist, craning her neck, closing her eyes and sitting straight up as if she were a flower and the spray was a rare ray of warm sunshine. And, just to punctuate the sight, her horse didn’t seem bothered either.
“Northern witch,” muttered Andear as he walked beside Tallin. “She must like her blood frozen.”
Tallin shrugged, though the movement was nearly unnoticeable thanks to the cloak bundled around him. “She’s of the northernmost Servancy. I can’t imagine she’s particularly accustomed to heat.”
Andear shuddered, blinked some water from his eyes. “You call this heat?” He turned and wiped his face, flung the water from his hands, and then he was immediately wet and dripping again. “She’s unnatural.”
Only a few heartbeats later, figures began to materialize through the cascading mist. Armed men, swords and axes hung at their sides, and as they came closer, they appeared similarly discomforted by the cold. For a moment Tallin feared bandits, though bandits rarely walked so blatantly along a main road such as this. Their mismatched armor and mere gait held that demeanor of young ruffians looking for a score, but Tallin’s worries were somewhat abated when he saw the crest of a sparrow patched roughly on their jerkins, which meant these men at least appeared to be sponsored by one of the countless kingdoms of neighboring Westmarch.
Andear was the first to speak when their party came within a distance that allowed for effective words over the roar of the nearby rapids. “How d’ya fair, heroes?”
Tallin winced at that. Andear always spoke to strangers like he expected them to stab him, even if his words were cordial, and his usage of the word ‘heroes’ was hardly even that. The kingdoms of Westmarch came to some kind of agreement a while ago when it was found that, with the plague and crop rot, they couldn’t muster the armies of old. So, in the stead of armies, they began recruiting small, quick warbands that the kingdoms had agreed would have free reign over each of Westmarch’s territories. The lords there referred to these volunteers as ‘heroes’, but a long time has passed since then, and the name quickly became nearly derogatory.
Luckily though, the men did not seem to be bothered by the term. Front among them was a tall lad with reddish hair and lacking in eyebrows. He gathered himself up as he and his party continued their approach. “Wet in every crevice, thanks to your lovely river.” A couple of his lads chuckled at that.
Andear replied: “Not often we see a warband from Westmarch in Sauntiril.”
If the redheaded boy could straighten his back any further, he’d have shattered his spine. “We’ve been sent to join and assist your King Abne in his campaign ‘gainst Balthsaar. News of liberating one of the Servancies travels quick.”
At this point Anise caught up with Tallin and Andear, though remained quiet as she watched and listened. One of the young men behind the redhead looked up at her, and laughed. “You’re gonna freeze to death, darling!” Anise stayed quiet, only looked at him blankly.
Tallin looked at Andear, who was on the brink of snarling. “That’s our charge, you see,” said Andear, “and you’d be good and right to leave ‘er be.”
Tallin watched Andear’s hand drift subtly closer to his axe, and felt his own heartbeat rise. There were seven in that warband, which would get Tallin and Andear well cut up. Anise might be a magicker, though ‘might be’ was a sorry kind of reassurance.
But the redheaded boy raised his hands, showed them his palms, while a smirk crossed his face. “We’re no highwaymen, boys. Just on our way to kill a dragon, eh, lads?” The rest of his troupe managed a scattering of cheers and laughter made weak by the omnipresent Eastdrake, and then he led them forward, past Tallin and Andear, then past Anise, who watched them silently from her mount.
“Good fortunes to ya,” the redheaded leader said as he passed.
“And to you,” grunted Andear.
If Anise was bothered by the prospect of men gathering to slay the kin of her master, she did not show it. She only tapped her heels against her horse’s flank, who continued dutifully through the billowing mist.
…
It had been a few days’ travel, and Tallin had fallen into the familiar routines. He’d move out ahead of Andear and Anise for a few hours at a time, moving along the treeline just to see what might be awaiting them. He did not like being caught off guard by the warband, and was focused on mitigating a similar encounter; or, at least, he would make sure they were prepared the next time something or somebody might meet them on this road.
It was, for the most part, uneventful. This was a well-known route, made safe by its traffic of pilgrims and merchants, all of which did not travel unarmed. The last night had been within a popular, communal campsite where the fire and stew never cooled, and Tallin expected it would be the last sign of civilized country for the remainder of the journey. Andear had become acquainted with an older pilgrim, one that had once apparently been an expeditioner. The two spoke of their trade, and the pilgrim regaled Andear of days when the guild in Cassis had been a powerhouse of exploration and riches; back then, many an expedition even had a royal sponsorship.
Tallin found himself listening and watching quietly, finishing off his share of the wine, which he found suitable since he did not enjoy drinking outside social gatherings like this and saw no reason to save it. Anise also remained on the boundaries of conversation, only listening with rapt attention. Tallin had to admit she did not seem entirely mad; or, rather, if she was mad, she was the dangerous kind that would only let you know when it was too late.
…
The delta at which the Eastdrake and Westdrake converged also split northward, into the vast Strait of Livora; it was at this delta that a small, unnamed island poked above the surface of the water, and it was little more than a grassy mound dotted with mossy boulders. Anise had said it was there the Servant’s Outreach was hidden.
Anise was on her mount, looking over the gentle waters as Andear and Tallin remained behind. The sky was nearly clear, with a few pleasant clouds drifting, and a chill breeze coming from the Servancies, just across the Strait. “S’pose we ought build a raft,” said Andear.
Tallin looked past Anise and the bank of the delta, judging the distance to the little island. “Maybe a ferry, if we’ve the rope,” he said.
“I know I don’t. And lashing the damn thing together with reeds is going to be pain enough.”
Tallin heard himself grumble a bit. “We’re a sorry couple of expeditioners without rope.” He drew in a long breath, and let it go. “Let’s get to cutting.”
Almost synchronously, Andear released his axe from his belt and Tallin his short sword, then they split toward scant groups of brush to begin thwacking apart the reeds and sticks that will form their makeshift raft. All the while, Tallin noticed that Anise had left her mount, and was standing at the bank still looking at their destination across the water.
“Priestess,” Tallin called out as he took off his cumbersome cloak, “I hope you’re aware that your horse will not be able to accompany us to the island.” He brought his sword down on a bush that was nearly dead, its brittle limbs falling apart, and frowned at it.
“Of course not,” she answered back. Looking over her shoulder at Tallin, she asked: “Why are you thrashing that bush?”
Tallin took a look at his handiwork, wrinkling his nose. Dead brittle sticks did not make for good material to float upon. “We are going to build a raft. It may be a while.”
The priestess brought her hand to her mouth and chuckled. Tallin found it to be a very pleasant chuckle. “Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry. That will be unnecessary.”
Andear, hearing the conversation, dropped his bundle of reeds onto the ground. “You’ve got a way to get ‘cross?”
Tallin sensed where this was going and abandoned his sorry heap of debris as well. “You’ve magick?”
“I serve the great dragon Felse,” Anise replied. “I’ve some tricks, of course. Did you think I came all this way totally unarmed?”
Andear shrugged, started walking toward the bank, and Tallin followed him. “Let’s see it then,” grunted Andear.
Anise began digging through the pack thrown over the rear of her eternally unimpressed mare; Tallin saw her dip her finger in something black, wipe it across her gums, then take a leather bag. She proceeded to spread its contents – presumably some assortment of small, unrecognizable bones – across the muddy sand of the delta’s bank until the scattered ivory pieces formed some kind of crescent about two meters in length. And then, she stood back, and watched.
Tallin remained silent; he was well aware of magick’s mysteries and his ignorance thereof. Andear, on the other hand, tapped his boot impatiently, and slapped a mosquito from his neck. “What’s supposed to happen?” he said.
Anise remained silent, facing the crescent and the water, and Tallin realized she had gone entirely rigid. She was nearly shaking – though, with concentration, physical effort, or some kind of fatigue, he could not say.
Tallin did know some things about magick, from what he had observed. Fire and heat was a collection of energy, and usually involved pulling that energy from the air and the sunlight. This often gave magical fire a sort of ‘halo’ of darkness around it, a void where the caster was pulling from. Magick that did the opposite – or, made things cold – was far more visually spectacular, which grew exponentially as the spell became larger. And, Anise’s spell was not, by any stretch of the imagination, small.
A tunnel began to appear above the water, slowly forming outward from the crescent of bones; it was not a physical tunnel, but a tunnel where light suddenly dimmed as if shrouded in nighttime. At the same time, energy and light began to condense in a massive halo around the tunnel of darkness, its color and intensity shifting constantly and even more so as Tallin backed away from it. The light seemed to refract into a million different rays of an infinite gradient of every color from this halo; it was like a solid wall of energy that somehow shifted with your eyes and perspective, bubbling with explosive potential. Meanwhile, within the tunnel, it had gotten so dark that Tallin could no longer see anything within it, it was naught but a void in which the water of the delta had disappeared. He could, however, hear from its depths various echoes and sharper cracks that reminded him of the shifting glaciers that would drift into Westmarch every Summer.
Slowly, this tunnel and its cascading bow of brilliant light stretched across the water meter by meter. All the while, Tallin was quite afraid Anise would lose her grip on the spell, and release the tempest of energy confined so carefully in midair. He saw that Andear apparently had a similar fear, as he backed away from the priestess slowly.
But as Tallin watched, he noticed that despite Anise’s intense effort, she seemed to have quite regular control over her handiwork. As the tunnel blackened, the bow closest to the shore and brightest slowly seemed to leak, spilling its energy into the air around it like a controlled flood. She did this consistently as the tunnel extended, ensuring that the pressure of it was never too great to break whatever metaphysical dam she had erected.
When Anise slowly, carefully brought her hands to her ears and opened her mouth, she looked at Andear and Tallin meaningfully. Tallin knew to copy the movement, and Andear followed suit; the three of them backed away slowly from the tunnel of darkness until Anise stopped. She blinked.
Tallin couldn’t have been ready for it, and Andear certainly wasn’t; they were thrown onto their arses when the tunnel collapsed in on itself and the bow of light at the far end of the delta exploded. It was two distinct thunderclaps of sound, the first threatening to rupture Tallin’s eardrums despite the fingers shielding them, and the second more distant, but vibrating through the earth like the footstep of a giant.
Opening his eyes, Tallin saw the calm delta had turned to a churning mess of waves and mist, cascading away from the epicenter of the spell. Further, where the bow of light had been released, the explosion was evidently far more violent; water thrown from the delta was still raining there, and some of the island had been charred and torn, its debris and dust still falling as well. Some smaller pieces of rock began hitting the water uncomfortably close to the shore, a few even landing on the ground near where Tallin lay.
Finally, where the tunnel of darkness had coalesced, was the result of Anise’s spell: a bridge made of smooth, crystalline ice.
“Fuck,” muttered Andear, brushing dirt out of his shaggy hair, and then offered Tallin a hand to help him to his feet.
As Tallin straightened, he shook his head, blinked his eyes, stretched his jaw a bit to pop his ears. “Can’t help but wonder if a raft woulda’ been simpler,” he said halfway to himself.
“That’s one hell of a trick,” grunted Andear, loud enough so that the priestess could hear him.
“Come,” Anise sang, already stepping onto the ice. “We won’t want to cross when it begins to melt!”
…
Anise’s second spell was no less impressive than the first.
Upon reaching the rocky, unremarkable little island, she had approached a boulder and seemed to look it over before coming to some kind of decision, betrayed by a small nod of her head. Instead of a ritual using a crescent of bones, she constructed a small apparatus approximately twenty paces from the boulder in question; the apparatus appeared a series of crystals held on a scaffold of iron rods. Once secure and seemingly complete, she ushered Tallin and Andear behind another nearby boulder, and crouched with them among the brush. “This was a gift from my master’s cousin, Tyrer. In other words, I’ll have little control over it when it is ignited.”
“Ignited?” Andear squawked.
Anise lowered her head. “Here we go. Stay behind the rock.” She lifted her hand, and Tallin saw a small spark pop from her palm; it was immediately followed by a series of more pops as something in the apparatus activated. Tallin opened his mouth to ask about it, and then the world exploded.
For a split moment before shutting his eyes, everything went a blinding white, accompanied by a steady, overwhelming roar of sound. Tallin felt his skin burning, the air flashing into an unbearable heat. When he squinted his eyes open, he tried to peek over the boulder they took cover behind, had to jerk his hands away from the rock’s burning surface, and saw that the apparatus was spitting a cone of fire at least three meters in diameter straight toward the other boulder that Anise had pointed it at. Tallin found that it did not resemble any fire he had seen; it had no flickering flames nor smoke. Instead, it was a tight cylinder of horrible, concentrated energy so bright that after only a moment of looking at it, he had to look away, and saw spots in his vision. He ducked back behind the cover, careful not to touch it, put his arms over his head, and felt sweat begin to pour from him. Andear had probably said something but the noise was too much, like the loudest possible waterfall you could imagine.
And then, slowly, it began to lessen. The sound lowered until it was like a wavering hum of wind, and the apparatus began to spark again, filling the air with more pops until that slowly died off as well. Tallin peeked again, and watched the beam shrink and weaken, and as it did so it transformed into something resembling common fire, flames sputtering and flickering and dying. What it left of the boulder it was pointed at was a blackened mess of molten rock, already cooling into strange, windswept shapes. Behind the boulder was darkness; a tunnel, descending steeply into the earth.
Anise left the safety of the boulder and approached her apparatus. It looked ruined and destroyed. She kicked it over, and watched the brittle crystals shatter on the ground. “Well. That is that,” she twittered in her odd accent.
Tallin approached her, and peered into the dark entrance that her magick had revealed. He scratched at his messy hair, and looked at her. “Where was it getting all that… heat?” he asked. “There wasn’t any… halo.”
Anise looked at him. She tilted her head with a gaze of quiet approval that Tallin found quite nice. “From Tyrer himself,” she chirped, then turned back to gaze down the tunnel. “This is the Servant’s Outreach.”
Andear joined them. “Alright,” he muttered. “Any idea what we’re to expect? Undead? Sprites? Golems?”
Anise frowned. “Hopefully nothing so nasty. But… I suppose I would not be surprised if there were traps.”
Tallin heard himself groan a bit. He regretted it immediately; the noise sounded petulant. “That’s the thing about traps, priestess,” he said. “They’re almost always a surprise, by design.”
“For arseholes who don’t know what they’re doing, maybe,” Andear said with a smile in his voice. “But we’ve got you, Tallin.” Andear wore a smirk, and was already extending a collapsible rod of iron to a more proper length before handing it off to Tallin. “Don’t get us killed, eh, man?”
…
Beyond being small enough for the tighter spaces that these expeditions often encountered, Tallin was somewhat accustomed to traps. This was not thanks to any formal training; rather, he read a single book on them early in his career and exaggerated that to sell himself as a specialist to the Expeditioner’s Guild. It was a miracle he did not get anyone killed back then, but since that decision he was now known as the man who knew traps, and thus was forced to reckon with them every time there was even a small possibility of hidden pits, gas chambers, spike throwers, or any variety of magical traps a sadistic mage could imagine. As an oddly coincidental result, Tallin found himself now quite experienced in the subject.
Still, the entire process was just as tedious and terrifying as it was all those years ago; somehow, it became even more daunting the more he learned about traps and their endless types. It seemed inevitable that one day he would miss one, and that would be the one that got him, his charge, or his fellow expeditioners killed.
Beyond the molten wreckage leftover from Anise’s magick was a subterranean structure that was clearly manmade – or, perhaps elven, though Tallin knew next to nothing about those folk of Breisia. Still, the structure was precise, old, and remarkably preserved. Tallin suspected that the boulder that had been placed at the entrance had also been given some kind of ward to keep out moisture, but that was speculation. And, at the moment, speculation was not at the forefront of Tallin’s mind.
He had the iron rod fully extended to its maximum length of three meters, and he walked slowly in front of Anise and Andear, tapping and pressing at every wide stone tile ahead before continuing. Occasionally he’d see the odd marking or stonework on the wall, lit by Andear’s torch, and test those as well. Beyond having his eyes on both the walls and the floor, he also had to watch the ceiling, for any spikes or boulders that might fall upon them. The process required time, focus, and a steady heart. At any moment, Tallin hoped he had – at best – two of those qualities on his side.
These physical traps were not as worrying as the magical ones. There was no good way to keep a consistent lookout for magical triggers without a mage at their side who was trained to detect the correct types of magick, and Tallin doubted that Anise’s training involved such a subject. Still, Tallin had a trinket around his neck that usually did the trick. It was an amulet shaped like a little scarab and had a thieves’ ward. Generally speaking, most magical traps relied on a trigger that would detect living flesh passing through the trap. This scarab was warded to detect that trigger. It was a detector of detectors, essentially.
What bothered Tallin was that, no doubt, not all magical triggers would be seeking living flesh. The trigger might be listening for a heartbeat, scanning for malicious intentions, or simply waiting for a change in light. In those cases, his amulet was about as useful as a piece of cheap jewelry. Thus, the amulet was designed to warn the wearer of only the more common magical security measures. It was designed for petty burglars, not expeditioners. On top of that, because thieves prefer quiet, the scarab won’t chirp or sing if it detects something. It gives the wearer a nasty little bite. In his years of expeditioning, Tallin had gathered quite the collection of nicks on his sternum.
Luckily, the group had not encountered anything designed to kill or maim them for the several long minutes they had been walking. The place was indeed an underground compound, no doubt parts of it extending far beneath the delta proper. Anise seemed to know exactly her bearings, not even stopping at forks in the corridors or bothering to peer inside the many side passages and rooms. Tallin, when he was able, did peek around. He saw barracks, closets, apparent offices, and soon they had come to a circular chamber which was surrounded by smaller rooms which appeared to be chapels, each dedicated to one of the five living dragons. In that large chamber, the walls and ceiling had been delicately carved and painted to dictate some story. Tallin, after testing the room for traps, had taken Andear’s torch, and walked along the wall, shining flickering orange light across the mural.
“That is when Tyrer, Balthsaar, and Gradinir were born.” Tallin startled at Anise’s voice, suddenly close at his side. She paid him no mind, and ran her hand just above the painted stonework, where three multicolored figures could be seen breaking out of scaled eggs. Her hand kept moving till it was at the next scene: a crimson drake, its mouth extending over a smaller green one. “And that is when Balthsaar ate his brother Gradinir, and absorbed the powers of his flesh.”
“Lovely,” grumbled Andear. “And where does your dragon come into the mix?”
Anise pointed across the room, toward the image of a massive white dragon, wings spread, flying from the horizon. The way it was painted made the drake appear as if it was looking and flying straight towards the viewer, its red eyes alight. “Felse wasn’t born in the Servancies. She came from the north,” Anise said quietly. “The Heavens.”
Tallin narrowed his eyes at that. There was something about the way she said ‘the Heavens’. Andear only snorted, and said: “Alright. We should keep moving, priestess.”
Anise muttered something in the affirmative, but her attention had moved elsewhere. She was staring at the mural next to the one describing Felse’s arrival. Tallin looked at her hands – they were fists, white-knuckled.
Tallin followed her gaze to the painting. It was of Felse, and assumedly her subjects, gathered around the dragon in worship. Above the dragon’s head was a myriad of little white dots, an uncountable number of them, extending upward nearly onto the ceiling like stars. One of the little dots was near Felse’s open jaw.
“What’s that?” Tallin muttered to her.
Anise only shook her head, and said, “The past, like the rest of this room. It’s… an exchange… between us and Felse.”
Tallin was going to ask her to iterate, as his sudden curiosity about dragons was only growing, but she walked away, toward one of the five side chambers. “Come,” she said. “What we’re looking for is in the chapel of Felse.”
Within that smaller chamber, this chapel of Felse, was another mural at the wall opposite of its entrance. In front of the mural was a pedestal, and at the top of the pedestal, a stone bowl. Tallin walked behind Anise, and Andear followed the two closely, his torch giving the dark space some flickering light. There were no pews, or at least there hadn’t been for some time. Anise walked down the center of the chamber – its isle, Tallin supposed – approaching the gray bowl at the end.
Tallin was looking past her, past the bowl and pedestal, at the wall beyond. Another mural. As Andear grew closer with his flickering torch, the paint’s colors slowly revealed in the light. At that moment, Tallin felt a pinch on his sternum, and he froze.
“Everyone stop!” he said quickly, the urgency in his voice cutting the still air. He heard Andear stumble a bit, nearly tripping as he tried to stop himself mid-step with a curse. Anise froze also, and looked over her shoulder at Tallin. “What?” she asked.
“There’s a trap,” Tallin muttered.
“Where?” grunted Andear.
“I don’t know.” Tallin withdrew and extended the iron length of his pole again, and looked around the room. He started tapping at random, not knowing exactly where to start. The ground was just a pattern of pale, unremarkable masonry. The walls were made of plaster, smooth and blank save for the mural at the back of the room. “Shit. Anise, do you have anything that can detect it?”
“I thought you already did,” she said.
“I just know it’s in the room. I have no idea where.” Tallin repeated himself: “Do you have anything that can detect it?”
She was still for a moment, looking away from him, and then shook her head. “No.”
“Figure it the fuck out, Tallin,” Andear grunted, his voice full of warning and increasing worry.
“I’m working on it!” Tallin said harshly. He looked around the room, seeing nothing. Nothing, save the mural. “Andear, toss your torch over the pedestal, there. Beneath the painting.”
Andear complied, and at the same instant the torch left his hand, Anise spun around, her eyes wide. “No!” she cried. But the torch was already sailing across the room. Anise covered her mouth with her hands, whimpering as the fiery little stick missed the bowl’s edge by inches and landed beneath the mural, sending some sparks scattering across the floor.
Anise spun around again. “You… you idiots! You’re incompetent!” Her voice was dry and utterly cold, and it gave Tallin’s stomach a twist. The priestess had not shown a single trace of anger before now, and that anger along with the fact that Tallin was fairly confident she could kill them both did not prove to calm his already frayed nerves. “Do you know what you nearly did?” she hissed.
Andear huffed, clearly not as startled as Tallin was. “Maybe we would, if you ever shared what the fuck we were doing here.”
“I did not realize that was a qualifier to keep you from throwing flaming objects around a centuries-old chapel!”
“Shut up!” Tallin cried out. He lifted a pointed finger toward the mural. “Anise. What in the name of all the gods is that?”
She spun back around, looking at the painting. Tallin could not see her expression, only the back of her fair-colored head, and the way her fists tightened. She didn’t speak for a long moment.
The mural was similar to the last Tallin had seen, a depiction of Felse with an open jaw. Except this time, the red eye was replaced with a little ruby, and the little white dot falling toward Felse’s gullet was painted in more detail.
It was a pale, human babe.
“Fuck me,” muttered Andear, his voice going a bit high.
Anise’s demeanor was more calm. Her voice was low, but she was controlling something within her. Some kind of tide, threatening to break through. “The sacrifices we priestesses make to Felse,” she murmured.
“By the Aeons,” muttered Tallin. There it was. The madness that her people were known for. “I… let’s just… figure this out,” he grunted, trying to ignore this… cult of infanticide. It would not be the first time, nor likely the last, that Tallin was charged with assisting people like her. Fringe psychopaths. Zealots and power-hungry fools.
“My gut tells me the trap is part of that jewel, on Felse’s eye,” said Tallin. “Might be the trigger.” He thought for a moment, sweat beading then dripping down his forehead. “Eyes are usually a signifier for knowledge. A test, maybe. Some kind of… I don’t know. Anise, you need to tell me what you intend to do here.”
She nodded, looked at the bowl atop the pedestal. “There’s a tool in that bowl. I’m going to take it.”
Tallin shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s possible. If there’s a trigger reading your intention, which there very well may be, it might not react well to thievery.”
Anise looked at him over her shoulder. “My intention is not to thieve.”
“Returning it to your baby-eating master?” muttered Andear.
“Not that, either.” Anise looked at Tallin seriously, and he once more saw that tide behind her eyes. “Are you sure it is based on my intention?”
Tallin opened his mouth, closed it, and thought for a minute. “No.”
“Is it likely that it is based on intention?”
Tallin shook his head, again tried to speak, and shrugged. “I just… I can’t know. I know part of the trigger is detecting our flesh. The fact that nothing has happened yet means there might be a second part to the trigger, and that might be intention. Or, it could be the remnant of something broken – or, it’s already activated and-”
Tallin yelped as Anise started moving toward the bowl. He saw the eye of Felse suddenly alight, and brighten the closer she came to it. “Anise! Fuck!” he said.
“What do we do, Tallin? Do we run?” Andear asked in a high pitch, shifting uncomfortably.
Tallin didn’t know what to do. He was frozen in place, and could only curse again as he watched Anise reach the bowl. On the wall, the ruby was now brighter than even the torch beneath it. “Anise!” Tallin cried out. “You’re going to get us killed!”
She ignored him. She reached carefully, slowly, into the bowl. Tallin saw now that it was filled with some dark liquid, reflecting the red light of Felse’s jeweled eye. His words caught in his throat, Tallin could only watch as she extracted a long, thin strand from the liquid, like a single hair. The liquid stuck to it at first, and slowly melted back into the bowl as Anise gathered more and more of the string. Despite her blatant – and foolish, Tallin thought – confidence, she was incredibly careful with the diminutive thing, pinching one end with two fingers, not allowing it to touch herself or the rim of the bowl.
When the other end of the string finally appeared, fully removed from the liquid, the ruby triggered.
There was a flash, like thin paper suddenly combusting upon the wall, and as the light quickly dimmed Tallin saw the mural crack and begin to burn away, glowing pieces of it detached and floating across the room. A web of burning material spread, enveloping the depiction of Felse and casting every bit of white scale into the air as burning ash. When the spell ceased, only the babe remained, no longer floating above the maw of a dragon.
The three were frozen for a long minute, waiting for something else to happen. Another trigger that would burn them alive or make the room collapse in on itself. Nothing did.
Tallin looked at the long, remarkably thin thread hung aloft by Anise. He could not help but quietly ask, “What is that?”
“A weapon,” she said.
Andear grunted, sighed, and muttered, “Of course.”
“What are you going to use it for?” said Tallin.
“To kill Felse.”
The room was silent for several moments. Not even Andear had a comment, and when Tallin turned to look at him, he was just staring at her. Tallin shook his head. “But… the trap. It would have known.”
Anise looked at him. “This place was not made in deference to the dragons. It was made as sanctuary against them. To escape them. To find ways to kill them.”
Tallin looked back, toward the entrance they came through, from the larger circular chamber. “And… the other chapels?”
“My business is with Felse,” she muttered. From within her blouse, she retrieved a small, metallic sphere, with a little handle protruding out of one end. It was a dull thing, made of beaten iron, and it looked old. She twisted the top and bottom, and it popped open, hollow inside. She carefully laid the string inside it, so slowly it took her more than a minute. Andear tried to ask what she was doing, but she ignored him. She closed the sphere again, held it by the handle outward, away from her, and her face twisted like she was expecting something. She moved her thumb slightly.
In an instant, the sphere separated again, one end flying on its own volition outward while the handled half remained. The flying end snapped to a stop. Tallin saw that between the two halves of the sphere was the thread, pulled taut between them, and the whole thing had to be almost two meters long.
“It’s a… sword,” remarked Andear.
Tallin saw it, saw how the thread would serve as a kind of blade. Anise nodded, looking over her weapon. “Sharp enough for dragonhide. Even sharper.”
…
The three shared little conversation as they left the ‘Servant’s Outreach’ – of which, Tallin had grown sure that the moniker was a false one. He never did learn the place’s real name, nor did he ask. He only knew there were weapons there, designed to kill drakes, and found himself wanting nothing to do with the business.
Upon their exit, Anise sealed the entrance with an illusory ward. It wasn’t foolproof, only intending to trick your perception into not properly perceiving the dark entrance. If anyone decided to dedicate some time to poking around the island, they’d surely find it. Still, it was more than enough to hide it from any onlooker who stood at the main shore of the delta, which Tallin supposed would be satisfactory.
Anise did not return with them to Cassis. She had collapsed her weapon, its form returning to no more than a sphere stuck atop a handle, and left it in her horse’s traveling bag. She silently retrieved and passed a purse of gold to Andear, who received it eagerly, and gave them both a nod.
Tallin, in that moment, found he didn’t really have the right words prepared. He only managed, “Good luck, I suppose.”
The priestess gave him a smile – the pleasant, genuine one that made his heart warm – and mounted her horse. She and her mare walked back to the road, and turned east, without looking back.
Adam K. Gardner 