Myth: The Beginning

[The Scribe of Ages]

Our story begins in the kingdom of Dalriada, largest of all kingdoms on the continent of Asga – itself the largest continent on the world of Midgard. Many years ago, farther back into time than anyone cares to remember, Dalriada was little more than a farming village, a hamlet on the grassy plains of Asga. The Men of Dalriada were an industrious peoples, so it was not long before their tiny community had grown into a flourishing nation. Yet, a kingdom cannot be a kingdom without a king. What Dalriada sought was a strong leader, a man of charisma who could guide the freemen into greater triumphs – it was in Eliar Mergovas that they found this man. As his first act of office, the King decreed that a new city should be built, a city that would stand forever as a testament to the Men of Midgard. This city, Bai-Ulgan, still stands today, barely changed and as mighty as it ever was. The same can not be said, however, for the proud dynasty of King Mergovas.

The throne of Bai-Ulgan sits empty. With the passing of King Porticio, the bloodline of Mergovas ends, no heir in sight. Those still loyal to the royal court have formed a council of sorts, so that the kingdom might be governed fairly until a new monarch is chosen. Nevertheless, there are those who refuse to be governed by this council of courtiers. Noble men and women with sufficient power and wealth have formed fiefdoms, independent towns and villages within the once united Dalriada. Rivalries are quick to form and soon unrest pervades all throughout the continent.

In the halls of the royal castle, the governing council struggles with the seemingly endless task of policing Dalriada. Now, more than ever, the eyes of the kingdom turn themselves inwards as nobles and courtiers alike speculate and debate on how the future of Dalriada should unfold. So fanatically focused on problems within their own walls, it is hardly surprising that the Men of Midgard should fail to notice what darkness is lurking beyond their borders, looming at the edges of the world...

[Blind Molly]

A maid shuffled her feet on the flagstones of the floor, a soft towel in her hands as she waited beyond the raised platform that held the Seer's bathtub. Torches lit with Fire magic cast weird shadows on the walls and floor, flames dancing as a cool evening breeze wafted in through the open windows.

Inside the tub was Blind Molly, Seer of Bai-Ulgan, handpicked by the late King Porticio as a child of four to serve the kingdom of Dalriada. Her eyesight had been lost to a childhood fever, but her insight was perhaps the keenest in the land. Immersed in the tub, the woman stared blindly up at the stone ceiling through the water.

Proficient in Water magic, Molly often spent her time in her 'seeing tub', as she called it. Only the most skilled Seers could touch the threads of time through the water, seeing how they wove into the future and to the past. To see the present was hardly easier, but it could be done. Blind Molly watched a Necian triremes at sea, crashing about on waves of a storm, its Glauca and human crew struggling to keep it afloat.

She blinked and surfaced for air, a frown creasing her face. The iminent shipwreck did not affect the threads she was following... or did it? Long fingers dashed the water from her eyes, and she rose from the cool water of the tub, the maid hurrying forward with the towel.

"I must speak with the Council immediately," she said, wringing the water from her blonde hair before wrapping her naked body with the towel. "There is much at stake here."

The maid stared at her, wide-eyed, as Molly stepped confidently off of the raised platform and made her way unerringly across the room. Then she bobbed a curtsey and scurried off, calling for a page before the door was closed.

Molly felt her feet encounter the soft carpets that covered the flagstones by her bed, and quickly dried her body with the towel. Opening up the Woodcrafted wardrobe, she felt her way towards a white shift and green overdress, pulling them on before the maid could come back to help her. The ties in the back of the dress were almost impossible for her to do herself, however, but she pulled them as tight as she could and pulled the ends into a knot which ended up lopsided.

She sighed in quiet frustration, willing the girl to come back through the doors. New maids were hard to break in.

Slipping her feet into soft slippers, Blind Molly moved across the floor once more, leaving the carpets behind. Her hands closed around the walking stick a Fian craftsman had made especially for her, a light and wonderful piece that did not tire her to use. She was walking out the door when the maid came back, almost bumping into her in her haste to return.

"Oh, miss!" A curtsey and then much fussing about as the maid quickly straightened out Molly's dress and set about fixing the ties in the back. "Didn't see y'there, I am so sorry!"

Molly stood ramrod straight, both hands on the stick in front of her, suffering through the maid's ministrations. "Do not worry about it... Fala. The Council is being gathered?"

"I sent a page, just as ye asked." Fala tsked, "You did nothing with your hair, miss. Let me fix it for you while we wait for the reply to come." She tugged gently on the Seer's sleeve, as one might with a child.

Angered, Molly pulled her arm away. "I will go now, whether they are willing to see me or not. I will not be refused again." The walking stick tapped on the stone floor as she made her way down the hall and to the stairs that led down to the main floor of the palace.

[Parsideon Denix]

What rotten weather! The Glaucan affinity mage certainly wasn't lessening the chop. Denix decided he must have peed off the wrong side of the boat to stir up the Sea Gods in such a fashion.

"Keep us steady!"

The Necian Captain's word was only law once his feet were on solid earth. On the sea, the law was in the hands of Plafeigas, a barrel-chested Glaucan sailmaster with dreadlocked braids draped across his shoulders.

"Keep the puke and bile off my deck, Denix."

The Men of Necia were sea hardy, but far short of even the queasiest Glaucan. Denix watched one soldier scrabble to the sides of the slippery wooden warship and spew his ration of porridge. Denix chastized him with a smirk, leveling his Commander's Rod in the man's direction

"Aitus, I don't ration your lot so that you may feed fish. Hold your share."

Aitus, for his part, grumbled and wiped the spittle from the short beard he'd grown at sea.

"We've been out two weeks without gaining a trireme's length on Fyrian's bastards. My balls are achin and my sword ain't seen a man's insides in a month."

This elicited a chuckle from Men and Glaucans alike. The sentiment was also shared equally. Fyrian's ship was just too fast. Without a favorable sea and a favorable wind, it looked like it was going to continue to be a long, frustrating chase.

"Aitus, I can promise you warm bellies to pierce sure enough, but no harlot outside of Verbannen to bed you."

A riot of laughter followed Denix's rare joke, and even Aitus seemed relieved to be at the butt of it. It helped to ease the brooding pessimism on this voyage.

"Plafeigas! Plafeigas! Typhoon is coming!"

Denix turned at the flash of a lightning bolt across the sky to see the Affinity Mage hugging the spar of the ship, his long white beard whipping in the wind and rain. Plafeigas left the helmsman's side and approached the mage, eyeing the old man with a grave expression.

"How far?"

Denix had sailed for many missions with the Mage, and his perceptions of the sea were infallible.

"A gull's flight to the west!"

But that was the direction the pirate ship was maneuvering. They couldn't break pursuit, they would lose them!

[The Scribe of Ages]

It was in the Round Chamber that the Blind Seer would find the Council of Bai-Ulgan. Since the passing of Porticio, none had dared to set foot in the castle's throne room, out of respect for the dead. Instead their meetings and busy were conducted in the circular chamber that had once served as a meeting place for the King and his Knights. The room was shaped like a dome and upon its construction a mural had been delicately inscribed upon the ceiling, giving the illusion that walls did not surround those within, but rather a vast expanse of forest and all manner of verdant land.

At the center of the room stood a huge circular table, upon which was drawn an ancient map of the world. This chart had become long since outdated, however, as new peoples and lands were discovered. In its place, the Council had unfurled a wide and minutely detailed scroll depicting the entire surface of Midgard – as they knew it. Small wooden pieces were positioned here and there, to represent the many noble lords of Dalriada.

“And what of Sigrún Hyrrokkin?” asked one of the assembled Council, a man with an enormous beard and a voice to match. He plucked one of the little wooden men from the map and waggled it accusingly at the others. “He claims lordship over the provinces south of the Megingjord, yet already Valruf and Tangsrinir feud over the rivers banks!”

The Council murmured in unanimous disapproval. In the days of the King, there had been no discrepancy over such matters. All land was the property of the kingdom itself, and the nobles considered themselves lucky to be given some degree of governorship over their individual fiefs.

“We have not yet settled the case of Jorundis and Jorundis,” another voice interrupted.

The bearded man scowled.

“Jorundis and Jorundis!” he scoffed. The two Jorundis brothers had refused to accept the Council's decision and seemingly planned to spend the rest of their lives squabbling over who, of the two of them, would have the final foot of land between them. The mention of the case caused the general murmur in the chamber to grow into a roar.

It was into this furor that Blind Molly would enter.

[Calleh]

"I must speak with the one they call Blind Molly."

The guards at the east gate of the royal palace in Bai-Ulgan exchanged dubious glances, then looked back at the foreign visitor standing before them. He was swarthy and clothed in black and purple robes, not like the linen robes worn by men of the Necian League, but rugged, loose, and heavily layered against the Dariadan chill. The dust on his clothes and his sandaled feet spoke of long travel.

"And what is your business with the Seer, foreigner?" one of the guards asked brusquely.

"I bring news from the land of Ankaa on a matter of great importance. It is imperative that I see her." He spoke with the punctilious cadence of an educated foreigner, far more gracefully than many a native speaker.

But the guards were not impressed. "Ankaa? There is no such place. It's a myth."

The visitor smiled and bowed slightly. "Then I am a figment of your imagination, and there is no harm in letting me pass."

"No one enters the royal hall while the council's in session without an official summons," the other guard replied. "And no foreigner may enter while armed."

The robed man considered this. "I see. And how would I obtain an official summons?"

Both guards deadpanned. The foreigner looked from one to the other - both towered over him - and stepped back.

"If I write a message, can you see that Lady Molly receives it?"

One of the guards laughed. The other, who was slower, gave him a perplexed look.

"She's blind, you fool. She won't be able to read it."

"On the contrary," said the visitor. "She will be the only one able to read it."

He drew a scrap of dried calfskin from the inner fold of his robes and a long quill and miniature inkpot from his shoulder bag. After dipping the quill in the inkpot, he hastily scrawled something on the parchment. When he had finished, he laid his hand over the message and closed his eyes. A spark seemed to leap from his fingers and onto the ink, and the letters flamed for a moment before disappearing entirely.

The guards jumped and gripped their spears. "Heathen sorcery!" one of them snarled.

"A simple spell which may be undone by its opposite. Tell Blind Molly that I eagerly await her reply. If you do so, you will receive good fortune. If you do not, your hand will become leprous by nightfall."

The guard recoiled. "You... you're lying."

The foreigner smiled. "That is entirely possible. In any case, please deliver the message speedily."

With great reluctance, the guard plucked the parchment out of the stranger's hand and disappeared inside the palace.

[Blind Molly]

The seven lords that sat on the Council were bellowing at each other from across the large table when Molly tapped into the Round Room. They held the lands closest to the city of Bai-Ulgan, and had taken it upon themselves to rule Dalriada after the unfortunate hunting accident that had taken their king form them unexpectedly.

Molly knew them all by their voices, and placed them mentally in the room. Lord Bain, a reasonably jolly man with a huge beard, belly, and voice, was at the far side of the room from her, and the first to notice her entrance. He quieted at once, though it took several moments for the other lords to realize why. Lady Gromhild, the only woman represented, was short and fat, and used to wealth. And power. She was most likely plotting to expand her own lands while the other lords worked to bring the country back together under one rule. She sat to Bain's left.

Lords Sculd and Murd were both tall and well appointed, to Molly's right, one dark and pale, the other fairheaded and tanned by the sun. Sculd was silent, watching the others argue no doubt. Murd was slamming the little wooden lord pieces down onto the map. "The Jorundis brothers must settle this themselves!"

"They will not, and they will bring the Ovalldi estate into their dispute. If they both recieve backing from their neighbors (Lord and Lady Andvarri to the east?) then we may very well see a war break out." Lord Belda was most likely running his long thing fingers through his scraggly beard.

"There has not been a war between fiefs in ... countless years," said a voice that could only belong to the eldest on the council, Lord Raurn. "It is inconcievable!"

The Blind Seer slammed her walking stick against the stone floor, causing those with their backs to her to jump and look around. "Apologies for this interruption, Lords, and Lady, but I will not be put off any longer."

A sigh, from the far right of the table. Lord Dragur. "Seer, the land disputes take up much of our time. We do not have time to listen to your mystical hysterics."

"King Porticio listened to me, and -"

"And he is dead. So you'll forgive me if I ask you to come back another time, Blind Molly." Dismissed, just like that.

Molly turned her head from the direction of Lord Dragur, and faced Lord Bain. Her unseeing eyes stared down the large man, and he suddenly cleared his throat. "It will not hurt to hear her out, Dragur. Surely we all need a break from this tiresome work we have been doing all day."

Lord Skuld nodded, agreeing. "To refuse a Seer is unwise."

Another sigh from the far side of the table. "All right then, have it your way. What is it now, Molly? More trouble from beyond the sea? Or perhaps the crows will come take us all in our sleep tonight."

The other lords shifted in their seats, obviously quite uncomfortable at Dragur's bold words. Molly ignored them all, and spoke to the mural on the wall opposite her, though she could not see it. "I will say what I must, though whether you can hear it is up to you.

"There is trouble coming from the east and the west, from the north and the south. It centers in the Steelwood, in the Sacred Circle, and in the high mountains of Cos Briste where the Fian dance at Midsummer.

"The magic of these central points in Dalriada is waning. I do not know where it is going, except that it goes in all directions and in none." Her brow creased, as she searched for the words to explain what she had seen. "If this continues, our people will be severely weakened. Our battlemages and windwatchers will not be able to -"

"I have heard enough of this doublespeak," proclaimed Dragur, getting to his feet. "We cannot do anything about this... draining of magic that you warn us about with dire predictions and meaningless riddles."

Lady Gromhild nodded, "Indeed. The Council must care for the physical land. Without regaining control of the renegade lords and their fiefs, there will be nothing left of Dalriada to defend, if defense is needed." The Lady Gromhild was purported to be an Air mage of no small skill, and Molly was surprised to hear her speak with Dragur.

The Council of Bai-Ulgan murmured, and it was agreed that while Molly most likely knew what she was talking about, it would be best if she took care of the mystical while they cared after the physical. A serving man made sure she found the door.

Out in the hall, the Blind Seer slammed her stick to the stones once more, with such force that the wood creaked. Furious, she nearly bowled over a guard who was coming towards her.

"Your ladyship," he began, but she interrupted him.

"Nay, I am no lady with lands, only a peasant woman in the Palace."

He paused, and started again, obviously non-plussed and a little afraid of the Seer as she scowled at a point just beyond his shoulder. "A message for you, Miss Molly." He pressed the paper into her hand, and made quick his escape.

Molly made her way to the gardens, the only place on the palace grounds where the walls were only three meters high. She needed a place to think.

[Calder Aquasis]

There was always something refreshing about being underwater. The bustle of dry land was non-existant below the waves. No noise, no commotion. Everything seemed to go by in slow motion. Everything seemed to flow perfectly. And having gills was a perfect way to experience the sereninty of the big blue waters.

Calder looked ahead, spying the underbelly of the Necian warship chasing the pirates. He'd volunteered to jump his own ship, and try to infiltrate the enemie's vessel. Being first mate aboard the pirate ship, this was Calder's chance to shine once again. His daring escapades had earned him quite a reputation within Fyren's Fold, but not quite enough to promote him. Perhaps now was his time.

The Glaucan reached out ahead of him, before propelling himself forward with one stroke of the arm, almost as if he had grasped hold of the water itself. With a sly grin, he accelerated with fluid motion and natural grace, his rags-for-clothes rippling in the water. Typically, Calder had sold his last respectable outfit. He'd do almost anything for the right price.

The Necian vessel was getting near now. Calder began to slow his pace. He didn't want to overshoot his target. Drawing the 10-inch knife from the self-made sheath strapped to his left thight, he came to almost a complete stop, floating just below where the lower edge of the ship would pass over Calder's head.

Just a few seconds more...

The bow passed, and still Calder remained still. Plank after plank of wood went by, the Glaucan waiting for his chance.

Here it comes...

The ship had almost passed completely when Calder finally pushed upwards. The last section of the vessel slipped over, and Calder's hand burst out above the surface of the waves, his blade piercing the wood of the stern.

Instantly, the Glaucan was being towed along behind the ship. With a hard pull, he latched his free hand onto a ledge of wood, then another as he hoisted himself out of the water. Climbing up a few feet, he found a solid foothold before retaking the blade and retuning it to its sheath. That was the easy bit. Now the infiltration begun.

[Cailean MacGabhann]

“Dash and blast it!”

To Cailean MacGabhann, such exclamations from Agviðr Wordsplane were no surprise. Through many decades, Wordsplane had acquired the skills of a master carpenter – but along the way had also acquired the trembling hands and poor eyesight of an old-man. With each passing year, the lenses in his round glasses grew larger, his eyes now owl-like behind the wire frames. He blinked – once, twice – and held up the saw in his hand. The blade had broken.

“You know, it was never like this back in old Gudroor's day. A fret saw in those days would last you six months at the minimum, but look at them now – can't even make it from one month to the next,” the old man grumbled, waggling the now useless saw about in the air.

Cailean, who had been busied with the plane, stood up and came to his foreman's side. Wordsplane handed the tool over for inspection, and his apprentice turned the saw over in his hands carefully. Truth be told, it had been somewhat useless even before it had become damaged. Though Agviðr had relied on such tools for his livelihood, with Cailean around they lost some of their importance. The boy had Fian blood in him, that much was obvious, and had inherited their gift for woodcraft. He could plane timber with the palms of his hands, and warp lumber into any shape he saw fit. In spite of this, Wordsplane had taught him the old ways. There was something to be said for a job well done without the use of magic, he thought.

“Shall I fetch another, my lord?”

Agviðr Wordsplane was not a lord by any means and though his feathers were visibly ruffled by the title, Cailean could not shake the act of courtesy. The old man sighed. It would have been easy to ask the boy the do the job himself, but Wordsplane took pride in his work. The people of the city spoke highly of him and his pride would not permit him the luxury of allowing another to finish something he had started.

“That was the last, I'm afraid. You'll have see about buying one from Brandr.”

Wiping his brow with the back of a dusty forearm, Agviðr rummaged about in the pocket of his apron and produced a handful of coins. Cailean nodded and tucked the pieces away into his tunic as he glanced to the workshop window. Outside, the wind tugged incessantly, like a troublesome child, at the branches of trees. The young apprentice stepped into the cold and mud of the trade quarter.

“Three to the crown! Three to the crown!”

“Get them while they're fresh! Fresh as they come!”

“Special, today only!”

The market was as busy as ever. Bai-Ulgan's trade quarter housed workshops and stalls that sold almost anything, provided you had a purse fat enough. Though many of the upper-class shopkeepers were based around the stone plaza, those who offered a more simple trade congregated on the old green. Wordsplane's workshop was at the south-eastern edge of the green, whilst Brandr's forge was in the west. Between Cailean and the smith lay what had once been a lush green pasture, but was now a quagmire. All of the boots and hooves that had passed to and fro over the land had churned it up into such a mess that it was impossible to go anywhere without gaining a thick coating of mud on your boots.

Cailean navigated his way through puddles and potholes with more success than most – wincing at the sight of a young girl, a farmers daughter by the looks of it, slipping right into a wallow of mud, dragged along by a pig on the end of a length of tether. He thought of helping her up, when a voice arrested his attention.

“Young Master MacGabhann!”

It was Brandr. Just the man he was looking for. Though Brandr couldn't have been quite Wordsplane's age yet, time had treated him with a great deal more compassion than it had the old carpenter. His broad shoulders had retained much of their strength, and there was only a wisp of gray in his wild mane of hair. He clapped Cailean on the shoulders, with one huge hand, and almost sent the boy sprawling to the ground.

“How are ye, lad? I hope old Wordsplane isn't working ye too hard.”

“No, no, my lord. I was just on my way to your workshop, on an errand.”

“Is that so!” the smith bellowed, guiding Cailean onward. “Well, then. Let's see what I can do for you...”

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix squinted his eyes against the dimming light. Dusk was becoming obfuscated by the approaching Typhoon, and in the midst of the whipping rain, it made spying their quarry a difficult endeavor.

"Let me lend some light to your path, Plafeigas."

Denix approached the bow of the ship, carefully negotiating his way across the pitching deck. A Necian archer stood vigil at the prow, his weapon stowed. The Captain tapped his soldier on the shoulder of his Segmentata armor, and gestured with a hand sweep directly foreships, in the direction of the Pirates.

"Mark our prize!"

The archer dutifully drew back, angling his arrowhead such that it would sail high overhead, but had little chance of actually striking the ship.

Denix nodded, as smoke curled from his nostrils. Cupping a hand, the fire affinity Necian Captain gently breathed onto the arrowhead, causing the tip to catch alight with a bright corona of fire.

He stepped back, and dropped his extended hand.

"Loose!"

A streak of bright light shot from the trireme, piercing the advancing darkness, and briefly revealing the Pirates precise distance and bearing before the arrow was snuffed out by the buffetting wind and rain.

Satisfied, Denix stepped back from the prow.

"Good shooting, soldier."

Plafeigas had caught what he needed with a keen sailor's eye.

"Helmsman, adjust two degrees port!"

Denix returned to his Glaucan comrade's side, brushing the damnable wetness off his face.

"Even the Fold isn't suicidal. They'll get as close to that storm as they can without going into it."

Plafeigas nodded, his long dreadlocks whipping about behind him.

"We can flank them, and use the Typhoon's own cross winds to pick up speed. They will be between a rock and a hard place."

Of course, nobody was talking about the Tigraphant in the room, which was that for all of their crafty guile, the water affinity mage was unable to stay the ocean's hand. They should be cutting ocean in record time, but there was some foul magic afoot beneath these waves.

[Calleh]

Reacting to Molly's touch, the words on the parchment began to kindle once again. Water and fire - opposite elements, impossible to mix - and yet Molly's Second Sight was precisely the key needed to unlock the message the parchment contained. The words flashed across her sightless eyes.

Calleh, a scholar of Ankaarizad,

To Molly, prophetess of Dalriada,

I know of the catastrophe you have foreseen, for it is already striking my homeland. I seek your counsel and your help. We must turn back the tide before it is too late for all of us.

I await you in the square beyond the East Gate. God's peace be upon you.

[Blind Molly]

Molly fumed at how easily Dragur had handled her in front of the Council, and then remembered the paper in her hand. As she ran her hand over it, a fire spell activated and she nearly dropped it before realizing that it posed no danger.

The contents of the letter emptied into her mind, and she frowned. An Ankaarizad scholar, in Bai-Ulgan? The letter crumpled in her hand, and she rubbed her temples. The square beyond the East Gate wasn't too far, but she had no one to walk with her - the maid, Fala, was useless, and probably a spy of one of the Council.

Not that Blind Molly needed anyone to walk with her, but it never hurt. She sighed, sitting back on the bench in the gardens and inhaling the honeysuckle from the bushes around her. After a moment she got to her feet, straightened out her dress as best she could, and tapped her walking stick on the graveled garden path. Perhaps this scholar would have some insight from beyond the sand sea that would help shed light on Dalriada's situation.

The East Gate was not far from the gardens, and Molly did not miss a turn as she made her way towards it. Growing up without sight in the palace had caused her to memorize its layout at a very early age. The two guards at the Gate did not stop her, only told her the time when she asked. Being out after dark did not bother her in the least, but it was improper for a woman to go about unaccompanied after the sun set.

There was plenty of time before sundown, however, and Molly tapped her way into the cobblestoned square. The stones were uneven and bumpy, which always made walking an adventure. The walking stick sounded hollow as it hit the stones, and she frowned. She must have cracked it in the center when the Council had upset her.

The Blind Seer walked towards a bench that looked towards the East Gate of the palace, and took a deep breath. The city smelled decidedly worse than the garden had.

[Calleh]

Calleh had wondered how she would look, and whether he'd be able to pick her out of the crowd that thronged this way and that through the city square. There was certainly no way for him to hide. Everyone who passed gawked at his strange clothing and the light, narrow swords he wore, far smaller than the broadswords favored by the warriors of this land.

But when he glimpsed her through a momentary break in the traffic, he had no doubt. She was tall and elegant, with startling flax-blonde hair, and, despite her disability, there was something undeniably fluid in her bearing.

With a deep, fortifying breath, he struck out across the crowded square and met her at a stone bench. She turned toward the sound of his footsteps but did not meet his eyes. He bowed anyway.

"Salaam, Lady Molly. I am Calleh Ben-Sudr Al-Fard, Third Ring of the Arcane College of Ankaarizad. I came to learn of the disposition of the etherium in these realms. My inquiries have led me to you."

[Calder Aquasis]

Now that Calder was exposed to the elements, the winds and rains battered him relentlessly. The rain, he didn't mind so much. But the wind he hated. It blew the moisture from Calder's skin, stealing his body heat, much as it did to anyone, Glaucan or otherwise. He shivered continuously. Perhaps he shouldn't have sold his last set of decent clothes.

Shaking such thoughts from his head, the Glaucan began to climb, the rapier on his right hip stinging at his leg repeatedly in the wind. It was now that he realised just how big the vessel was, and just how far he had to climb, and in the wet too. Calder nearly slipped several times, clinging on by his fingertips whilst flailing around in an attempt to find a foothold again.

Eventually, he came to a window, presumably into someones quarters aboard.

"Well, I hope no-one's home..."

Hauling himself just above the window, and letting his legs dangle by it, Calder drew out his knife again, gripping the blade and hammering at the glass with the hilt. The glass smashed upon the second impact, and the Glaucan quickly swung himself inside.

He flipped the knife over instantly, gripping the hilt in case anyone inside tried to attack. There was no-one inside.

"All hands on deck, I suppose..."

Sheathing the blade, Calder began to sneak around, looking for anything of value before starting his main task.

[Parsideon Denix]

It was working. By positioning the Trireme further south than the Pirates, it was calling Fyrian's bluff. The pirates either had to push dead ahead into the storm, or skirt its tumultuous edge, causing a course diversion that would cause the distance they'd gained to be dwindled. All Plafeigas awaited was the precise time to order his oarsmen to begin their work. The oars, in concert with the sails angled to catch the storm's cross winds, would allow the Trireme to ply the seas much faster than normally. Glaucan Oarsmen split the waves like a Man would wave his hands in the air.

The signalman at the prow ignited a lantern, tinting it with a cyllinder of red glass, a message to the other Triremes in pursuit. They were on point, and the rest of the flotilla was following their lead.

Plafeigas watched all of this, and turned back to the Water mage, still with unease on his expression. The mage spread his arms wide, palms downward toward the waves.

"Denetion does not rest! He will not listen to my plea!"

Then it was true. The Sea itself had rebelled against their command. But why? Plafeigas pressed the old man.

"Why has the Sea God forsaken us?"

Denix caught wind of the conversation from his station on the deck, and he returned to the spar.

"Denetion forsakes Fyrian as well. We will share in his displeasure."

Plafeigas turned, annoyed, to his comrade, his gills ruffling behind his jawline.

"A Captain of the Army pays umbrage to Denetion?"

Defensive, Denix spread his arms wide for emphasis.

"We are all here in his realm, are we not?"

*crash*

Denix's head whipped about at the sound. It had come from the cabins, seated atop the stern of the warship. On a pitching vessel, it could be a flask hitting the floor. Then again, it could also be a breaking window. The Captain was of the more paranoid type.

"Arm!"

Aitus, Melio, and Lampolo rose immediately from the deck, tearing their short swords from their scabbards as they accompanied their Captain to the stern of the ship.

[Calder Aquasis]

Footsteps...forceful footsteps, coming Calder's way. Cursing under his breath, the Glaucan's mind raced. He couldn't be discovered. He had a price on his head in Necia, and surely execution would be the only outcome from capture.

Stuffing a few coins in his pockets, Calder pulled out one of the heavier desks from the corner, heaving it over towards the only door into the room. Pushing the desk up against the door, he retreated to the window. He had to get out and up on deck. With any luck, the helmsman would be someone of high rank.

Calder pulled himself out, and made his way upwards. It was harder now. The weather was getting worse, but Calder climbed defiantly.

Poking his head over the top, he spied the cloest sailor by the wheel and Calder hauled himself over as silently as he could. He reckoned whoever had come to investigate the crash would have found the empty room by now, and would be making their way back up to warn the rest of the crew. Calder's bare feet carried him swiftly across the deck, and his left hand drew out his knife. With fluid motion, he wrapped his right arm around the forehead of the helmsman, and held the knife to his neck.

"Change course or I'll spill your bloody throat!" he bellowed into the sailors ear.

[Blind Molly]

Third ring of the Arcane College of Ankaarizad... Molly had heard rumors of such a learning facility deep inside Ankaa, but had never imagined that they would be confirmed. She sat on the bench, still facing towards him, and held her stick in front of her with one end on the stones. "You are fire-gifted."

There was a pause as she still seemed to look at his ear, and Calleh hesitated as well, unsure if it was a question or not. Molly nodded, finally, and patted the bench beside her. "Sit with me please, honored scholar, so we may talk."

As he moved closer, his foot splashed a small puddle of dirty water, and her eyes met his immediately. The moment passed, and he sat down, a respectful distance separating them. Molly turned towards him. "You say you have noticed a change in the etherium in Ankaa? This is distressing news indeed, if it be true."

[Calleh]

The moment of clarity was startling, unnerving - rarely had he felt such a penetrating gaze, and never so suddenly. He felt almost as if he had been laid naked before her.

He quickly regathered his wits. "Last spring, when the waters of the sacred River Eridan rose from the mountain snowmelt, our alchemists detected an evil taint in the water. Many of our people grew sick before we discovered a way to purify it. But the taint remains. And it is growing.

"It is from the Eridan that the ether flows throughout our land. Our sorcerers, starting with the oldest and greatest, are losing their ability to call upon their magic. Our Rajjah has sent an expedition to the headwaters of the Eridan in the Arrakis Mountains, but they had not yet returned when I left for these lands."

[Blind Molly]

She mulled over his words, spoken softly with his exotic Ankaarizad accent. If the eldest and greatest were losing their ability to call upon the magic of the five elements, then surely the same would soon be true in Dalriada, if it was not beginning already.

The Fian were among the eldest in the land, so surely they would know more than she could hope to discover. She was getting to her feet before she realized she had said nothing in reply to the scholar. Straightening her skirts, she said, "The problem is more serious than even I forsaw." Molly looked in Calleh's direction, sensing the air shifting as the man stood as well.

"Come with me, friend, I have something you should see." She beckoned for him to follow, and then started back towards the palace, her walking stick seeking out dangers in the cobblestones ahead of her.

[Parsideon Denix]

"Where will you go?"

Denix and his soldiers scrabbled to the top of the deck, confronting Calder and the helmsman. Shortly behind came Plafeigas, with another trio of soldiers. They all formed a semicircle, giving distance to the Pirate, while Denix stepped from the pack.

"If you kill this man, you will be put to the sword. If you divert our course, you will still meet the sword. They don't pay your deeds with gold in the afterlife, Pirate."

The whole group held an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, until a heavy series of waves ran across broadsides, pitching the deck a bit and forcing everyone to find their sure footing.

"Hold fast to your course!"

Plafeigas ordered his helmsman above the din of the waves. He gripped a trident in his hands with a tight grasp.

For effect, Captain Denix drew his own weapon, the famous Necian Gladius, from it's richly-ornate scabbard on his waist. With the blade held in front of him, he drew a breath, and breathed a stream of fire upon it. Dancing yellow flames hung to the gladius's steel, bathing it in a fiery sheen.

[Calleh]

Calleh was astounded how quickly she glided over the uneven stones, and he even stumbled himself as he hastened to match pace with her. Now they were doubly a spectacle, a blind woman leading a foreigner, but more often than not the street traffic parted for them. Either the townspeople recognized Blind Molly as a member of the court or there was enough authority in her gait to make them yield.

They soon returned to the palace gate. The guards stood aside for Molly and, seeing Calleh, stood even further aside for him. Feeling a twinge of guilt, he bowed his head to them as he passed.

The interior of the palace was, to Calleh's chagrin, no warmer than the air outside, and the absence of sunlight made it feel colder. A lifetime in the tropics had left him poorly prepared for even a mild spring day in Dalriada.

[Blind Molly]

Molly barely acknowledged the guards, though she knew them both by name. They let the Ankaarizad man pass by behind her, which was wise, as both had been on the wrong end of her sharp words in the past. They knew better than to court her displeasure.

The Blind Seer quickened her pace once inside the palace walls, the smooth stones of the floors had been called up from the earth and set in place by some of the finest Earthen builders of Dalriada over two hundred years ago. There was nothing to catch her feet and send her stumbling. And it was important to get the scholar up to her chambers before anyone else saw them. "Stay close," she said, picking up her walking stick so they made as little noise as possible.

She slowed as they reached the stairs that led up to the wing of the palace where she lived, and reached for the railing that ran up the inside of the spiral staircase. Put in place by a fine Woodsmage, the railing was a single piece of oak that was as smooth as glass from many years of hands resting upon it as Molly's did now. Unable to use her eyes to her advantage, the Blind Seer tilted her head to the side, listening up the stairwell to the Air on the landing above and the floor beyond.

This scholar, this Calleh, he obviously had heard about her and thought much of her skills or he would never have come to her. His Rajjah would not have sent him. Though, he had never said that the Rajjah had sent him. Just the group investigating the river. Molly's mind clicked onto another track, but she forced herself to pay close attention to the matter at hand.

He respected her, and would think less of her if he suspected that she was not as free to move about the palace as it seemed. Molly ran through all these different thoughts within the space of a few moments, and then began to ascend the stairs, hand trailing along the smooth railing. Calleh's soft footfalls behind her assured the Seer that he had not gotten lost or abandoned her to further infiltrate the palace for some diabolical scheme.

They met no one, not even a serving girl, until they reached her chambers, and she had safely shut the door behind them. Sliding the heavy bolt closed (unfortunately the door could also be locked from the outside with a similar bolt) Molly strode towards a table set near the raised platform that held her tub. In the process she nearly ran over Fala, the maid squeaking in surprise as her mistress came right up behind her.

Flushing angrily, and slightly embarrassed at the near collision in the presence of a foreign visitor, Molly whacked her walking stick to the ground to create a loud noise. "Fala! Remove yourself from this room at once! Wait -!"

The maid's skirts stopped rustling, somewhere near the door where the scholar was still standing, probably wide-eyed as his vision of the Seer popped like a soap bubble. "Stay here, by the door. Find yourself a seat and do not disturb me." She couldn't have the maid out wandering the halls and complaining about Miss Molly and her fine foreign manfriend. Inside and gawking was bad enough, but she could be taken care of after the fact.

Molly gestured to Calleh, and he joined her by the table. It was inset with a shallow but large bowl, filled with cool water. The Seer set her walking stick aside, pushing up her sleeves and placing her hands into the bowl. Her eyes fluttered closed, and then she lifted her hands out only to wave them across the surface of the water.

Lifting here, pushing there... the water formed with the motions of her hands and remained as she desired. A breath and the surface of the sculpture froze in place, still glimmering wetly underneath the false skin she had given it. Blind Molly took a breath, leaning back on her walking stick again. "Dalriada," she said, for the water formed a three dimensional map of the country. She had had much practice in creating such maps, and it was almost childs play to create and recreate parts of the known world in the Seeing Bowl.

"Our sacred points are here," she pointed out the Steelwood's Sacred Circle, "And here," a high point in the Cos Briste mountain range. Equidistant from Bai-Ulgan, where they now where, and in separate directions. "There are disturbances in both places, though nothing like what you describe with your river." Molly tapped her stick to the stones, "Though I will have to go there myself to get any confirmation."

[Calder Aquasis]

Slipping on the wet deck as waves tilted the ship, Calder's hold on the helmsman was released as he stumbled to the side, stopping only upon impact with the railings. Coins spilled out from his pockets, rattling on the deck. Cursing under his breath, he knew his options now were even less than before. He turned to look at the Necian's, giving a laugh and half a smile.

"Uhm...well now..."

Sheathing his knife, he watches as the captain ignites his blade. With no magic abilities of his own, Calder's time was running out.

Spying a coil of rope at the back corner of the deck, Calder finally spotted his chance. As fast as he could, he scooped it up and started to uncoil as he darted across towards the other side of the deck. Almost perfectly, he tossed one end of the rope across the front of the helmsman, and ran past behind him, catching the rope again. By now the rest of the rope was uncoiled, and Calder had a grip just above each end. One of the soldiers took a swipe, Calder retreated back towards the stern, pulling the helmsman with him. With a pump of the legs, Calder launched himself off the back of the ship, falling down. He felt the helmsman collide with the railing, stopping Calder's descent as he swung back in towards the ship. Releasing his grip, he fell a little further as he dropped forward, landing just off target as his arms hooked over the sil of the window he'd smashed.

Grunting on impact, Calder pulled himself inside. The ship rocked again as another flurry of waves hits the side, far worse this time. Various items from inside cabinets and on desks spilled out over the floor. Stumbling around to find his balance, Calder knew he had to buy some time. The table he'd moved in front of the door had been pushed away, and the door was open out onto the deck. He could see the sailors struggling the keep the rigging tight and keep the speed in the vessel up, and then the footsteps of soldiers moving down towards his position.

Darting out, Calder moved quickly along the ship, stepping between busy sailors, Glaucan and Human. Reaching the mast, he pulled on the rope ladder to make sure it was still in one piece, before starting to scramble up it, watching the soldiers charging across deck towards him.

[Cailean MacGabhann]

Though there were tradesman who offered the kind of tools and supplies needed in Agviðr Wordsplane's workshop, the old carpenter made a point of buying from Brandr. Like so many other things, it was a tradition. Agviðr's father had trade wares with Brandr's father before him, with the unspoken agreement stretching back a number of generations. That Brandr was also a former Hammer of the the Order of Hephaes must have helped matters also.

The smith was a good deal different from the carpenters workshop. For one, there was barely a sliver of daylight made it within, as all the windows were blackened with soot. At the forge, two Trow stood stoking the fire, whilst another bent over an anvil with a hammer in hand. Whilst Cailean knew very little of their kind, he knew enough to know that they preferred darkness over light. Perhaps that was why Brandr allowed the ash and dirt to remain.

Cailean eyed them with an unfounded yet innate cautiousness, yet they did not look away from their duties, no doubt used to the scrutiny. Many of the tradesmen with sense had invested in Trow serfs, for they demanded far less compensation in return for their efforts. In spite of this, a social stigma followed them everywhere they went. Trow were supposedly extremely gifted in the Fire Magics, so it made sense that Brandr should have acquired their help to keep the furnace hot.

Aside from the dark, which did not bother Cailean too much, there was the noise. Brandr often spoke in a boisterously loud voice, and it wasn't hard to understand why. Hammers meeting anvils, the sizzle of burning metal, the grind of blades being sharpened. Even stood some distance away from the main forge, it was still difficult to hear.

“What is it your after then, Master MacGabhann?” Brandr asked, over the din.

“A new fret saw, my lord!”

“No need to shout lad,” Brandr bellowed, chuckling to himself. “A fret saw, is it. Well, that won't take long, I'm sure. Y'can wait in here, if ye like... though there's a yard out back that might be easier on yer pointy wee ears.”

Cailean smiled apologetically and, shown the way by Brandr, escaped into the back yard with haste. Outside the air, though pungent with the smells of the market, felt so much cleaner. His eyes were damp, perhaps because of the soot or the sudden exposure to light. As he wiped the tears away, he became aware that he was not alone and saw that another Trow was busy at work on the other side of the yard. Involuntarily, Cailean coughed and drew the creatures attention.

The Trow looked about Cailean's age, and had long dark hair that fell shaggy over his face. His features were angular for the most part, but his blunt nose and sunken eyes offset any shapeliness his face might otherwise have had. He stood with a stoop, his bony shoulders hunched forwards. In his hands he held what appeared to be any already finished piece, which he was filing and adding the finishing touches to.

Though his eyes met Cailean's for only a moment, it was long enough to give the young Fian the feeling that he was intruding on something. He looked away quickly, aware of how anxious he would have felt had someone stood gawking at him like that. Both the Trow and the Fian were outsiders, after all. The only thing that separated them was their heritage. Whilst the Fian were something a-kin to the Gods chosen race, the Trow were exiles; the Fian were often pleasing to the eye, whilst the Trow were hideous. It was not the fault of this boy that he had been born into this race, that his great great ancestor had cursed an entire people with his own greed, but it was a burden which he had to bear none the less.

“Here you are!”

Cailean flinched, looking instantly towards the Trow – though he knew that the voice came from Brandr. The smith held in his hands a brand new fret saw. “Made by the Magics, but don't tell yer old Wordsplane that,” Brandr said, with the wink of a conspirator. If Cailean had mentioned the fact, he surely would have been sent back to the bladesmith to acquire another saw. With the saw in hand, he quickly fumbled into his pockets for the coins he had been sent with, but Brandr held up a hand.

“No need, lad,” he said with a smile. “You keep those pennies for yerself. Get yerself down to the tavern, see if ye can't find yerself a nice wee madam to spend the evening with, ey?”

At this, Brandr laughed loud and long. Cailean looked away, his eyes drawn again to the Trow. The boy had paused in his work and was looking up, through straggles of lank hair, at the pair stood in the doorway. A sudden shadow of a frown swept over Brandr's features. The old smith seemed to bristle at his whiskers. The Trow boy didn't miss a beat, his head falling again, eyes back on the task in hand. Cailean felt a small swell of sympathy. There would be no such pleasantries for him, no cheeky winks and trips to the inn.

“Thank you, my lord,” he said, smiling somewhat sadly, and left the smith without another word.

[Parsideon Denix]

"Hold your places!"

Denix spotted the Pirate as he made his ascent up the mast. Quickly dousing the flame on his gladius, he sheathed the weapon.

"We don't need a battle up there and risk damaging the sail."

Plafeigas, close behind, agreed with a curt grunt. Then, he noticed the Water Mage, still deep in concentration. Both officers approached the base of the mast.

"Seer! We have an intruder!"

A crashing din distracted everyone momentarily. The tumultuous waves had driven one of the supporting Triremes into another, piercing its timber hull.

Plafeigas, infuriated, spun around astern.

"Keep your course, helmsman!"

The helmsman, recently recovered, gave an affirmative shout as he kept to the wheel, grim-faced. The survivors of the collision would have to be dealt with by the supporting triremes. Fyrian was Plafeigas's prize, and he would not be denied by the fickle wrath of Denetion.

Off the starboard, a vortex of water swirled about, forming a column that snaked from the sea and approached the ship. As the Water Seer reached out to his medium, the column of water hurled spherical hailstones from its center, pelting the Pirate intruder and forcing him to reconsider his folly.

[Calleh]

Calleh had no idea how to comport himself through the outburst and was grateful when Molly came straight back to business. He watched in wonder as she shaped the water to her will.

"It may be that the disturbances you sense are the seeds of the calamity that has already struck us. We seldom visit the headwaters of the Eridan; it is a treacherous journey high into the mountains and is guarded by gryphons and other dangerous beasts. How long will it take us to journey to your sacred places?"

He realized too late just how far he'd jumped ahead, and he stammered, "That is... forgive me... if you would grant me the honor..."

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder flashed a grin as he saw the two Necian ships collide, but it was soon wiped off his face as he saw the officers at the base of the mast. He was fast running out of ideas.

He continued to scramble up the ladder, paying little attention to the shouts on deck. With a few moments, he was being showered in hailstones.

"Bloody magic..."

Wincing as each part his body got stung, Calder looked around fratically. He couldn't go back down, and he couldn't continue up.

"It'll have to be sideways then."

Drawing his knife, he took a deep breath, before making a daring leap off the ladder towards the sail. With any luck, he'd have a smooth descent and then be able to make his play from there. However, the hailstones followed the pirate through the air, hitting him relentlessly. They grew bigger, and his temple took a blow from a piece the size of a large fist. That was it, he was out cold. His knife rattled to the ground, and he quickly followed, landing in a heap on the ground, unconscious.

[Parsideon Denix]

"Pox on it! He nicked our sail!"

Denix looked up at the now flapping port sail, rippling with a four meter gash down it from where the Pirate's knife had made purchase into the heavy fabric.

So it was done, then. The Captain paced across the deck in feverish frustration. Weeks at sea in this bloody chase, and now they would lose ground from this. The change in speed was only slight, but it would certainly give Fyrian enough time to escape.

"Curse you, cur!"

Denix delivered a swift kick into the Pirate's midsection with his high-cut sandal, sending the unconcious Glaucan rolling along the deck. Even his unconcious state denied Denix the satisfaction of wounding the man.

Plafeigas was hard at work licking his wounds. He ordered the ship to fall back and tend to the men overboard from the collision. His sailors worked doubletime to keep the rigging tight on remaining starboard sail, while a second crew frantically drew down the split port sail to string up a replacement.

A huge wave crashed broadside, tipping the ship over 45 degrees, and sending a half dozen Men into the ocean. Denix scrambled toward the side to lend assistance.

"Plafeigas, there is no good we can do in this tempest! We have to withdraw!"

A second wave buffeted the ship, and the mast split into a shower of splinters, toppling over the starboard side of the ship. The heavy sail draped over men in the water, fatally denying their struggles to reach air.

Bewildered, Denix looked about the ship, spitting a mouthful of seawater as he got his bearings. There on the deck, the Water Seer lay dead, his head struck by the mast as it fell.

Without his protection, Denetion's wrath had no stay. They were all damned.

[Blind Molly]

She raised an eyebrow over one unseeing blue eye at Calleh's words, but tried to set him at ease when he began to backtrack. "Do not worry yourself, friend. I have taken no offense."

Passing a hand over the top of the barely frozen water, Molly planed her index finger at the site of Bai-Ulgan. "Such a journey could take months. The Cos Briste are here," her finger trailed northward until it touched on the nearest mountain range to the Rampart. "And the Sacred Circle of the Steelwood is here..." The Seer traced a route back through Bai-Ulgan and then down to the south near Verbannen.

She lifted her hand before the ice began to melt, and leaned on the nearest edges of the shallow bowl. "I have already begun preparations for the trip, Calleh Ben-Sudr Al-Fard. I knew that someone was coming to travel with me." Molly's gaze was in his direction, but her eyes never settled or focused on anything.

"I did not know who, but the threads of the future are continually being woven." The Blind Seer released the sides of the bowl and the map melted and disolved into a pool of water once more. Leaning on her walking stick, Molly let out an unlady-like curse when the wood that had cracked earlier gave way entirely, spilling her onto the floor.

[Calleh]

Calleh froze and, for a moment, found his eyes locked with Fala's. From the silent look of terror on the maidservant's face, he could plainly see she was hesitant to approach her mistress in the midst of her wrath.

The Ankaaric scholar knelt at Molly's side and gently laid his hands on hers. She clasped them, and he carefully lifted her back up to her feet.

"I'm afraid it has broken clear through," he said apologetically. "Do you have another?"

[Blind Molly]

She kept her grip on one of his hands, putting her free hand to her forehead. "I do not."

The Blind Seer turned towards Fala and the door. "Please send a runner to Wordsplane the carpenter. I will need a new walking stick crafted today, before nightfall if at all possible." The bolt slid back, and Molly stopped the maid with a word. "And Fala... thank you."

The maid bobbed a curtsey, and then the door opend and closed behind her. The Seer took a deep breath. "A thousand apologies, scholar. You did not come all this way to look at a map and watch me lose my temper." Putting out her free hand, Molly located the Seeing Bowl, and without any warning she plunged their clasped hands into it.

She looked at her visitor - a tall, sun-darkened man with curly black hair. He looked back at her with an expression of wonder. "Tell me again why you came, scholar."

[Cailean MacGabhann]

When Cailean arrived back at the workshop, he found Agviðr red-cheeked and out of breath. In his apprentices absence, the old man had tried to move a hefty beam of lumber from a pile the yard to one of the workshop lathes. It looked as if he had gotten three-quarters of the way there, locking one end of the plank into place, before his arms had finally given in. His thin forearms trembled as he tried to keep the weight balanced, knowing that dropping the tip would doubtlessly splinter the wood at best, and at worst send it and the lathe toppling over to the ground.

Cailean moved quickly to Wordsplane's side, taking the burden for him. Both he and the carpenter himself knew that Agviðr was in no shape for that kind of work anymore. That was precisely why he needed Cailean, even if he wouldn't admit it.

Agviðr huffed, still breathless. “Where's that saw, then?” he said. “I hope he gave you a good price.”

Cailean nodded and handed the newly crafted tool over. Wordsplane, his movements hurried because of his embarrassment, examined the piece. Once it had received his nod of approval, he struggled back to his workbench and resumed whatever it was he had been busy with before th saw had broken in the first place. His eyes lifted only for a moment, peering accusingly over the rims of his glasses at the lathe. Before returning to his own work, Cailean removed the coins he had been given for the errand and placed them into the cash box. As he closed the lid, there was a rapping at the workshop door, that made him flinch almost guiltily.

“See to that, will you, lad?” Wordsplane called.

Cailean answered the door, his heart still fluttering a little. It was a young man, rather smartly dressed for the trade quarter. When he spoke, it was in a voice that was clearly accustomed to the well-nuanced tones of the court – yet he had a look about him that said it was something he had learned, rather than had been born with. After introducing himself, he explained that he was here to place an order of a new walking stick for none other than the Seer of Bai-Ulgan. Agviðr all but dropped his tools and would have sprung to his feet, if his bad back hadn't caught him half way between sitting and standing.

“A new stave, is it,” he muttered, looking over the messenger boy with a hint of awe in his eyes and one hand on his hip, steadying himself. “Yes, of course we'd be happy to make it. I'll have the boy here deliver it as soon as it's ready, no mistake.”

The errand boy smile politely and thanked the carpenter. No payment was requested, nor was any offered. The boy went on his way, leaving both Cailean and Wordsplane standing in the open doorway. Wordsplane pursed his lips, whistling long and low.

“Better get started on that right away, then,” he said, turning and heading straight for the lathe.

“My lord...” Cailean winced at the thought of how Wordsplane might damage himself next.

“Perhaps I might do the rough-work on the cane? The lathe is a little... temperamental of late.”

Agviðr paused a moment, unsure of how to reply, and then nodded. The boy could do the basic work on the timber and then Wordsplane himself would add the finishing touches that would make the stick just right. The carpenter returned to his bench, and Cailean took position in front of the lathe. From his desk he watched as his apprentice rubbed his palms slowly together, blowing cool air between his skin. He had never quite understood what the purpose of this was, but it was a ritual that Cailean performed each time he worked and it seemed to help. Laying his palms down over the raw and ragged wood, he drew his hands apart slowly as if smoothing or stretching some invisible fabric. Then, the magic began.

[Parsideon Denix]

Dreams came to Denix, so vivid he could not separate the dream world from reality. At what point had the ship been lost? Denetion's relentless waves buffeted it into oblivion, and against all odds, the Captain of Necia had lashed himself to a cask of oil as the tumult continued. The storm consumed the entire flotilla, of that he was certain. His compatriots were lost. Aitus, Melio, Lampolo, Pretros, Plafeigas, Denfilius. Gone. What the waves could not end, the dread beasts of the sea surely finished. Sharks and serpents were known enemies of Men and Glaucan alike. Alive but through Denetion's ironic mercy, Denix drifted to sleep on his watery perch, beaten, exhausted, and fully expecting to die.

A light...

The Golden Lantern!

Denix snapped his eyes open, only to be staring at the morning sun. It was all folly. A ruse of his passions. The fleet was lost, so was the best lead in securing Necia's fate. With the Lantern in the clutches of pirates who may not have survived the storm themselves, this was a cruel existence to wake to.

With a grunt, the Necian Captain turned over, gingerly running fingers along a sliver of timber that had lodged into his thigh. The wound was superficial and he would walk, but it was painful and risked festering if not treated. Carefully, Denix drew a dagger from his belt, and sawed away at the rope he'd used to lash himself to his makeshift float. In the distance, a gaggle of seagulls mocked him, as he blearily wiped the dried sea salt from his face. All around him were the sounds of the sea pummeling against the earth. He was lost in a strange land, far from both his prize and from Necia itself.

As he looked along the shore, he noted with a macabre sense of irony that at least he was not alone. Dozens of his compatriots bodies had washed ashore within his sight. What a dread duty was his, to bear the fire to light their funeral pyres. The thought of it made him feel morose.

Rising from the cask with a limp in his step, Denix began to consolidate the dead, distantly hopeful there would be some survivors with living breath still within them.

[Calder Aquasis]

"Ungghh..."

Calder's eyes lid open lazily. Last thing he remembered, he was fleeing across the deck of a Necian ship. Now where was he? Sand. A beach? What had happened?

Sitting up slowly, he shook his head, scratching the sand away from his gills. Before him, splintered planks of wood, barrels, rope...bodies. The storm must have caught the ships in it's wrath.

Calder brought himself to his feet, wincing a sharp pain shot up his back. Moving his hand around, he felt a large tear in his shirt, and a long dip in his flesh, still wet with blood and gritty with sand. He felt lucky to have gotten off so lightly.

Making his way towards the shoreline, taking long strides to stretch his legs, Calder kept walking until he was waist-high in water. Squatting, he dipped underwater for a few seconds, washing the sand from his body before heading back towards the beach.

There, a figure in the distance! Someone else had made it. Calder set off jogging along the beach, trying to make out who it was. By the time he'd recognised the figure, the Captain was staring right back at Calder. Calder felt around his waist. No rapier. Looking down, his knife had been ripped away too, leaving tatters of a sheath. The Captain was limping though, with some timber in his leg...perhaps this wasn't going to be as bad as the Glaucan had first thought. He continued to walk along, closing the distance between the two.

"Pretty nasty splinter you got there, Captain."

[Parsideon Denix]

"The only thing keeping me from killing you where you stand is the slim chance that through you, I can honor these men and their sacrifice."

Denix glowered with venomous rage at the Glaucan, smoke curling from his nostrils. He reached down to tear the wooden sliver from his thigh, which left a lazily flowing stream of blood to course down his leg.

"Where is the Lantern? Where is Fyrian? Tell me, and you will live."

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder tilted his head slightly, rubbing his neck.

"You're not exactly fighting fit right now, Captain. Unlike you, I still have full use of my legs."

The Glaucan plopped down onto the sand, sitting cross legged and sifting sand through his fingers.

"That Latern could be anywhere. For all I know, it could be at the bottom of the ocean, or down the throat of some damn sea beast. That storm could have taken the Hand of Fyrian and everything and everyone onboard."

Calder shrugged his shoulders.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

[Parsideon Denix]

"Pay my wounds no mind."

Denix drew his gladius, holding it before Calder for a moment before blowing a searing breath of fire upon the tip of the blade, causing it to glow. Letting that dreadful point linger a moment, the Captain turned the blade on himself, pressing it's flat edge against the oozing wound on his thigh. A sizzle could be heard as the flesh seared, the red-hot steel both cauterizing the flesh and stifling any possible infection. Denix's muscles locked, teeth bared, and his jawline tightened as he bored through the Glaucan with his thousand-yard stare.

The deed done, Denix withdrew his blade, exhaling raggedly as he sheathed his weapon. He considered Calder's words, and the Pirate had some merit to what he said. Still, there was the matter of what the Glaucan did know.

"Consider the possibility that Fyrian was spared injury from Denetion."

He spoke to Calder with a more even tone, still favoring his uninjured leg as he approached.

"Now, where was he taking the Lantern? A brigand such as he is only after his share of gold. Who paid for this?"

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder's eyes flashed for the moment the blade was pointed at him, watching as the Captain sealed his wound and asked his question. The Glaucan shrugged again.

"I don't know who wanted the Lantern. People that pay for the aid of Fyrian's Fold prefer to stay anonymous. I'll bet even Fyrian only knows what they look like."

He chuckled lightly.

"Could even have been one of your superiors who wanted the Latern for themselves."

Dropping the sand in his hands, Calder leant back, leaning on his elbows.

"We were headed for some nameless island, a rendezvous point."

The Glaucan cast his eyes towards the bodies and splintered timber along the shoreline.

"But I'm not sure what use this information is to you right now. You've lost both your ship and your crew. Do you even know where we are?"

[Parsideon Denix]

Of course his answer fit with most such brigands who worked for the employ of another. There was likely little in that regard that a lackey would be able to confirm. Besides, there were certainly no shortage of suspects. As Calder had hinted, even Chieftains of the League weren't above suspicion. It would not be the first time that Necia had dealt with ambitious men.

Then he mentioned the island. Denix would suss that out at a later time, preferably in front of a map. Once again, he returned his attention to the men lying on the beach, when Calder spoke again, asking if he knew where they were.

"No. I have no idea where we are. As far down the archipelago as we were, we could even be blown as far west as Asga."

[Calder Aquasis]

"Right then."

Calder pulled himself to his feet again, letting out a light groan due to his back. Now was the time to try and establish an alliance with the Necian, however temporary it may turn out to be.

"Now the interrogation is over, shall we get down to something constructive? Maybe salvage what we can, collect your dead? I assume we won't be fighting it out to the death just yet?"

The Glaucan offered a pale blue hand.

"Calder Aquasis. I'll be your fellow castaway for the duration of your stay here."

[Parsideon Denix]

This Glaucan was shrewd, and Denix agreed to his suggestions with a nod.

"There may be rations that survived the wreck. I myself arrived on an oil cask."

The task of the dead was an unhappy one. Being a citizen of Necia, he was intimate with the rites of the fallen, having administered them many times.

"There should be enough timbers to build a pyre."

Before Denix could set about the retrieval of the dead, the pirate took it upon himself to extend late introductions. Denix grimaced, paused, and turned back to face Calder.

"Denix, of the Parsidei, and I will not shake your hand."

[Calder Aquasis]

"Each to his own, I suppose."

Calder withdrew his hand, casting his eyes over the remains of the ship. The Necian seemed to be setting out to collect the corpses, and was obviously a man of honour. The Glaucan's interests were much more self orientated, and he tasked himself with pulling out barrels, boxes and planks from the water, anything that could be of use. If not, by the time all the dead had been collected, everything may have been dragged out to sea by the retreating tide.

It was hard work, for both of them, and it was done in silence, aside from the grunts of effort. An hour passed, and in that time, Calder had collected 5 barrels, and dozen crates and a large pile of planks, drying out in the heat. Collapsing on the sand, the Glaucan pulled off his shirt, exposing his blue, wirey frame to the sun. Down his torso, several dark blue patches of skin were revealed, results of strange skin pigmentation in almost tribal patterns. He didn't make a move to help Denix move the bodies. The Necian had been reluctant to touch the Pirate, and would most likely only be angered if Calder tainted the dead with the hands of a Pirate.

[Parsideon Denix]

Their work at last at an end, Denix took a moment to arrange the fallen, precariously stacking them and intervals of wood to create the pyre. On top of this, he drug the cask of oil, and dispensed it liberally among them. He paused, watching Calder remove his shirt, and cleared his throat.

"Many of my comrades are Glaucan. I will give their eulogy, but they would want a Glaucan to speak on their behalf to Denetion, to speed their souls out to sea."

It wasn't an easy thing to ask, and Denix quickly turned his eyes back to the pyre, his jawline tightening as he kneeled before it. Drawing his Gladius, he stabbed it into the sand before him, resting both hands on it's pommel as he leaned his weight forward and bowed his head.

"Ancestors and standard-bearers of Necia, the children of the Mythril Eagle, guardians of the Great Sea of the East, I come to you with these honored dead. Let the records show by the profession of my tongue that these soldiers and sailors with whom I have served, did their duties with distinction and valor, and neither Man nor Glaucan quit his post. Lend down your countenance with both Gladius and Trident to speed these men to eternity at the side of whatsoever God or Goddess they owe their allegiance."

Denix paused, wrestling with words as much as his conflicted passions.

"To the Men who called me Captain, I commend thee to Igneon, God of Fire, and to Hephos, God of Iron, keepers of the affinities and Chieftains among other Gods. By our gifts, we are known. By our gifts, we then give.

Gods of Midgard, hear this prayer."

[Calder Aquasis]

Hearing Denix's request, Calder gave a nod, rising to his feet and moving out towards the sea. Stopping so that the tide ran through his feet, he bowed before the ocean, an act of respect for Denetion.

"Your waters are the one true home of any Glaucan. Set free my brothers from dead flesh, and let their souls glide the watery breeze of the afterlife. Allow them the one thing any life wants and cherishes, freedom."

Calder gave another bow, before turning and heading back. He was never one for grand words and speeches.

"It is done, Denix" he called across the sand.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix was grateful that as much of a rogue that Calder may be, he at least had respect for the dead and the Gods. With the conclusion of his prayer, Denix held a hand out, palm aloft. The air danced momentarily before a flash of fire appeared, shimmering and whipping about. The Necian Captain gingerly manipulated it with subtle movements of his hand, before coaxing the flame toward the funeral pyre. The fire caught the oil, timbers, and the deceased, spreading quickly through the structure.

Denix rose from his knees, sheathing his gladius as he watched the pyre burn. As the flames licked higher and the smoke drifted out to sea, the Captain made his own personal peace with the loss of both friends and comrades, many of whom he had served with for years.

[Calleh]

Calleh turned, startled, and stared into Molly's eyes. He knew at once she was looking, not only at him, but inside him, and he knew that lying to her, were that his intention, would be futile. The water was cold and penetrating on his skin.

"I came," he answered, "because no one else would. Because I feared this corruption was coming from a source beyond Ankaa. Because as often as I heard of your skill, I also heard of your dedication to truth. Even to truths everyone else wishes to ignore. Or suppress."

[Calder Aquasis]

There were very few times when Calder fell so silent for so long. Very few times when the Glaucan pirate felt so solemn. He didn't cast his eyes towards the pyre. Instead, he cleared his mind, heading across the sand towards the crates he'd pulled from the water.

Pulling the lid free of one, he looked inside to find a quantity of thick skinned fruits, probably acidic to the taste, and ideal for voyages. Even the Hand of Fyrian had a fair amount of exotic fruits.

Raising one to his mouth, he tore at the skin with his teeth, ripping off a piece before peeling the rest with his fingers. Tossing the skin to one side, he looked up to see Denix returning from his duty.

"Come and eat something. You'll feel better" Calder beckoned with a wave of his free arm, before biting into the fruit.

[Parsideon Denix]

As good a time as any. They had ample sunlight in which to do so.

Denix lingered a few more moments on the pyre, and then turned toward the pirate and the recovered sundries from the sunken triremes. Sifting through a few of the items, he was relieved to discover a jar of ground corn had survived, and was not compromised by the seawater. He pried the cork from the jar, mussed around in the same crate, and recovered two tin bowls and matching spoons. He distributed one of each to the Glaucan without ceremony.

"Fill it with seawater."

Leading by example, the Necian soldier took his bowl to the shore, dipping the crude lid under the waterline in time to catch a lapping wave, which filled it halfway. Denix returned to the heap of crates and took a seat on one, upending the jar of ground corn so that the grainy meal fell about into the water evenly. With a snap of his fingers, he conjured a dancing flame in the palm of one hand, and positioned his bowl of corn meal porridge over it until the thick gloop began to steam. Satisfied, Denix extinguished his fire, and gave the mixture a quick stirring.

[Blind Molly]

She looked at him sharply as he spoke, and did not release her hold on his hand when he was finished. "Pretty words, but you have no doubt been taught to spin words like a woman spins wool." Molly had been schooled extensively, unlike most women, but was wary of others who claimed to be learned. Too many times they had only been taught the art of persuasion rather than true knowledge.

Calleh's eyes glimmered in the lamplight of her windowless room. "No, you speak the truth, as you know it anyway." The Blind Seer released his hand, reluctantly, and her vision faded away as he pulled his hand out of the water. Darkness lapped inwards like the tide.

"But what good does it do me to be dedicated to truth." She laughed without mirth. "I am but a blind woman. I cannot set out on a great journey, and the Council of Bai-Ulgan has refused me their help."

[Calleh]

Calleh shook his hand and wiped it dry on his robes. Cautiously, he drew backward out of grabbing distance.

"The truth can be a powerful ally," he replied. "And, I hope, so can I. You want to learn the nature of the disturbances in your sacred places. I want to learn if it related to the corruption that has tainted the Eridan. You have intimate knowledge of these lands and the etherium that flows here. I have the skill and resources to see you safely to your destination.

"If your Council will not help you, then let us help each other. I am your servant if you will have me."

[Blind Molly]

She stood straight, one hand on the table, and considered his words. "So be it, Calleh Ben-Sudr Al-Fard. I accept your offer."

Molly sagged a little, turning and locating a chair to sit on. Most of the furniture was against the walls, including a desk complete with writing utensils. She walked steadily to the chair in front of the desk and sat slowly. "We must leave as soon as possible. For all the Council's words, I do not think they will appreciate their Seer leaving the capitol. My presence here helps them too much."

Digging around in a drawer, Molly pulled out a seal and some hard wax. She felt for a quill, dipped it in the inkpot carefully, and wrote out a quick note. Holding the wax to a candle was trickier, considering there was none on the desk. "Could you...?" The Seer tried to indicate what she was trying to do. "With my seal this letter will grant you access to much of the palace. Including the stables."

[Calleh]

"Ah!"

Calleh came to Molly's side and touched the round of wax. His fingers glowed red, orange, yellow-hot, and the wax splashed down onto the paper. He held the letter steady as Molly stamped the wax with a signet ring.

"Thank you. I do have a horse of my own - though I would like to refresh my provisions, if possible. When would you like to leave?"

[Cailean MacGabhann]

Whilst Cailean was by no-means a master sorcerer, his natural affinity with Artume - goddess of the forest and the hunt – gave him some skill in the craft. As his fingertips drew over the grain of the timber, it softened under his touch, the hard corners becoming smooth. He worked it almost like dough, kneading out the knots and rolling the staff into shape – but the wood was stubborn.

Perspiration formed on his brow. It was always taxing to work himself as such, but never to such a degree. When he stepped away from the wood, he felt a sudden and overwhelming tiredness that threatened to pull him down into his seat. Not willing to give up, if for no other reason to ensure that Wordsplane received favor from such an esteemed customer, Cailean returned to the plane.

He lifted his hands, holding them at a distance from the now somewhat cylindrical wood. With down-turned lips, he looked it over. One end was thicker than the other, giving it more of a look of a mace or club than a ladies walking stick. Cailean sighed. His fingertips ached.. His shoulders felt stiff, as if he'd spent a day in the stocks. Why was it that this was proving so hard, he wondered, staring down into the wood in thoughtful contemplation.

[Blind Molly]

"Tonight."

Molly held out the letter, complete with ink spots, and added, "Try to be circumspect about it, if you can. Two horses, as we'll need a pack animal. And provisions for a few weeks. We will be able to resupply along the way."

Fala opened the door (she could hear the shuffle of the girl's slippers), and Molly pressed the paper into Calleh's hands while raising her voice to address the girl. "I am going to go for a ride, Fala. Please lay out my three best riding dresses, so I can choose between them."

A rustle of wind as the maid curtseyed, and Molly squeezed Calleh's hand. "A horse for each of us, and food for supper. I would be pleased to show you the countryside around Bai-Ulgan."

[Calleh]

The friendly touch was unexpected but, Calleh found, not entirely unwelcome. He smiled, though he realized she couldn't see it, and replied, "As you wish."

The letter opened the doors to the larder as well as the stables. Calleh kept his inquiries and instructions brief and to the point, but he knew that a foreign visitor with the favor of the court prophetess would be ample fuel for palace gossip no matter how surreptitious he tried to be. Mercifully the council was still in session and most of the court was occupied in the chambers, so he never came across anyone whose authority he had to challenge.

In short order, two horses were being groomed and fitted for the journey - not the towering, awesome Dalriadan chargers, but the smaller, fleeter Anundales bred by the Fian - and Calleh oversaw as the saddlebags were packed with provisions, wood, tinder, rope, tent canvas and stakes, and blankets to protect horse and rider from the elements at night. When the kitchen boy arrived with the foodstuffs he'd ordered, Calleh asked him to go back and send a supper for two up to Molly's chambers.

Once he was satisfied, he headed back for the tower himself. As he passed down a columned veranda, he saw that the sun was already beginning to sink as afternoon turned to evening, and the domestic bustle in the streets outside the palace walls was just beginning to wane.

He also saw in the darkness of a sheltered alley a shadow on the wall with no one to cast it. But no sooner had he focused on it than it shifted and disappeared.

A cold hand closed over his heart, and the Ankaaric scholar quickened his pace to Molly's tower.

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder set down his fruit, before setting out to copy Denix, filling his bowl with water, then returning to add the grain. Giving it a vigorous mix, he flicked a look up at the Necian, seeing the flame as it warmed the soldier's food.

Calder looked around briefy, even though he knew he had no means of making fire. In fact, he had no means of making anything from the blessing of the Gods. He had power over no magic, and relied on his own mettel to get him through things.

Laughing nervously, he held out his bowl towards Denix.

"Uhm, little help?"

[Parsideon Denix]

"Cold porridge has killed no man."

The Captain wasn't about to afford Calder any commodities, he was still the catalyst that had brought his shipmates to their doom.

Denix paused, blowing a bit on a steaming spoonful before eating it. He grabbed one of the fruit, tearing at the rind with his teeth to get at the pulpy interior.

"Eat well. We have a long march to make."

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder rolled his eyes, shifting in his seat slightly before digging into his food. He could sympathise, he supposed. Denix was a Necian soldier, sworn to fight against the likes of Calder. The pirate almost felt lucky he hadn't been stabbed through the heart and throw in with the burning corpses. No doubt he'd at least be in shackles, should Denix had found any washed up.

"Oh yeah? So where we headed?" he asked, the question only just understandable as Calder continued to chew as he spoke.

[Blind Molly]

Fala helped Molly change into her sturdiest riding dress, the divided muslim skirts split with leather for added protection and durability on long rides. The Seer went without a fashionable short jacket with puffy sleeves that the maid tried to put on her, and instead went with a full length waxed canvas riding coat that would keep the rain off.

The maid was nervous - her fingers kept slipping as she buttoned up the back of the dress - but she pulled the bodice tight and tied up the corset that was part of the ensemble. Molly figured she probably looked ridiculous, though she had worn this dress when out riding with the late King on many occasions. Her old maid had told her it was a dark green and brown with slashes of red in the bodice, but Fala seemed to be holding her breath. Much too nervous.

Molly smoothed the divided skirt over her hips, and turned towards the maid. "Please back the other riding dresses into my saddle bags."

"For... for one ride?" There was a rustling sound as Fala made a show of picking up the two remaining outfits from the bed.

"Pack my warmest cloak as well." Molly worked her hair into a twist and secured it with a few carefully placed pins. She'd learned how to secure her hair by herself long ago. "And Fala..."

"Yes, miss?" There was a scrape as the saddlebags were located, and the maid dropped them onto the bed.

"Do not try to leave. I know you are being paid to keep an eye on me."

Fala's breathing quickened, and she packed the saddlebags as efficiently as possible. "No, my lady, it is not so."

"It surely is. But I cannot have anyone trying to stop me from leaving. I am sure you have already told the Council of my intentions of taking a trip, but I am leaving tonight as you have probably figured out by now." Fala tried to protest, but Molly held up a hand and the maid fell into silence. "I will not be stopped. The fate of the world may depend on this trip, and I cannot be here for the Council to trot out on special occasions. I will not be here for their whims."

Fala squeaked, "As you wish, my lady. I - I have packed your clothing."

The doors resounded with a loud knock, and the maid scurried over to answer it before Molly could do anything. The smell of hot food wafted in as servants from the kitchens entered with supper. "Bloody hell," Molly shouted, "Don't let her leave!"

She took three large steps forward even as Fala slipped out the door, and ran into the corner of the platform that held the tub. Tripping, Molly sprawled onto the stone floor, and one of the servants from the kitchens ran over to see if she was alright. "I am fine, damn you," she said, "My maid! Stop her!"

[Calleh]

Calleh heard shouting above him as he hurried up the spiraling stairway to Molly's chambers, and he nearly collided with a very frightened-looking maidservant on her way down.

"A thousand par-"

She didn't even spare him a glance but picked up her skirts again and hurried off down the stairs. So Calleh hurried on his way as well.

Until he met the cluster of footmen crowding their way out of Molly's door. He pressed himself against the wall as they stumbled past.

And finally he hurried through the doorway to find Molly pulling herself to her feet.

"Molly - I am very sorry - but we need to leave. Now."

[Parsideon Denix]

"Where would you go?"

Denix paused mid spoonful, looking at the sights around him. Seabirds guffawed in the distance, and the sandy beach turned to amber oatgrass within a few strides, which stretched on into patches of palm trees and other vegetation. The Necian took quick stock of the surroundings, mindful of what to look for in search of civilization.

"Fyrian would be harried to the coast by the storm. If there is a village, they may likely know if he's passed nearby."

The Captain's brow furrowed.

"Something of these shores is disconcerting. There are no ascents within sight inland. The archipelago is much craggier than this."

There was a chance that they had sailed as far west as Asga. In this case, they could be halfway to the Hadar wastes by now.

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder almost choked on his porridge, spitting out a slimey, grainy mush onto the sand.

"You want to go after Fyrian!? Don't you know when to quit? If you go, you go alone. I'm not chasing down my own boss, not for your bloody Latern!" he exclaimed, pointing his spoon accusingly at Denix.

[Parsideon Denix]

"If you don't go," Denix spoke plainly and in even tone, "then I will kill you. The reason you are alive is because there is still a chance to rectify Fyrian's treachery. Without your cooperation, all I have is vengeance."

Denix didn't look at Calder, and continued to eat.

"And spare me the indignation. Your allegiance isn't to Fyrian, it's to the coin. A hundred Fyrians will come and go, and you will no doubt have a flourishing trade."

The Captain thought about this, and what was at stake. Mulling it over as he chewed, he eventually shook his head.

"That being said, a promise from a Necian soldier is sacrosanct, written by Veris' infallible quill. I am bound to it by pain of death from dismemberment.

I promise you, no harm will come upon you, or even to your pirate lord from my hand, so long as the Lantern returns to Demos."

It was done, then. There was no backing down from his words.

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder furrowed his eyebrows in concentration for a few moments, thinking over the Necian's proposal, before letting out a sigh. Of course, Denix was right. Calder was only out for the money. He'd leave Fyrian in a flash at the prospect of higher pay. And the fact he was unarmed, well, it didn't leave much room for objection.

"Fine" he replied, then started shovelling more food down his throat. "So when do you want to leave?" he continue, after swallowing his mouthful.

[Blind Molly]

"Molly - I am very sorry - but we need to leave. Now." Calleh entered the room shortly after Fala rook off, and his voice sounded strained.

The Seer pulled herself to her feet with the help of one of the footmen, and frowned. "I was just about to say the same thing." Shrugging off any more help, she crossed to the bed and slung her packed saddlebags over one of her shoulders. "You may have to assist me - without my walking stick it is slower going."

Calleh came to her side and took the saddlebags from her, and she placed her hand in the crook of his elbow.

"What about dinner?" asked one of the men from the kitchens.

Molly's stomach growled in response, but she said, "Thank the cook for the lovely meal, but you may eat it yourself for all I care." Her escort had her outside the doors and headed down the stairs before she could catch a reply.

[Calleh]

With the seer's arm in his, Calleh started down the stairs as quickly as he dared until he found she was pulling him faster. So he quickened his pace and kept a careful watch on the shadows.

"The horses are already prepared for us," he said. "My own horse is stabled at a nearby inn; he will be ready when I call for him--"

He was unable to explain himself any further. They had just turned into the corridor toward the palace stables to find a pair of guards barring the way - the two guards that had turned Calleh away from the gate. They dipped their spearpoints meaningfully. "M'lady, we've been instructed not to let you leave until the council has reached a decision." The lead guard gave Calleh a baleful look. "And not to let this foreigner leave in any circumstance."

[Parsideon Denix]

"Fine" he replied, then started shovelling more food down his throat. "So when do you want to leave?" he continue, after swallowing his mouthful.

"As soon as we finish our porridge. The sun is not yet midday. We have some hours before it is at zenith."

Denix squinted into the sky. The heat was noticable, even now. It may be a good idea to take cover before then.

"We will take stock of provisions that washed ashore. Gather water skins and what foodstock we can."

The Captain pulled a leather pouch from his belt, jingling the metal contents inside.

"We are fortuitous. I secured a purse of Necian coin. I imagine the people near this coast still honor gold. Perhaps their assistance can be bought. Cooperation or not, we should head north."

[Blind Molly]

Molly drew herself up to her full height, her chin tipped upwards as she pulled on every ounce of regality that had been ingrained into her. "You will let me pass. The Council does not control my every move. And this man is my honored guest."

[Calleh]

"Sorry, ma'am. We have our orders."

Calleh, in contrast to his companion, bowed deferentially. "I appreciate your situation, but our need is urgent. Perhaps if we spoke to..."

He stopped short because he saw the guard's shadow moving - moving in a way the guard wasn't. It took him a moment to realize it was peeling itself off the floor and standing upright.

"What are you looking at, foreigner?" the guard sneered.

Calleh threw his hands forward and cried something in his own tongue - "An-Nayyir!" - and a bright light flashed from his palms, causing the shadow to duck behind its source - but the other guard, fearing some pagan curse, threw himself at Calleh, knocking him to the floor.

The Ankaaric scholar struggled but was no match for the larger Dalriadan warrior. "Molly, get down!" he gasped.

The shadow creature had risen up out of the floor again and seized the shadow of the first guard's spear. Hefting its incorporeal weapon, the phantasm lunged forward and rived the guard through the heart - he looked down in shock at the black, bloodless spear bit protruding from his chest and slumped to the floor, dead.

The shadow shook the corpse free of its spear and turned its featureless face toward Molly.

[Calder Aquasis]

"North it is then" Calder replied in an instant, raising the bowl to his mouth and pouring the rest of the porridge down his throat.

Setting down the bowl and spoon, he set about opening crates and barrels, searching for provisions, and maybe even a weapon. No such luck though. He tied a couple of water bladders to his waist, before folding up some loose rag into a make-shift bag and filling it with fruit. He needed as much moist provisions as possible. The Glaucan would have a tough time on land anyway, and now with the heat rising, it could only get worse.

"Right, that should about do it" he puffed, stretching his arms. "North you say?"

[Cailean MacGabhann]

From time to time, Agviðr Wordsplane had looked in on his apprentice, curious of his progress. What he saw troubled him. Sweat beaded on Cailean's brow, his concentration evident. Each time the carpenter entered to see what more had transpired, he saw new fatigue in the young Fian. His shoulders sagged and he would pause frequently to wring tension out of his hands. It was a matter of perseverance. The boy had a strong heart and will; Agviðr knew that Cailean would not be overcome.

Once finished, he was determined to deliver the staff himself. Wordsplane had instilled in him a sense of pride in his work and although Cailean was not usually one prone to such arrogance he could not help but feel accomplished at having finally completed the seer's request. He moved through the muddy streets with quick steps, spurred on by this and the thought that he could sleep once he was unburdened of the delivery. So absorbed in this task, he did not notice that the shadows around him seemed... slanted somehow.

[Blind Molly]

There was much confusion around the Seer, and she crouched down at Calleh's words, his arm taken out from under her hand in a crash of armor. The air seemed strange, but she could not pinpoint why.

Any water spells would take too much time, so Molly turned to her other talent in summoning a gale to blow outward from around her and her companion. A quick and dirty working of the air element, the wind was strong enough to knock down a charging human, though it did not last more than five seconds.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix secured a scutum which had washed its way ashore, and carefully rinsed the sand from its contour. Gripping the shield by the leather bindings underneath, he took several additional water rations, as well as the gold purse and cinched them all at his belt. Taking a bite from a fruit he'd pilfered, he paused roughly to gesture the way.

"North, yes."

They began their walk, initially in silence. A soldier to the last, Denix kept his eyes on the horizon, mindful for silhouettes or the distant sounds of pack animals that might signal approaching danger. The seabirds in the distance grew more concentrated.

"Birds like that, I'd wager good fishing ahead. Perhaps we'll find a fish monger, and with him, a village."

The Captain busied himself with studying the sand as well. There were no footprints of men here, only wind ripples and the occasional etching of bird feet.

The pair continued on the path for a couple of hours, with Denix pausing on the half hour to make sure both he and Calder drank from the water skin.

[Calleh]

The shadow fluttered and stretched in the wind - feeling itself start to break apart, it shrieked at flattened itself against the wall.

Startled by the shriek, the guard on top of Calleh tried to leap to his feet but tripped over his dead comrade. He cried out in horror, oblivious to the shadow that was rising out of the wall once more, swinging its spear toward the supine scholar -

Calleh tore one of his swords from its sheath at his hip and thrust it upward into the shadow's abdomen. He spoke another spell, and a set of graceful runes etched along the blade suddenly flared with blinding holy light. The shadow screamed as it burned away into a vapor.

"Manes!" the Ankaaric scholar gasped, hauling himself to his feet. He turned and caught Molly's hand. "We must hurry - there may be more!"

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder walked with a relaxed manner about him, several times falling behind Denix a few meters as he slowed to observe the surroundings. It had been a while since Calder had last explored a place untouched by civilisation like this.

As of yet, there was still no village in sight, and Calder was growing weary. Plucking a fruit from his bag, he ripped at the skin with his teeth before tucking messily into the watery flesh.

"So, err..." the Glaucan started, trying to think up a topic for conversation. "What's so special about this Lantern? Like, what does it do?"

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix looked at Calder, dumbfounded.

"You go through such an effort to pilfer the Lantern, and know nothing about it? Such absurd ignorance."

The Captain considered further chastisement, but just shook his head as he walked. There wasn't really any point in taking offense. Calder was crude and had uncouth ways, much less any respect for civil society and the rule of law. It was almost like dealing with a child.

As they crested a hill, Denix decided to explain on basic terms.

"The Lantern is an artifact of great power, a receptacle holding magics of fire beyond any sole conjurer's affinity. The lantern is a series of concentric crystals, focusing the fire magics into a limitless light source. Set atop the great lighthouse, it serves as a beacon capable of shining even to distances across the Great Sea of the East."

[Blind Molly]

Molly flinched as Calleh took her hand, pulling her along. "Manes in the capitol!?" She stumbled as they ran, but caught herself and kept going. The situation was worsening every moment that passed! After a moment of running the Seer dug in her heels and pulled on her companion to slow down. "Turn right here, the stables -"

Calleh grunted in consent, and she soon recognized the feel of the cobblestones strewn with straw under her feet. "My mounts!" Molly cried out, and stableboys went scurrying to press reins into their hands and help her into her saddle.

[Calder Aquasis]

"Aha. That kinda thing could be quite handy...you know, if someone in your heirachs wants it, I'd be damn careful from now on" Calder replied, wagging his finger at Denix as he continued to chew through his fruit.

Then something caught his eye. Smoke, on the horizon. The heat waves made it difficult to distinguish, but there was definately smoke. He pointed towards it, glancing over towards the Necian.

"Look! Look! Now, you reckon that's a village? Or some forest fire we really don't want anything to do with?"

Indeed, the smoke was rising from within a forest, well, jungle, but whether there was a clearing there, Calder couldn't tell. There was a lake just before the trees began, with tiny wooden platforms just about visible. Things were looking up.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix grimaced at the Glaucan's implications.

"The lantern is bestowed to all Necians, and it was stolen from Necia. What citizen can steal what is his already?"

He well understood the broader subtleties, but he wasn't about to be reminded of them by a Pirate. What did he know of justice, beyond how best to scatter from the searchlight?

Denix gave pause as Calder spotted the plume of smoke.

"The fire seems to be controlled. There is but a single pillar of smoke."

The Captain allowed a smile, and brisked his pace toward the lake.

"Looks to be piers, perhaps belonging to a fish monger."

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder's shorter legs quickened to keep up with Denix.

"Oh thank Denetion!" he yelped in an almost childish manner.

He began to run towards the lake, the call of the water to much for him to resist. He'd been baking in the dry heat for too long now, and the Glaucan needed the cool, refreshing feel of water around him. Speeding across one of the piers, there was no-one in sight. However there was a line of string held up at each end by sticks, on which hung a few fish. Calder barely caught a glimpse of it before plunging into the lake, diving deep to escape the heat of the surface.

Fish fled as the Glaucan glided around underwater. For a few minutes, he stayed there, refreshing himself. Guessing that Denix may have caught up by now, Calder returned to the surface. He was met by a less than impressed look from the Captain, which the Glaucan had expected. Climbing out of the lake, he shook the excess water from his hair and grinned.

"Well, no fish monger as of yet. I guess we should head towards the smoke?"

[Cailean MacGabhann]

Sounds rung in the distance, the clatter and crash of chaos unfolding. Cailean frowned. He heard a noise like the whinny of a horse, but somehow shriller. Raised voices, calling something indistinct, were sucked up into the sky. Caught up in a sudden sense of urgency, Cailean found himself running – not away from the sound but, maddeningly, towards it. His knuckles were white as he held the seers staff in one hand, and it would have taken a giant to pry the rod from his grip. Some thread of magic pulsed through the grain of the wood, from and to his fingertips. Something told him that the gnarled cane would soon see his first use, and his suspicions were confirmed as he wheeled around a corner into the courtyard of the palace stables.

A horse reared before him with a loud and frenzied neigh. It's nostrils flared and its eyes were wide with accusation, one liquid-black pupil glaring down at the young Fian. It's hooves thundered against the cobblestones and damp straw strewn here and there, as it's restless body threatened to throw its rider – the Seer herself - to the ground. Cailean stumbled backwards. Both his hands went to the staff, so that it would not be damaged, as he tumbled into a pile of muddied hay. He felt the breath knocked out of him by the fall, as he clutched the staff against his chest.

[Parsideon Denix]

The Captain gave only a stone-faced nod, and resumed his pace, skirting the bank of the lake, with Calder alongside.

The familiar sound of beasts' hooves caught Denix's attention, and he turned sharply at a fork on the path that led away from the smoky alcove, deeper into the inland forest.

The Captain had hoped to move off the path in advance to avoid their notice, but they'd likely seen them approach the lake bank.

"Highwaymen." Denix barked out, pulling Calder by the collar of his tunic and shoving him roughly off the path.

Sure enough, there were five, riding upon fearsome Gorraths, black-maned beasts with horns, bred as war mounts in the barbarian mountains beyond the Jarnvid woods. They were popular among the savage tribes throughout the East. The riders were a motley crew of three Men and two Trow. They wore mismatching leathers and pelts, and each carried a foreign-looking blade, and a surly disposition.

They formed a half circle, spreading across the intersection and circling the Necian Captain, who for his part made little movement other than to square his scutum up, front and center.

"Clear a lane! I am a Necian Citizen, and I have business here!"

Denix remained unflappable, but trained his eyes on each of the highwaymen, one by one.

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder shuffled unsteadily behind the Necian, his eyes scanning the surroundings, searching for any environmental features that could aid in combat, or even better, escape. Not only could the Gluacan use no magic, he was unarmed. Even a skilled swordsman was worth nothing without a blade.

He could always use the lake, if worse came to worse. But what of Denix? The Glaucan hummed quietly, his eyes settling on the bandits. He was getting ahead of himself. It might not even come close to what he'd been thinking about. As long as Denix was standing firm, Calder was quite happy to linger behind him.

[Calleh]

Molly flinched as Calleh took her hand, pulling her along. "Manes in the capitol!?" She stumbled as they ran, but caught herself and kept going. The situation was worsening every moment that passed! After a moment of running the Seer dug in her heels and pulled on her companion to slow down. "Turn right here, the stables -"

Calleh grunted in consent, and she soon recognized the feel of the cobblestones strewn with straw under her feet. "My mounts!" Molly cried out, and stableboys went scurrying to press reins into their hands and help her into her saddle.

Calleh hefted two large deerskin sacks of provisions, so heavy he thought he might topple over, and with great effort slung them over the back of the other horse. Another stable boy assisted him in tying the bags to the saddlehorn.

"Open the gates," the scholar ordered. The flustered stable boys stumbled their way to the stable doors and hauled them open, exposing the busy streets of Bai-Ulgan. Calleh clicked his tongue and tugged on the reins of the pack horse, and Molly's horse followed close behind.

"Which way, Molly?" Calleh asked. "Which gate?"

[Parsideon Denix]

"We'll be taking a toll on this road, foreigner. What gold have you?"

The nearest Trow dismounted his beast, and glowered down at the relatively shorter Necian.

Denix looked vaguely annoyed, and not very surprised by the demand.

"What is your toll, and what nation do you serve?"

The demand elicited a chuckle from the band, and the large Trow replied.

"Who speaks of nations? The toll is what you have."

Denix smiled thinly. So, highway robbery it was. He looked back to Calder for a moment, and back to the Trow, his face stony and unconciliatory.

[Calder Aquasis]

The Glaucan hoped to the Gods Denix knew what he was doing. Taking a step forward, his mouth hovered near the Necian's ear and spoke softly.

"Look, not that I wouldn't mind seeing the back of you, but just think about this. Are we really in a position to object?"

Stepping back again, he forced a smile towards the bandits, who returned the gesture with cold looks of malice. Calder began to scuff his feet on the ground nervously, hoping that Denix would get rid of the highwaymen.

[Parsideon Denix]

Behind the visual obstruction of the scutum shield, Denix loosened his purse strings, pulling the leather pouch off his belt and letting it jingle with a healthy sound for all to hear. He then held the bag above his shield, and tossed it forward, so that it landed about a foot in front of him.

The large Trow, sating his greed, dropped to his haunches to recover the prize. Unfortunately for him, he knew little of Necian religion. Surrender was not only disgraceful, but it was sacrilege. A Necian offering concessions is a smart enemy looking for the correct impetus to strike. The war gods will bless the faithful.

And now, Denix of the Parsidei had his impetus.

The scutum jerked up in an instant, and the Captain drew it's broad metal-banded edge forward, and downward with all of his leverage. The weight of the infantry shield caught the thief at the ligaments of the wrist, severing the hand from his arm with unclean butchery.

When the Trow jerked back to recoil, he wailed terribly. Again Denix was given his impetus, and his thrusting sword was drawn in an instant from behind his shield. It threaded the sanctuary of the shield's rim, and was driven straight through the disarmed thief's mouth, it's dread bloody point bursting from the back of the dead man's head.

Denix glanced back at Calder with a smile that was less thin than before. Now he truly had the beast by the tail!

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder stood in shock, as did the remainder of the highwaymen. He really didn't know what to think. They were still outnumbered 2 to 1. As Denix layed his eyes on Calder, the Glaucan's own widened as he gazed upon the bandits. It looked like they weren't going to take too kindly to the killing.

"Err...Denix..." he said, nodding towards the 3 Men and the Trow, still mounted and now grumbling, apparently still deciding what to do. The last gurgling bits of life drained from the impaled Trow as his eyes rolled back, and everything was silent for a few moments.

"Now then" spoke Calder, waving his hands about. "There's no reason we can't settle this like gentlemen, is there?" he continued half-heartedly, his voice noticably higher than normal.

Wicked grins spread on the bandits faces as the ringing sound of blades being drawn sounded out through the trees. Calder only hoped that Denix had a plan B.

[Parsideon Denix]

"Get to the water, Calder!"

Denix drew back his shield, breathing a blast of fire in the direction of one of the warbeasts that had begun to charge. The fire spooked the animal, which reared back and dislodged its rider onto the ground.

Of course this left him open, and he had barely enough time to draw his shield back before the first beast reached him. The rider swung a broad cudgel down, catching the Necian scutum squarely on the metal bosswork. The Captain wasn't harmed, but the force was immense, enough to knock him to the ground.

The lead Gorrath decided to forego a Coup de Grace on Denix, and began to run toward Calder.

Denix worked to his feet, only to have the dismounted rider kick away his shield. Quickly, he brought up his thrusting sword in time to halt a quick swipe from the thief's hand axe. He backed away, and the man came again with a telegraphed overhand chop. Before he could make good on it, the Captain dipped low and opened his belly with a rising swipe of the blade. The man dumbfoundedly dropped his axe to recover his entrails, and Denix promptly set him aflame with a searing breath of fire.

Kicking the flailing human torch aside, Denix looked back at Calder, and the approaching rider.

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder dashed away towards the lake, his arms flailing. Soon he heard the fast approaching steps of the Gorrath, and the voice of its rider shouting about how we was going to rip the Glaucan to pieces. There was still a way to go before Calder reached the water. It was going to be close.

The ground started turning to sand as the lake drew closer, slowing Calder's retreat. The steps grew closer and closer, and the pirate dared to look behind him.

"Uh oh...."

There was a swish as the bandit's blade came slashing through the air. Calder leaped to one side, rolling over on the sand as the Gorrath ran past. One thing was for sure, Calder would be more nimble than the lumbering mass of the persuing beast.

The Gorrath veered around in the half circle, heading back towards Calder. It was all he could do to dive away again as the highwayman darted past, and once again Calder was able to make a dash for water.

Scrambling across the sand, the Glaucan hopped onto a nearby pier that led out ten meters or so across the water. He heard the sound of splintering wood as the Gorrath gave chase, and the cries of the rider as man and beast fell through and into the water. Calder launched himself off the end of the pier, diving deep and swimming down into comfort and safety.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix spun about in time to bring his shield to bear against a plume of fire which had erupted from the Trow.

By Igneon's smoldering phallus, another Fire affinity!

Flames licked the Necian's shield but proved no large deterrent to him. The Trow must have known this to be so, for he soon stopped his assault. The symbols of the League's Avatar of War were scorched on the shield, but the damage wasn't serious.

Considering his own skin, the Trow pulled the other man from his Gorrath and hopped across it, spinning it about to flee the fight. The Captain turned from his fight in time to see the rider chasing Calder smash violently through the pierworks.

The field was theirs! Denix drew a stout metal object from his belt, and drawing on his metal affinity skill, drew the metal shaft outwards until it became obvious that the item was a Scytus, a heavy javelin specifically carried by Necian Captains. The spear feeling light in his adept hands, Denix loosed the weapon at the fleeing Trow, catching him through the back and knocking him clean off the Gorrath, which continued down the way.

[Blind Molly]

"This way!" Molly called, giving her horse its head and kicking it with her heels. The animal bolted forward in the direction it was pointing, headed for the Cobbler's Gate via a wide cobblestoned alley.

A clatter of hooves behind her assured the Seer that Calleh was following closely. Ahead of them the small gate, used mostly by tradespeople and workers from the castle, creaked on its heavy iron hinges. But was it opening or closing?

The horse had no hesitation in its steps, but Molly hunched low over the mare's neck as they neared the gate.

[Calleh]

Sounds rung in the distance, the clatter and crash of chaos unfolding. Cailean frowned. He heard a noise like the whinny of a horse, but somehow shriller. Raised voices, calling something indistinct, were sucked up into the sky. Caught up in a sudden sense of urgency, Cailean found himself running – not away from the sound but, maddeningly, towards it. His knuckles were white as he held the seers staff in one hand, and it would have taken a giant to pry the rod from his grip. Some thread of magic pulsed through the grain of the wood, from and to his fingertips. Something told him that the gnarled cane would soon see his first use, and his suspicions were confirmed as he wheeled around a corner into the courtyard of the palace stables.

A horse reared before him with a loud and frenzied neigh. It's nostrils flared and its eyes were wide with accusation, one liquid-black pupil glaring down at the young Fian. It's hooves thundered against the cobblestones and damp straw strewn here and there, as it's restless body threatened to throw its rider – the Seer herself - to the ground. Cailean stumbled backwards. Both his hands went to the staff, so that it would not be damaged, as he tumbled into a pile of muddied hay. He felt the breath knocked out of him by the fall, as he clutched the staff against his chest.

Calleh had scarcely managed to mount the second horse, a giant compared to the light, fleet horses of his homeland, and was riding off-balance after Molly as she cantered toward the Cobbler's Gate. But then the seer's horse reared up, and the Ankaaric scholar was scarcely able to pull the reins back and keep his mount from plowing into hers. Through the confusion of legs and shadows he could see a thin young man tumbling onto his back on the ground.

Behind him, he could hear the bawling of the palace guard and the tramping of iron-clad feed. They were being pursued.

Somehow Molly kept her saddle and spurred her horse on through the gate. Calleh looked down and met the fearful eyes of the young man on the ground - pale, slender-boned - could he have been Fian?

Without fully knowing why he was doing it, Calleh leaned over in his saddle and gripped the staff the Fian held so tightly. Using the staff as a handle, the Ankaaric scholar hauled Cailean to his feet and, with his help, up into the saddle behind him. Then he dug his heels into the horse's sides and rode hard in Molly's wake.

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder sat in the waters for a few minutes, hoping things would tide over whilst he hid. He knew there was no honor in hiding. But then again, he did work for Fyrian. Calder had given up on honor a long time ago.

With a push of his legs, the Glaucan moved back towards the surface, cautiously poking his head above the smooth water. Nothing was happening any more. The bandits were no longer a threat.

Calder headed out of the water, stopping to look down on the dying Trow with a javelin through his torso. His moans were weak. He would die soon.

Crouching down, the Glaucans hands roughly removed the Trow's sword and sheath, before attaching it to his own hip. Standing again, Calder continued back towards Denix, drawing his newly aquired blade to examine it closer.

Wherever it was from, Calder couldn't regonise. The blade was relatively thin, and slightly curved. Carved into the sides were foreign patterns, the grooves filled with what seemed to be gold. Other than that, the rest of the sword was pretty simple, in both design and decoration. It seemed sturdy enough, and placed Calder in better steed than without any weapon at all.

"So, I guess they weren't as much of a threat as I though, eh?" the Glaucan called to Denix as he drew closer. "How about we get moving before anything else shows up?"

[Parsideon Denix]

"Of course. First, we gather spoils."

The custom of spoils was as old as war itself for a Necian. The victor of combat had by divine right a claim to compensations from his enemy. To that end, Denix passed by the corpses, finding water skins, a few provisions, and some meager jewelry that would turn a profit to some jeweler perhaps.

That was when he heard a moan from one of the raiders lying on the ground. The Captain raised his thrusting sword in anticipation, and pulled the thief up to his knees by a lock of his hair, exposing his neck should he need to open it.

"Please I beg of you for mercy!"

Denix paused and examined the man's, no, the boy's face. He could not have been more than fifteen years. With a grunt, Denix released his hold on his hair and pushed him back to the ground.

"You are not yet a man. You haven't hair on your face. Why have you fallen in with such criminals?"

The boy had no answer, and began sobbing.

The Captain looked annoyed, and stepped over to the dead Trow, removing his scytus javelin with a quick jerk. He cleaned the weapon, stowed it, and used his thrusting sword to hack the dead Trow's head from his neck, before cleaning that too and returning it to scabbard.

It was then that he caught sight of the Trow's money purse, and freed it from his belt. Inside, he found something interesting.

"Calder, a moment."

[Moreth]

Scarcely a quarter mile up the path from the carnage, deeper into the forest and directly underneath the pillar of smoke that Denix and Calder had seen, there sat a solitary figure tending a fire. There was little to say about the figure other than that it was solitary, for it was shrouded from head to toe in thick, black cloth. Even its face was tightly wrapped beneath its cowl, leaving only a narrow strip where one might have imagined seeing the glint of two pale eyes.

Over the fire, a fat pheasant was spitted and slowly roasting. It had died most horribly, though there was not a mark on it aside from the spike of wood through its carcass.

A shadow slithered its way through the trees and came to rest beside the shrouded figure. The figure bent its head as if listening.

"So they have come to no harm after all," it said in a voice as dry as cinders.

The shadow fluttered on the dry leaves.

"It matters not. They will come to me and I will learn their business. And see what use I may get out of them."

The figure leaned over and turned the pheasant on the spit. Its flesh glowed golden-brown over the fire. The shadow whispered something on the breeze.

"No," the figure replied, "not yet. We are still waiting for the fullness of time."

A drop of fat fell into the crackling timber and sent up a flash of sparks. The shadow cowered away from the burst of light.

"Don't be worried, little brother. Your kind will feast on theirs soon enough. For now, you may sate your appetite with the bandits they've just killed."

The shadow flitted away, and the figure, which was solitary once more, settled beside the fire to await its other visitors.

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder looked from examining to hilt of his weapon, eyebrow arched as Denix called him over. Scittering across to the Necian captain, the Glaucan slowed down within a few meters of Denix, walking closer.

"What is it?" he asked plainly.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix flipped a gold coin to the pirate. It glittered in the sun for a moment before it landed in his hand. On it, Calder would be able to clearly recognize the imprint of the sacred Necian Aquila, the official seal of the League, and marker of legal tender.

"I don't expect many travelers on Asga to be monied with a pocketful of Aquilae. I wonder if our friend here would know anything about that?"

The Captain turned to the sobbing teenager.

"You, boy. Who paid this man?"

The teen looked up, tears wet on his face.

"I swear I don't know, sir!"

Denix crossed his thick arms. It didn't need to be spoken that he didn't believe him.

"I am from the Necian League. You have heard of this place?"

He timidly nodded his head. Denix continued on, raising his voice, but maintaining an even tone.

"I have been given writ of Executor, and have the power to dispense reward and punishment by sacred law. You can absolve yourself of this assault by giving me a name."

[Calder Aquasis]

"Assassins!" Calder exclaimed, as if a light bulb had just popped up over his head. "You little..." he continued, before restraining himself, snarling and waving his hand dismissively as he turned away. The lad was much like a young Calder was; a wanabe renegade, but when push came to shove, he was still scared like a child.

[Parsideon Denix]

"No name?"

The boy looked sullen, and Denix scoffed at his lack of an answer.

"No matter. I have a notion of it myself."

Denix reached forward and stripped the curved dagger from the boy's belt.

"I'm legally permitted to kill you, but the War God Graxa accepts spoils and hostages, the same as corpses. Besides, you aren't yet a man. So I will not kill you, boy. You'll be a slave, instead."

The Captain's words seemed to have a lightening effect on the adolescent, who was anticipating a sword in his belly. Denix didn't let him dwell on the thought of his spared life, and kicked him roughly in the side.

"On your feet!"

With that settled, the Necian met a decidedly wetter Calder, and raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'd question the sanity of allowing you to carry arms, but it seems the highwaymen were just as content with the prospect of your death as they were with mine."

[Calder Aquasis]

"That's real charming" Calder replied bluntly.

Tossing a few water bladders to the boy-slave, the Glaucan turned on his heel, before striding off towards their initial destination; the plume of smoke.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix didn't have time to mend the Glaucan's offended sensibilities, and instead stacked what provisions he could find on a pair of Gorrath that had remained milling about. He led them along, tethering them to a tree just as they entered the forest.

Gesturing the boy to follow, he nodded. "Move along."


The smell of smoke was now present, and they continued along a trail into the forest. After a few moments, it became obvious that there was no settlement here. It was a single fire in the woods.

[Moreth]

The smell of smoke mingled with the smell of freshly roasted meat, a siren's call to any weary traveler, especially a traveler who had eaten only saltwater porridge for breakfast. The pheasant, now crisp and juicy, glowed like a trophy in the waning light.

One man, hooded and cloaked, sat beside the fire, pushing through the embers with a hardened staff. The cowled head turned slightly toward the newcomers.

"Hail, fellow travelers," he said in a voice that carried despite being nearly insubstantial. "Come, share my fire. There is more here than I can eat alone."

[Calder Aquasis]

A little voice inside Calder's head started screaming. "Food! Food! Food!"

His eyes rested on the pheasant, and he almost started drooling. Were it not for the previous events of the day, he would certainly have dived on the chance to eat again. As it were, the assassins had made Calder all the more cautious in these parts.

The Glaucan hung back a little, looking back to Denix and the boy-slave. He really wasn't sure what to make of the situation. It would be a good place to rest. But whehter the stranger could be trusted was something else completely.

[Parsideon Denix]

"Well met, stranger. We saw your fire and chanced on finding a nearby town."

Though the man seemed inviting enough, something gave Denix pause. He saw neither pack animal nor baggage with this fellow. Was he then a hermit? Was he possibly familiar with the banditry they had encountered?

The Captain took a seat on a fallen log across from the man, turning one of the game bird spits.

"I'm Denix of the Parsidei. My associate is Calder Aquasis. Apologies for our shabby appearances. I'm afraid the Sea God took to some offense, and our ship was lost at sea. Do you know the nearest town?"

[Moreth]

The stranger turned his face toward the newcomers to show that it was swathed in cloth. Yet the cloth itself seemed to smile.

"I'm not one to take issue over appearances," he said. "My name is Moreth. And my homeland is so far from here you would not know its name. I know little of this land, but I have not seen a town for fifty leagues. I am bound west and north for Dalriada."

From his sleeve he produced a black-bladed knife and sliced into the roasted pheasant. "It is customary for guests to take their portions first."

[Cailean MacGabhann]

Panic threaded through Cailean's blood like ice as he watched the seer flee. In her wake, in the cloud of dirt and dust kicked up by her horses hooves, another beast cantered into view. The swarthy rider bent towards him and the young Fian saw the mans were fixed on the staff he carried. His knuckles grew white as he held hard on the wood, as if it would somehow protect him. In an instant, it seemed as if the rider was trying to tear it from his grasp – but not so! With ease and strength, he hefted Cailean into the air – the boy dangling, from the staff, mid-air – and dropped him down onto the hard leather of the horses saddle. With one hand still in a vice-like grip around the staff, the other clung onto the rider for dear life. A volley of arrows whistled over head, their heads burying hard into the earth. The horse cleared them in a single bound, the rider urging it onward with loud cries.

“Who are you?”

Cailean blurted out the words, not even caring to hear the answer. “What's going on?”

[Blind Molly]

The Seer clung to her horse tenaciously, even when the beast reared to its hind legs. She had little skill with animals, unlike those with Wood or Earth giftings, but she was a fine rider and settled the horse quickly.

Through the gate and into the city, cobblestones worn smooth by foot traffic, and deeply rutted in other places from tradesmen's wagons, Molly spun a wind spell to find the direction she wanted to go in. Hardly hesitating, and hearing Calleh's horse behind her, the Seer shook the reins and her horse leapt down a street. They would be clear of the city walls in a few minutes, if nothing more happened.

[Calleh]

"I am Calleh ben-Sudr al-Fard," Calleh shouted back, "and we are fleeing more than soldiers. I suggest you stay with us until we are clear of the city."

The horse beneath him was a powerful beast, but Calleh knew it would tire of carrying two riders and a full pack before long. And as it thundered over the cobblestones, the Ankaaric scholar noted with some aching regret that it was not as graceful as the mounts he was used to.

He glanced around as if watching for something. And then he saw it.

At first it was little more than a flash of silver and a clatter of delicate hooves from a side alley. And then it came flying over a fencerow, a magnificent Malhallan mare, far smaller and sleeker than the Dalriadan chargers. Her pelt was silver gray, but her shoulders and flanks were flecked with roan - a bloody-shouldered mare, one who would be the trophy of a Rajjah's stables if ever she could be caught. She wore no saddle and no harness.

"Kuhaylah!" Calleh cried, and the horse matched his mount's speed effortlessly. The Ankaaric scholar lifted Cailean's arm off his waist and pressed the reins into his hands. "Follow her," he ordered. And then he slipped his legs over the Dalriadan horse's neck and leapt down onto Kuhaylah's shoulders. The Malhallan did not even break stride, but she splayed her ears and huffed indignantly.

"I'm sorry," Calleh said, "but we were in a tight spot, and she was the only horse available. I'll make it up to you."

Kuhaylah knickered and, with no direction from her rider, charged past Cailean and past Molly, leading the way toward the open city gate and freedom.

[Calder Aquasis]

"Fifty leagues? Well, that sounds promising" Calder retorted as he moved towards the fire. "Thanks" he continued with a noteably more friendly tone as he took a few slices of the pheasant.

Taking a seat a tree stump, the Glaucan wasted no time in digging into his food, licking the juice from his lips after each bite.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix ate as well, not refusing a host, however eccentric, of his hospitality.

"I would advise caution, then. These roads near us seem thick with bandits."

I paused, eyeing the boy, and resumed.

"Dalriada, you say? You have some journey ahead of you. Haven't you any pack or provision?"

[Moreth]

"My needs are simple," Moreth said, cleaning his blade. "I travel light."

He turned his shrouded face toward the boy, and the boy shuddered at the glint of his eyes in the firelight. Moreth leaned over to offer him a cut of meat as well, and after the briefest hesitation he took it and gobbled it hungrily.

"If you are heading in that direction, perhaps we could travel together for a time. We should have little to fear from bandits then - not with a Glaucan pirate and a Necian captain in our midst. And I am not defenseless myself."

Moreth lifted another fragment of meat to where would have been his mouth. Somehow it disappeared beneath the folds of cloth.

[Calder Aquasis]

"The more the merrier!" Calder exclaimed, his mood lifted significantly since eating. "But, I don't really know where we're headed" he continued as he chewed.

The Glaucan looked over to Denix, a questioning look on his face.

"Any ideas?"

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix paused and raised an eyebrow. It is possible that this well-traveled soul could recognize a Necian Captain from the cut of his tunic and armor, but to surmise Calder as a pirate as well? He had unnatural perception.

"I had hoped to find some evidence in a town to guide us, but we are tracking a fleeing criminal named Fyrian. I know he is close, because he paid this boy's accomplices off, no doubt with some design for doing mortality work upon us."

He paused, casting an eye to the boy before returning to his host.

"I wouldn't suppose you had an inclination about other travelers down this path today?"

[Moreth]

Moreth tilted his head.

"If it is Fyrian you are pursuing, would he have not escaped by sea? Unless his ship was consumed by the storm, in which case he is comfortably underwater, along with whatever it was he took."

He chuckled - a dry, rasping sound.

"Do not look so surprised, Captain Denix. A sea-fight like yours is hardly a private matter. And I suspect the two of you were not allies in that affair. The Fates are fond of irony. But as for your question, I have seen your bandits, but no one else. Are you certain it was Fyrian who set them on you? It seems a lot of trouble to put off one Necian bloodhound."

[Calder Aquasis]

"Fyrian's pretty thorough like that" Calder butted in, pointing a shread of pheasant at Moreth. "I don't really know who else it would be" he continued, before finishing the last of his meat.

Calder would feel bad, feel betrayed by Fyrian, if were not for a one fact. Fyrian was still a pirate; a scallywag; a criminal, much as Calder was. There was only ever one person a pirate was out to look after, himself. It would have been foolish to expect any mercy from the older Glaucan should he learn of Calder's bargain with the Necian.

[Parsideon Denix]

"Who else? The bandits were paid in Necian coin, which I doubt is regular tender this far south. And Fyrian needs to find his buyer. He's stolen items of some value."

Denix ate, brow wrung with thought as he did. There was something queer about this cowled traveler that vexed his intuitions. He could not quite place it, so it stuck with him as a curiosity.

"Dalriada, you say? That is a considerable journey. The intersection we met didn't seem to carry road any farther north, so it may do us well to travel west with you, at least until the next town."

[Moreth]

If Moreth heard their objections, he gave no sign. Another fragment of meat disappeared beneath the black hood.

"I would welcome your company," he said. "So far I have had only the shadows as companions."

The fire was beginning to die; with a few strokes of his staff, Moreth scattered the embers, and the shadows drew in closer all around them. He tossed the meatless pheasant carcass into the forest for the crawling things to consume.

"If you are ready, friends. There is much ground to cover."

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder hopped up from his seat, glad to finally have company that hadn't tried to kill him before now.

"The Gorrath!" he exclaimed, having remember spying Denix tether them up as the Glaucan paced into the forest some time ago. "They could take two people each, do you think?"

[Cailean MacGabhann]

Cailean took to the charger uneasily at first, unaccustomed to riding at anything more than a light trot – but it was not long before he too was whipping the horses reigns, urging it to ride harder and faster. With the crop in his hand, the carpenters apprentice felt some of his fear melting away, as he was transformed from hapless and helpless follower to an image of the Fian rangers themselves, leading the stead onward with ease. Its hooves fell heavy in the tracks left by Calleh and soon Bai-Ulgan was a blur of color and sound.


When the world slowed, Cailean did not recognize it. He was surrounded by trees and ahead, half-hidden beneath thick brambles, a thin stream threaded through the landscape. The charger, who had slowed to a listing gait, trotted forwards eagerly. Still in the saddle, Cailean strained to look over his shoulder, to the man and woman he had followed.

[Blind Molly]

She could feel the stream nearby, and hauled up on the reins, slowing her horse to a trot and then a walk. Calleh came alongside her, but there was another rider on a third horse that gave her pause. "Who is with us?" she frowned, a breeze blowing her hair back from her face.

[Calleh]

Kuhaylah strutted past the other two horses and tossed her head disdainfully at the stream, as if to say she surely wouldn't be thirsty after such a modest trot. Calleh slid down from her back and reached up to stroke her neck, but she huffed and paced away.

"I believe he was making a delivery," the scholar said, glancing at the stick still in Cailean's hand. "My apologies, friend. I thought it would be a shame if we left without Lady Molly's new walking stick."

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix nodded reluctantly at Calder's suggestion.

"It won't be comfortable, but it's possible. We may even be able to carry some of the pack and provision that the bandits left behind."

The Captain gestured to the boy slave who was eagerly finishing his portion of the stranger's offering.

"Boy, what manner of baggage did your men have?"

The slave spoke sullenly "Bedrolls, sundries, and some hard-tack biscuits sir. Aside from money and weapons which you have taken already."

"What do you know of the road west? No treachery, or I'll open you for it."

He gulped, and spoke with the truth a person is given who fears their death. "It rides for three days to the pass between the Jarnvid and Verbannen. From there, to Steelwood."

Denix grumbled audibly. He'd spent enough time in the Larci Wars against the woods bandits and hill barbarians. They were a sordid and changeable people, and certainly quick to violence if it was to their benefit.

"Any towns on the way?"

The boy nodded "A trading post more like. Swine farmers from the south trading for northern pelts. Smells like rotten stew, that place."

Trade was good news to hear, odors or no. Satisfied, Denix stood, rubbing his grubby hands at the bottom hem of his tunic.

"Let's go."

[Moreth]

By the time the sun had begun to dip toward the western rim of the world, the steady, lumbering pace of the gorrath had brought the four travelers to a clear, dusty field and a cluster of sad-looking hovels and pens planted haphazardly around the road. The stench of pigs pooled in the valley like water.

Moreth had declined to ride the beasts, which shied away from him anyway, but he didn't seem to tire, or even breathe heavily. Or, if you were paying very, very close attention, at all.

"Your swine farmers," he observed. Already several ragged-looking men were emerging from the hovels to meet the travelers. Several of them had staves or roughly sharpened blades, but one of them carried a bow, held loosely, but not carelessly, at his hip.

A large, barrel-chested man with a full, unkempt beard after the manner of the northern barbarians stepped forward to confront them. "What is this? Be you part of Skoll's band? We have already paid our tribute in full!"

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder steadied the gorrath he was riding, his eyes wandering over the welcoming party. The beast padded its feet on the ground uneasily, but calmed a little as the Glaucan ran his hand down the creature's neck softly.

"Only travellers" Calder called back to the bearded man. "We're not here to attack you, or your..." he trailed off as he looked around the place. "...Settlement" he finished.

The man looked at Calder somewhat disapprovingly. It was true there was prejudice between Men and Glauca in certain parts of the continent, and it didn't suprised the pirate to experience such a thing in a place as barren as this.

[Parsideon Denix]

By this time, the group was weary enough of the road, and even a stop in this forlorn place was anticipated. The slave boy had endured his march with dignity, which was good to see.

Denix hung back initially as the settlement's inhabitants came to greet their visitors. As was custom with such uncivilized company, they did so at the end of a blade. Violence was a common language, so it was not unexpected to see them so fluent.

Calder took the lead in speaking for them, which was well enough. He was adept at oration. Anything Denix had to say to these people, the sight of his armor would say louder still. Though Csephion Draxus had imposed agreeable and even perhaps merciful peace terms upon the barbarians, there existed this unspoken apprehension between both parties.

"We've come for provision, information, and trade."

[Cailean MacGabhann]

Cailean slipped free of the chargers saddle. The horse, a broad stocky thing, stood stubbornly still for a moment before it was urged on towards the stream by a pat to the flank. As he turned back to his newly acquired traveling companions, Cailean felt the strain of the ride in his knees. His muscles throbbed with a dull ache.

“I have your stick, my lady,” he said, as clearly as he could. His accent was not the broad tongue of his father, but it did not have the clarity or noble cadence of the lords and ladies of Bai-Ulgan. “My name is Cailean... I am an apprentice to Agviðr Wordsplane. He sent me to deliver your order, on account of being too infirmed to do so himself.”

His eyes moved to the staff once more, darting quickly over its surface. The wood had taken a knock or two during the ride, and Cailean felt his heart sinking at the sight of them. Touching his trembling fingertips to the imperfections, he smoothed them away as best he could, before holding the stick out.

“Here, my lady.”

[Calleh]

Calleh's educated eyes caught the deft movements of Cailean's fingers. "Woodcraft!" he exclaimed. Catching a look from the Fian, he quickly explained, "Such gifts are rare among my people. I have never seen them in practice."

Kuhaylah approached the Ankaaric scholar from behind and tapped him on the shoulder with her nose.

"I apologize; I have forgotten my manners," he said. "Master Cailean, Lady Molly, may I present Kuhaylah, a queen among horses. I know not where she comes from but cannot doubt she has royal blood. She has been a friend an ally to an unworthy rider."

Kuhaylah stepped forward, eyes full of undimmed intelligence, and bowed her silver muzzle toward Molly.

[Moreth]

"Trade?"

The spokesman lowered his sword and looked back to his fellows. There was a fit of murmuring, and then he faced the strangers again.

"That is a different matter, then. There has been too much violence in these lands. But lay your hands from your weapons and we will do the same. Is it just the three in your party?"

It might have been a simple miscount, but it wasn't. Moreth had vanished.

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder looked around, silencing a gasp as he noticed to declined number. Who was this Moreth guy anyway? Whatever was happening, Calder decided to play along, for now.

"Aye, just the three us of..." he said, frowning as he looked to Denix, who no doubt had also noticed the disappearence of their fellow traveller by now.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix steadied his whining Gorrath, who had most certainly noticed the conspicuous absence. The strange nature of Moreth was less benign and far more confounding now. The Captain did his best to supress the irritation on his face. Instead, he cut to the chase, rummaging through his purse to pull a coin, which he passed to the first settler.

"We were ambushed by bandits to the east who carried coins such as these. Have you done any trade with Aquilae recently?"

The beared man grunted, bit down on the gold, and shook his head.

"Nothin of the sort here. Most don't carry gold. Mainly barterin'."

Denix nodded, and looked to the boy slave.

"We can do that as well."

[Guy]

It was a Gift. It was something that one could not give to himself but was given to them by somone who in return expected complete loyalty and a lifetime of servertude and was choosen to keep it, be it burden or ability for the rest of that persons life. Guy had this gift. Guy was one of only a handful of choosen people amoung the Ankaarim that held such a prestigious position within the world. He was 'Hashshashin', choosen at birth from bloodlines to be molded in to an assassin, Their goal was to take out Ankaarim leaders in politics and religion and destabalise the Kingdom of Ankaa in their own favour. They had a militant basis which was employed in various political or religious purposes and were feared and hated as a result by those of high blood.

The earliest memory Guy had was hunting and killing animals in the desert and then skinning them and consuming them. Guy was born to kill, to enjoy killing, to bathe in the arrogance and glory of holding a mans future in the palm of his hand. His place on this world was to destroy lives and bring chaos upon those around the mark. Chaos was the key, the death of the mark was only a start, only the begining, but it was the rift that the death caused that could change things, manipulate decisions and theories and weave the future to benifit others. Guy was a creator of aftermaths, a murderer.

But it was a GIFT. Guy was a essentially a God in his own mind, at the hands of his blade anyones life could be ended within an instant, within seconds! He had apsoloute power and besides his own master of the order, Al'da'jadim, and the regional leaders he was all powerful. His blade had ended the lives of more than one politician or religious leader and on all of those occassions he had total control of his mark and his enviroment, he would watch them, stalk them even knowing that he was in control of his marks life. He could snap it away in the blink of an eye and then be forgotten like a grain of sand on the wind.

Today was the same.

Guy crouched comfortibly on the edge of a flat roofted building over looking the rest of Bai-Ulgan. Most buildings in the city where Guy hailed from were flat roofted and white washed just like any desert arcutecture should be and but this city in Dalriada, the roofs were much diffrent and peaked and Guys movement above the city was hampered this made his job alot more difficult as Guy prefered being off of the streets.

Below Guy were the winding streets of the unfamilier city the apparent hub of trade and commerce for hundreds of miles in every direction. The assassin could see women carrying jars of water upon their heads, children playing and running through the market stools, laughing, men deep in discussion of the news of the day, women washing their cloths and putting them on the lines high over the heads of those below in the streets.

But it was none of these insignificant people Guy was watching intently but it was the man further down the dusty, sandy cobbled road that he watched. A man upon a stage with a large crowed gathered around him preaching political propaganda to those watching, not an impotant figure but it was a man that this preacher knew well that Guy needed to kill and the only way to know their where abous was to 'extract' infomation from this propagandarist. The time was now. Standing to his full height, using the roofts as a mood of getting to his target without causing attention, Guy began to hop and freerun over the city sky line towards the small square that his mark was in, it was seconds before his death and he had no idea.

[Blind Molly]

Molly's blood was high from the chase, and her cheeks were flushed pink as she pointed her face in the general direction of the two men who had dismounted. Still on the back of her horse, she reached down towards them and the carpenter's apprentice put the newly shaped walking stick in her hand.

Lifting it up she ran her hands over its smooth surface, and smiled, "Truly a work of art. And perfectly sized as well. My compliments to your master, young Cailean." Setting the walking stick behind her, wedged between bedroll and blankets, she nodded to her other, perhaps stranger companions. "And I suppose it is an honor to meet a queen of horses, but I have other things on my mind so I hope she can forgive my impatience, Calleh.

"With my imperfections it is necessary that I put much trust in you, but I would like a quick explaination as to what it was we were running from. Having to flee from the Council is one thing, but this was unexpected and I do not like the unknown." She paused, but before Calleh could say anything she turned towards Cailean and said, "Master MacGabhann, you have been caught up in something much bigger than yourself, and no doubt you are wondering the fastest way back to Bai-Ulgan. You can leave now, albeit afoot as we have need of the horse, or you may stay and assist us in our task though it is dangerous. If you stay and hear what we are about, however, you must remain with us. I cannot allow the Council to find out what we are about for they will try to collect me back to the palace forthwith."

[Calder Aquasis]

Calder coughed, sliding off the saddle and hopping onto the ground. Skittering over to Denix, he gave a grinning nod to the locals, before turning to the Necian and speaking in a hushed.

"Eyyy, you sure that's such a good idea. I mean, I know he tried to kill us and all, but he could be pretty useful. And not just for carrying stuff..." he glanced over to the boy, who was starting to look nervous. "You sure he's told us all he knows?" he continued, breaking eye contact with the slave.

[Cailean MacGabhann]

The young carpenter stammered something that might have been a word of thanks, had he not been so nervous. When the seer spoke, his nerves were certainly not quietened. He did not, thanks to their rushed escape from the city, remember the way back to Bai-Ulgan. Unconsciously, he glanced over his shoulder to the hoof prints that the horses had left in the damp earth and wondered if he would have the skill to navigate his way based on their guide alone. More than this, he wondered if he wanted to go back.


“I'm not sure that I can go back, now...”

[Calleh]

"We would not wish you to feel compelled against your will," Calleh said. "But I am certain we would welcome your assistance."

He offered the young Fian his arm and, in the custom of the Ankaarim, clasped Cailean's at the elbow. In many ways he could see himself in the Fian's eyes - bewildered, out-of-place, caught up in a whirlwind without really understanding how or why. Calleh had felt that way himself when he first started on this quest. And for the most part, he still did.

Somehow, this understanding passed between the Ankaaric scholar and the Fian woodsmith, and Calleh knew he deserved to hear more.

"The scholars of my country teach that magic flows in great currents and streams throughout the world," he said. "It flows out from places of power like fountains in the earth. It fills the air and waters with life. And it gathers in those who have been gifted as mages. We call this flow of magic the Etherium."

Calleh glanced toward Molly and noted that her lips were pressed together impatiently, and Kuhaylah snorted into his hair. The Ankaaric scholar decided to quicken his pace.

"Something has tainted the Etherium in my homeland at our greatest source - the headwaters of the sacred river Eridan. I have traveled here to Dalriada to inquire after the condition of the Etherium in these lands. Lady Molly and I are journeying to the sacred places of Dalriada to discover if they, too, are tainted.

"You must understand this is a matter of utmost gravity. The flow of magic governs the natural rhythms of the earth. If it is interrupted, the results could be cataclysmic. The barriers between seasons, night and day, life and death themselves may be broken. And furthermore..."

He hesitated and swallowed, for he had not had time to share this with Molly yet. "Since I began investigating this crisis, I have encountered creatures of shadow - wraiths, manes, tainted beasts. I have reason to believe they are pursuing me. Which means they are united by some purpose, a purpose we may have to thwart. I do not think this poison is a natural accident. I believe it to be some sort of attack."

[Blind Molly]

"Manes..." Molly muttered, adding, "I am not familiar with this name, though they sound like the bogeys Daldriadan children are frightened by to keep them in line. They have not been seen in this land for at least a century. That such dark creatures have regained a foothold in Daldria is distressing, and that they have followed you, Calleh, is even more so."

She pulled on the reins of her mount, and the horse danced lightly on its hooves, turning to face the two men. "All the more reason to keep moving, for these manes will not be deterred and I do not think we killed them. The Steelwood lies to the south and east of our current position, and is a journey of many days."

[Parsideon Denix]

Calder coughed, sliding off the saddle and hopping onto the ground. Skittering over to Denix, he gave a grinning nod to the locals, before turning to the Necian and speaking in a hushed.

"Eyyy, you sure that's such a good idea. I mean, I know he tried to kill us and all, but he could be pretty useful. And not just for carrying stuff..." he glanced over to the boy, who was starting to look nervous. "You sure he's told us all he knows?" he continued, breaking eye contact with the slave.

Denix made a pained face, also speaking within decorum.

"He's not seasoned. No discipline and no training. Would you take a brigand, still dirty behind the ears? We can sell him for a horse, and perhaps trade that for a more suitable slave in some more civilized place."

The Captain could see that the Glaucan was having none of it. Resigned to compromise, he scowled.

"By Narso's Phallus you are a soft one. Do mind to not let him cut your throat at night. If we reach Steelwood, perhaps I'll buy you a wetnurse too."

Denix snapped his fingers at the boy, who came to his attention.

"Take the reigns of the beasts."

He turned to the settler, handing him a pair of gold coins.

"We'd be obliged to take corn and water for our beasts if you'll accept gold, and to press on."

The settler gruffly sounded in the affirmative, and shouted to the distance, where a pair of rustic, plain women brought a clay carafe of water and loaf bread.

"Accept our hospitality if you will, strangers."

[Cailean MacGabhann]

“The Steelwood?”

The mighty waters of the Megingjord travelled many miles south from Bai-Ulgan before cutting across the eastern most borders of the Steelwood. The dark forest lay dangerously close to the hills that overlooked Verbannen, where it was said that the former Prince Hugo Mergovas lived still, in exile. There were plenty of stories telling of what lay beyond the borders of Dalriada, but Cailean could not have said with any certain which of those held a grain of truth. If anyone was to know, however, he thought, it would be Calleh – after all, he was a descendant of far off and foreign lands, whom the people of Bai-Ulgan only heard speak of in childhood tales. He would know, and if he could not be trusted then the Lady Molly would see through his deception with ease.

In his mind eye Cailean saw old Wordsplane battering his doors closed, locking himself inside the workshop to keep the shadows at bay. The old man was sturdy, but if the city guards could not fend off the phantasms, the carpenter had no chance.

“We really can't go back, can we,” Cailean said, finally. His voice was quiet, as if he was speaking only to himself. He wondered whether it was only the city that had been attacked, or if the outlying provinces had suffered too. He thought of the rest of the extensive MacGabhann clan, his adopted family, and for a moment saw an image of the farmstead burning to the ground. A frown flashed over his features as he shook the thought away.

“I-I'm not sure what help I can be, but if I can be any... I'll come with you.”

[Calleh]

Calleh was abashed, both at Molly's reproach and at the look of apprehension that had just washed over Cailean's face. It was entirely possible, though the Ankaaric scholar had tried to deny it in his own mind, that he'd brought these dark creatures to Dalriada much sooner than they would have come otherwise. More than that, he'd brought them straight to his companions' home city. They had already killed a man. Perhaps he was partly to blame.

All the more reason to persevere, he told himself, to make certain that death was not a vain one. He would be more careful in the future, pay closer attention. But his quest was just, and because of that, it could not fail.

The scholar clapped the Fian stoutly on the back. "I cannot think it was mere chance that brought you here, Cailean," he said. "I think the three of us have come together for a purpose."

Kuhaylah rumbled behind him, and he quickly added, "That is, the four of us. Lady Molly, this is your country. I would guess we have three more hours of daylight - shall we press on until dark?"

[Blind Molly]

She smiled tightly, but nodded. "We should get more distance between us and the city. I fear my sudden departure will gain us more pursuers, of the mortal variety."

Molly looked in the direction of Cailean, and hoped her face did not look as fierce as she was feeling after thinking about the Council sending keepers after her. "Your assistance will be greatly appreciated, young man." She paused for a moment, considering that he might not be all that much younger than she was. "At any rate, further conversations will have to be suspended. The lack of light coming will not bother me, but the horses must be able to see the road, lest they come up lame."

She clicked her tongue and her horse pranced forward again, energetic enough for another run. "I'm afraid I'll have to follow your lead, Calleh."

[Cailean MacGabhann]

Cailean felt frantic, all of a sudden, as if he thought that Calleh and Lady Molly would ride off and leave him if he didn't saddle up quickly enough. He moved quickly back to the charger and, with visible strain, hauled himself back into the saddle. The horse tossed its head back in apparent irritation – perhaps it had not yet finished drinking. There was no time to wait, however; that much was clear. To be in an unfamiliar land was unsettling enough, without the threat of nightfall by which all manner of darkling creatures could assail them...

[Calder Aquasis]

"Food!" the Glaucan yelped, skittering over towards the women. He stuffed a large wedge of bread into his mouth, chewing contently.

"Now!" he grinned, turning back to the settler. "Corn and water, and then we shall make haste!"

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix filled a clay bowl to the rim with water and drank from it.

"How long is Steelwood from this place?"

One settler spat.

"Two days by hard ride, though I don't know why you'd care to venture. There are only bandits there."

Denix nodded, breaking a loaf of bread as he talked.

"That is what we're counting on."

[Calder Aquasis]

The feet of the gorrath pounded the track, their bodies lumbering on at a steady pace. Calder steered the reins of one, the slave boy sitting behind him, whilst Denix rode solo. They had stocked up on supplies, and now rode solely for Steelwood.

Moreth had unsettled the Glaucan. Their chance encounter and now his sudden disappearence left an uneasy feeling in the pirate's belly.

"Where do you think he's gone? Moreth I mean?" he called out to the Necian. "Or perhaps more importantly, what do you think he is?"

[Calleh]

Calleh looked uncertainly from the darkening sky to the Fian woodsmith to the Dalriadan seer.

"We are too close to Bai-Ulgan to camp here," he said. "Yet pressing on through the dark has its dangers as well..."

Kuhaylah nudged his shoulder forcefully and gave an impatient knicker. Calleh turned and stroked the horse's cheek. "Yes, quite right. Better to face danger than to wait for it."

With another look to his companions, he leapt onto Kuhaylah's bare back. "We should put at least ten more leagues between us and Bai-Ulgan before we rest for the night. It will be dusk before then. But we can make our own light."

A fist-sized globe of pale white light rose from his open palm and hung above them like a miniature moon. It would be enough to guide them to wherever they chose to camp.

What lay in store after that, only The Shining Ones only knew.

[Blind Molly]

Molly smiled, as in the dark as always. With a cluck of her tongue her mare started forward, the seer holding the reins but mostly giving her the lead. "Then we should be off. If we are headed somewhere in paticular, then I'm afraid you may have to lead my horse. I am fairly good at mad dashes, but aiming the horse is not quite as easy as it sounds."

She held the reins up and to the side, where she had last heard Calleh's voice. "Do not worry about me falling off, I have not done so yet." Molly smiled, feeling the touch of rough fingers as one of her two companions took the reins. "After a few days, she will get used to following your horses and this will not be necessary."

The seer patted the mare's neck, and squeezed tightly with her knees, holding onto the horse's mane as the trio got underway once more.

[Parsideon Denix]

The feet of the gorrath pounded the track, their bodies lumbering on at a steady pace. Calder steered the reins of one, the slave boy sitting behind him, whilst Denix rode solo. They had stocked up on supplies, and now rode solely for Steelwood.

Moreth had unsettled the Glaucan. Their chance encounter and now his sudden disappearence left an uneasy feeling in the pirate's belly.

"Where do you think he's gone? Moreth I mean?" he called out to the Necian. "Or perhaps more importantly, what do you think he is?"

Denix pondered this for a moment. It was a question that was foremost vexing his brain as well.

"What man can vanish among plain sight with such ease?"

The Captain's brow furrowed as they marched onward.

"Perhaps it is a messenger of the Gods." The slave boy offered up an interesting suggestion.

"This is possible. The Gods are known to send heralds, and possibly even go themselves under disguise."

If this was the possibility, it upped the stakes. Was the meeting for gain or ill fortune? What God was visiting them?

At this, Calder faltered, his shoulders slumping as he fell forward. The slave boy just barely caught him around the middle as he slumped. Denix was quick to dismount, running over to the Gorrath's side.

"What has happened?"

The slave boy looked as confused as he, and looked down to the Glaucan's palid and sweat-beaded face.

"It is a sudden progression my lord. Too sudden for the flux. Might have Morreth put a curse upon him?"

Denix pulled the shivering Glaucan to the ground, holding his eyes open, which were dialated and unfocused. He looked up at the Necian captain momentarily before falling unconcious.

"No!"

Denix grabbed Calder by the shoulders, shaking him violently as to attempt to break the affliction he was under. He would not have him die, lest his chance to restore his sacred honor die with him.

Seeing that he had little in the way of comforts to offer him, Denix hefted the Glaucan and deposited him across the back of his own saddle, lashing him securely. He took to the beast again, and bellowed at the slave boy.

"We ride, quicken your pace. We must find Calder a remedy!"

The Gorraths began to tear up the road at a quicker pace than before, and Denix's eyes were peeled for signs of those who might render aid.

[Moreth]

The pair of gorrath and their three burdens were close to the borders of the Steelwood when they began to overtake a traveler on foot.

It was tall and thin and dressed in a plain and somewhat tattered black cloak with a heavy hood. When they drew closer, it turned its head, and Denix and the slave boy saw a familiar cloth-wrapped face, which was as inscrutable as ever.

"Denix of the Parsidei," Moreth said. "I rather hoped we would meet again."

He did not move from the center of the road, and the gorrath, without any direction from their riders, turned aside, unwilling to cross the stranger's path.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix drew his reigns sharply and glowered at the figure in his path. Where he had been confused about the traveler before, now there was more of a sense of foreboding.

"What manner of travel is this that you flee from sight and advance beyond the means of beast of burden?"

He dismounted, walking towards the shadowy entity.

"I must know your intentions, strange one. Are you a herald of the Gods? What manner of sorcery is this?"

[Moreth]

"Even beasts of burden need to sleep," Moreth replied, looking past Denix. "I do not. What has happened to your Glaucan friend?"

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix fumed at the response. What manner of answer was that. He thought about what Morreth asked next.

"I was hoping you would help to answer this. He is under an affliction I believe to be unnatural. It struck quickly."

[Moreth]

Moreth walked around Denix and approached the Necian's gorrath - the beast whined and shied away from the dark traveler, but Moreth lightly brushed its head, and it sank back into its customary cow-eyed stupor. He examined Calder at arm's length but did not touch him.

"Pirates are known to travel to exotic lands where they may encounter strange maladies," he observed. "I have done nothing to him, if that's what you were wondering."

[Parsideon Denix]

What he said was true of a sense. He knew the sort of dangers that were likely to strike men of nautical trade, but the sudden ferocity of this disease seemed like no flux he had seen. He remained openly suspicious of Morreth's intentions, but his suspicions wouldn't bring the Glaucan his health back.

"We must get him to a healer. I do not care of the flux, just that it is undone."

He regained his mount, preparing to push onward again. Given Morreth's cryptic and changeable disposition, he knew not his intentions, only that he didn't have the time to spare to humor them.

[Moreth]

Moreth stepped aside to let them depart. "There are no healers for three days' ride in any direction," he said. "There is, however, a sacred place not far from here. If you truly believe his affliction to be unnatural, perhaps you should seek the favor of the local gods."

[Parsideon Denix]

Again he pulled up the reigns to stop his advance.

"Tell me where this place is."

He glanced back to Calder's unconcious form. It was worth a chance.

[Moreth]

"I will take you. I am bound there myself. I have been, all the way from Ankaa."

Unbidden, Moreth crossed over to the slave boy's gorrath and mounted it behind the boy. Both boy and beast stiffened with fear.

"Follow this path another league," Moreth said. "Then we turn for the East into the forest. I will guide you from there."

[Parsideon Denix]

"Do what he commands."

Denix bade the boy slave into action, and again the Gorraths were driven onward. He very much doubted the stranger's accounts for his own ability to travel, but he had little recourse. Whatever action could be taken to secure Calder's life, it must be so.

[Calleh]

The Dalriadan wilderness passed like a scroll beneath the three horses' hooves. They traveled through forest and over moor, avoiding the roads and villages along their way - until he had seen the Sacred Circle and was sure it was still safe, Calleh would not risk exposing himself and his companions or their mission to anyone. His incaution had already cost two innocent lives. He would not be responsible for any more death.

Several days had passed since their departure from Bai-Ulgan. Calleh still rode at the head of the party, though the others were beginning to think it was Kuhaylah who was finding their path and not Calleh. The young scholar spent much of the time gazing at the Dalriadan shrubs and trees as they passed, quietly reciting their names and properties to himself in his own language, though there were many he could only guess at.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that it came as a shock when he realized, quite suddenly, that the forest around them had somehow changed.

"Lady Molly," he said quietly, "is this it? Have we come to the Steelwood?"

[Blind Molly]

The three travelers, exhausted from long days and short nights on the road, rode their horses at little more than a walk as they passed through Dalriada. The seer resisted the urge to stand up in her stirrups and rub her complaining rump with a free hand, and instead put her mind towards other, more comfortable thoughts.

Such as, what exactly was she going to do when they arrived at the Circle? She sighed quietly, though she thought she could feel Cailean's gaze on her as she did so. The young Fian woodsmith had the reins of her mare tucked into his hands as they followed Calleh ben-Sudr Al-Fard through the trees. They hadn't been near a river for a day or so, and she felt smudged and dirty. Her companions said nothing about her appearance, but Molly knew that her hair and clothing were possibly more rumpled than they'd ever been in her entire life.

She would have asked one of them to brush her hair for her, had she not been too embarrassed. It wasn't as though she couldn't do it herself. She just had been too long away from water and was beginning to feel the need for a good long bath.

"Lady Molly," Calleh said softly, "Is this it? Have we come to the Steelwood?"

Blind Molly sat up straight in the saddle, despite her sore behind, and turned her head from side to side. The air felt slightly different, now that she thought about it. Not only were the days warmer now that they were in the southern part of Dalriada, but there was a sharp, almost metallic edge to the breeze that wafted over the trio. The air was full of magic.

"If we are surrounded by cedars," and she could begin to smell the aromatics of the wood that was all around them, "Then, yes." Molly leaned forward with anticipation, and the horses picked up their feet a little more as the party continued forward. "The Circle is in the southwestern portion of the Steelwood."

Had she been able to see, Molly would have had no better view of the Steelwood than what she held in her imagination. On this site, long ago in Dalriada's ancient history, there had been a great battle between rival states. No one knew now who the participants had been, except that they had been warriors of men.

As was the custom in the day, the fallen warriors had been buried in the field of battle, dressed still in their armor and holding their swords. The cedars had grown up over the graves. Here and there a sword hilt, or the edge of a breastplate could be seen where the earth had worn away with the passage of time. In some places entire suits of armor lay barely covered by leaves and mulch, the bones of the men who'd worn them still trapped inside.

The trees appeared to be holding the dead men down into the earth, their roots tangled with the bones and keeping the armor safe from would-be robbers. Not that anyone would dare pillage the Steelwood. It was not nearly as dangerous or dreary as the Ironwood in the north, but the Steelwood, for all its sunlight and fresh breezes, was not a place one felt entirely comfortable.

The Sacred Circle was a bare patch in the midst of the forest, a near perfect circle of grass that stretched seven meters in diameter. It was said to be where a great Fire/Metal battlemage had fallen, his death spell ravaging his enemies all around him in one final heroic blast.

Molly had been to the Circle once before, as a child of eleven. She had felt the great nexus of powers that were caught and twisted together in the Circle, a knot of magic that had collected great power over many, many decades.

She felt her breath catch in her throat as she reached out towards the Circle with her Air magic. The knot appeared to be unraveling.

[Moreth]

The gorrath were bulky and more accustomed to open plains than wild forests, and they labored mightily through the Steelwood, plowing a path through patches of undergrowth and young saplings. Moreth guided them like a hound on a trail, and when their way was barred altogether, he would leave his saddle and wander as if searching the air, then mount again and find another route.

The Steelwood was deadly silent wherever they went. There was birdsong in the distance, but the birds seemed to stop whenever they approached.

When the slave boy saw the first armored corpse half-buried in the ground, he cried out in terror. "Ghouls! This place is cursed!"

Moreth rasped with laughter. "The Dalriadan gods are a bloodthirsty lot," he said. "They feast on death - the deaths of their enemies or their followers, it doesn't matter to them. What of the Necian gods, Denix? What sacrifices do they demand?"

[Parsideon Denix]

"The North Men worship capricious Gods."

The sights before Denix's eyes remind him much of the Jarnvid, the Corvi, and the Larci, and that great gluttony of war that he had known only so soon before. Everywhere around him lay the remains of war and the war dead. He decided not to linger his eyes long upon them, lest Xarex, the brutal servant of Igneon fill him with a delirium of his past bloodlettings.

He looked up, eyes with the faintest look of a man intoxicated. In a blink it was gone.

"Our Gods do not dine with so much mess, but I suppose with equal appetite."

At least in the Jarnvid, the barbarian dead of the field were given to Igneon. Even their arms and armor, melted into tribute, idols, and even more arms.

The trio rode onward, and the smell of cedar brought a crispness to the otherwise warm air. The slave boy had quieted his trepidations somewhat, though Denix was not comforted.

"How much farther?"

His patience wore thinner. His affinity senses were nearly overwhelmed by the nature of this place. Powerful forces were once at work in this place, and Moreth was either leading them to magics beneficial to Calder's fragile state, or toward outright doom.

[Moreth]

Moreth breathed in deeply - or there was a sudden inrush of air beneath his hood, it was difficult to say if he ever breathed - but when he spoke his voice sounded airy, elated. "We are close. We are very close now. You can feel it, can't you?"

The castaway armor and protruding bones multiplied, and it was clear they were approaching the epicenter of the ancient conflict. Swords and crosstree spears grew from the earth like reeds around a pond, and Denix and the boy had to steer the gorrath carefully to keep them from gutting themselves on the protruding blades. But after a half-mile, they had come to the Sacred Circle.

There was no mistaking it. It was a perfectly round, perfectly flat circle of short, springy turf growing in black, almost volcanic soil. The trees surrounding the circle didn't intrude upon it, but they leaned toward it, spiraled around it, shaped by the powerful waves of energy that flowed out from the circle into the Steelwood.

Moreth dismounted and walked into the circle's center, tracing a fingertip through the short grass in strange, geometrical patterns. "Pray in whatever manner seems fitting to you," he said. "I have my own business here."

[Calleh]

Calleh felt the chill of the Dalriadan air all the more keenly among the ancient fallen warriors. Seeing so many bodies improperly entombed put him in the mind of the ancient enemies of Ankaa, the Nusakar. That kingdom was extinct, buried under the scorching sands of the Hadar waste, but their ruins remained, their temples and cities and unholy crypts. It was said that even in death the Nusakar lay in wait, ready to wake and fall upon any who disturbed their halls, to add them to their ranks, the army of the dead.

But these warriors were dead, and dead they would remain, or so Calleh told himself. But he could not quiet his heart altogether.

"This is your holy ground?" he said to Molly nervously. "I am not certain it sits well with me. So much death in this place. I thought it was in your culture to burn your dead, or bury them in mounds?"

[Blind Molly]

Molly shook her head. "No... no, not my holy ground. The Sacred Circle in the midst of these woods is a place of great power. These... warriors..." the seer gestured aimlessly, "were buried centuries ago. I am told the ground has eroded from their graves, though I have not seen it myself."

She laughed without mirth. "Apparently it is quite macabre."

Leaning towards Cailean she murmured, "Do you sense it? Mostly Fire and Metal here, yes... but it has drawn in the others." She raised her voice, "The battlemage who according to legend created the Circle with his death was a Fire mage with Metal affinity also. You might be feeling the effects of his final spell, Calleh, with your shared affinity for Fire."

Molly reached behind her for her walking stick, making sure it was still firmly wedged in her belongings. "I feel the disturbance. The Circle feels unstable to me."

[Cailean MacGabhann]

For the longest time, Cailean had not spoken. As they had travelled south through field and forest alike, his mind had been almost anywhere but in the present – wondering as to the safety of his family, to the security of Bai-Ulgan. When they reached the Steelwood, however, he could do nothing but confront what he was presented with. It was a macabre sight and for a boy who had rarely strayed outside of a carpenters work yard, it was particularly unsettling.

On a deeper level, the magic of the 'wood called to him Where the trees were at there thickest, he felt a swell of strength and rode with his shoulders squared, head high and proud – but as they neared the Circle, all of this buoyancy began to slip away. The voracious flames of a fire-mancer had scorched the Circle forever, so that no green thing would ever grow there again. To Cailean, it was disjointing, disorientating, like a void in his perception... and though they had yet to reach the Circle itself, already he longed to be away from it. His fingertips curled tightly around his horses reins, as he swallowed down a hard lump of fear.

“This isn't... natural,” he managed to choke, at last. “Something feels.. terribly wrong.”

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix slowly dismounted. The affinities of Igneon and Hephaes were so thick as to be overwhelming in this spot. Where elsewhere he felt his natural talents bound to reasonable limit, here in this place he was capable of so much more. The Captain breathed in deeply, exhaling a plume of smoke from his nose. He blinked, stopping at the periphery of the circle. He could not forget what was important.

"Boy, bring Calder to this spot. Do not delay."

The slave did as he was commanded, and Denix stepped inside the circle, dropping to his knees.

"Igneon and Hephaes hear your faithful. I ask for whatever remedy may come to this Glaucan, if it is within your power."

He looked up as the slave boy dragged Calder's limp body inside the mystical boundary. The Necian drew his blade, running the edge along his forearm, causing a line of crimson to well along it. He smeared the sword's broad edge with his blood, and when the bleeding was done, he set the blade alight, setting his meager sacrifice to flame in hopes that it would appease his affinities.

If the Gods were forthcoming with their good favors, they were working on their own time. Calder remained still. The flame slowly died on the blade, and Denix closed his eyes, rising to his feet as he thrust the tip of the blade into the soil as he let his weapon cool.

A sound from opposite the circle alerted him, and Denix snatched a scytus from his belt, the spear extending and snapping into its full length with far less effort than was usual to bring it to bear. The hollow of the spear's point, smeared within with pitch, snapped into a bright flame as Denix looked across for signs of threat.

[Moreth]

While Denix attended to the stricken Calder, Moreth carried on with his own ritual. Drawing a thin, black-bladed knife, he tore down through the thin layer of grass into the loose, cinder-like soil beneath. Once he had lifted away the the tangle of roots that held the turf together, he plunged his hands into the loose soil and scooped out a hollow the size of a man's skull.

Moreth flinched when Denix drew his own blood. He had not seen it, but he sensed it. And so had the thing he carried.

Slowly, he reached up and pulled down the cloth wrapping that concealed his face. And then he reached inside and down. His arm disappeared to the elbow.

Then he drew something out from where his heart must have been. It was a small, bulbous, poisonous-looking thing like a mandrake root, a gray, fibrous tumor with branching white tendrils that writhed like maggots. On one end of the thing, protruding like a dagger blade, was a long, tapered taproot.

He tucked the thing close to his breast. And then, with utmost care, he reached with his free hand and replaced his cloth mask.

[Calleh]

The perimeter of the Circle was thick with growth. Calleh had dismounted to lead Kuhaylah in. So when he stepped from the thicket onto the woods, this is what he saw.

A man - or creature - robed in black and kneeling at the center of the Circle, clutching something in the folds of his robe.

A Glaucan lying dead or senseless at the Circle's edge attended to by a young boy in rags.

A fair-haired man in armor turning to meet them with a firebound spear and, next to him, a sword in the ground blackened with scorched blood.

Suddenly it was all clear: they had come upon some foul pagan ritual, where this pale man and his dark companion were preparing to make a blood sacrifice of this Glaucan to bend the Circle's magic to their own evil purposes. And he would not allow such blasphemy.

"An-nayyir!" he cried, and a nova of holy light burst across the circle, blinding any who were looking directly at him.

He drew his swords and rushed toward the Necian, shouting, "Come! We must surround them!"

[Blind Molly]

Something feels... terribly wrong. Molly was inclined to agree with the boy, but her thoughts were interrupted by Calleh's cry. Still on her horse, the Seer frowned, but slipped down, her skirt catching on a buckle on the saddle and tearing. Cailean had already dismounted, ready to follow the Ankaarian into the thicket, but Molly grabbed his arm. "Lead me! There is no water..."

What was going on? Her affinity with Air was not as great as her skill with Water, but she had learned at an early age how to use both to augment her sight. The Fian led her through the undergrowth behind Calleh, and Molly spun up a wind, sending it before them into Circle. Supplemented by the Circle's waxing and waning power, the wind gusted wildly as it touched the occupants.

Blonde hair whipped her face by the wind she'd called up, Molly tried to asertain what was going on. There were other people in the Circle, but beyond a vague sense of their places in space, the seer could not tell what they were doing. Calleh was shouting something, but Molly did not relinquish her grip on Cailean's elbow. "Tell me what you see! Hurry!"

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix readied his scytus, and prepared to loose the missile at the on-rushing enemy, when a vile sight caught his eye. It was Moreth, clutching some horrible abomination. Suddenly, his premonitions about the queer traveler came to a dreadful climax, and as the Ankaaran warrior produced a fusilade of light to blind him, and a strange gust filled the circle, Denix sent his flaming spear in the direction of Moreth, and whatever foul orb he intended to affix into the circle.

[Moreth]

Moreth turned, and the flaming spear struck him in the chest. He staggered backward from the force of it, and his robes immediately caught fire.

The plant-thing he held dropped to the ground and writhed.

Moreth looked down at the burning spear in his chest. He wrapped one gloved hand around the shaft. The glove disintegrated, leaving behind a crooked hand made of glittering cinders.

"You fool," Moreth hissed. "You cannot kill what is already dead. Or burn what has already been consumed."

He pulled the spear from his body, and a gush of loose charcoal poured from the hole like sand. He brushed his free hand over the wound and closed it. The loose cinders scattered on the swirling wind, and the flames eating up his cloak rose higher.

"You should feel honored. Soon you will join these hallowed dead. The first harvest of the living."

He cast the still-burning spear away with disdain to the edge of the Circle. It caught in the undergrowth and began spreading to the close-growing trees at the Circle's border.

And then he seized the plant from the ground by its stalk with its sharpened root protruding like a dagger blade, and there was no question that what he held was a weapon.

[Calleh]

Calleh stumbled to a halt, stunned by Denix's attack, even more stunned by the flaming apparition that stood in the center of the circle clutching something horrible. He had never learned of anything like this in all his studies at the Arcane College of Ankaarizad. He only knew that this foul thing must be cast out of the Circle before something terrible happened.

He stepped opposite Denix to face Moreth, hoping the Necian would forgive his rash approach. "That thing he holds," he said, brandishing his swords, "we must destroy it before it is too late!"

[Cailean MacGabhann]

"Tell me what you see! Hurry!" What reply could Cailean give to that? He could barely comprehend what lay before his eyes.

“A ritual of some sort, we've interrupted it,” he managed, but that was only the half of it. As the words left his lips, the Necian hurled his burning spear into the black-clad figure, who in turn cast the weapon aside, setting light to the Circle's edge. The sight of the flames made Cailean's chest rise with a sudden breath – he could feel them licking at the bark of the Steelwood, as if they were at his own flesh. What was he supposed to do?! How could he help?! He felt frozen to the ground, like his feet had taken up root there.

[Blind Molly]

Molly gnashed her teeth in frustration, well aware of the fire that had suddenly sprung up across the Circle from them. The water the trees held cried out to her as the flames licked at them, and she knew that she could not allow the wood to be burnt.

Her fingers digging into Cailean's arm just above his elbow, unwilling to lose grip of her 'eyes,' the Seer heard Calleh still shouting, and knew he'd found an ally of some kind. The wind died suddenly, and then strengthened, a cyclone localizing around the already burning area on the edge of the Circle. The flames whipped up into the air in a towering inferno, burning stronger for the moment as the fire wildly consumed the wood available to it even as the wind restricted it to a small area.

She held her free hand out in front of her, and then clenched her hand into a fist. The funnel of wind narrowed in focus to a pinprick, then the flames extinguished. "Calleh!" Molly shouted in the sudden and momentary silence, but the man from Ankaar was locked in some sort of battle with an unknown opponent.

Molly released Cailean's arm, burrowing back through the thicket to where they'd left the horses, snatching her waterskin off of her saddle.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix breathed a fierce blast of fire at the vile Moreth, dashing forward to snatch his sword up as he did so.

"What is this abomination?"

The fire adept captain spit fire across his blade, swinging it about as he drew his battered scutum shield from the ground.

[Moreth]

"A gift from the underworld," Moreth replied. "Your gods are there, Denix. They send their regards."

Scraps of smoldering cloth dropped to the ground around his feet as the burning apparition crossed the circle toward Denix and Calleh. Dust and ash flew off his back in the wind that Molly had conjured.

And, before their eyes, he dissolved entirely into a cloud of black particles. The cloud spun in the wind and condensed again into man-shape behind Denix and Calleh; Moreth struck them both from behind, knocking them to the ground.

Moreth's robe was no longer burning, but it hung around him in fluttering ribbons. He regarded his fallen foes as if making a decision and then fell upon Calleh, bringing the root-point of his weapon down toward his back.

[Calleh]

Dazed by the blow, Calleh would have been caught unaware had he not seen Moreth's reflection in the flat of his sword. The Ankaaric warrior-mage rolled away from his attacker, and the blow fell short, the living knife stuck point-down into the ground where he had been a moment before. Calleh gave a cry and swung blindly with his left sword; it struck Moreth's wrist and glided cleanly through. The hand below the wrist crumbled and blew away, but Moreth had already seized the dagger in his other hand.

[Cailean MacGabhann]

With the Seer gone who knew where, Cailean was left alone, a mere spectator to the conflict ahead. The shadowy figure, who seemed to be of the same breed as those that had plagued Bai-Ulgan, was making easy work of Calleh and his new-found ally – a notion which would have seemed previously unthinkable to Cailean, who thought of the warrior-scholar as beyond the limitations of a normal man. Now, he was not so certain.

Everyone was doing their bit to stop the wraith, even Molly who hadn't the sight to know what was going on. In an instant, Cailean decided - it was time to act! The instinct to survive was beginning to take over. His whole body trembling in fear and excitement, the Fian dropped into a crouch and brought his open palm down against the earth. A hair-line crack appeared and then, with a groaning of displaced earth, a sphere of stone dislodged itself and hurtled into the air towards Moreth.

[Moreth]

Moreth had moved to strike at Calleh again when the stone came whistling like a catapult-shot. He stepped sharply to the side, but the stone caught him in his already-maimed arm, and the entire limb disintegrated.

Moreth's baleful orange eyes found the Fian, and he rushed toward the young man with the knife raised in his unmarred arm, the dust still wisping away from his shoulder stump.

[Blind Molly]

Shoving her way back through the dense undergrowth, Molly heard her skirts tear as the fabric caught on a leafless branch. The water in the skin sloshed as she burst back into the Circle, nearly running into Cailean's back. She fumbled with the opening of the waterskin, breaking it open and pouring it over her head.

Her clothes and hair drank in the moisture even as the Fian stumbled to the side, water splashing on him also. The air was moving, indicating something rushing towards them, and she flung out her hand, releasing the skin towards the creature. The half empty skin burst as it hit Moreth, soaking him, and Molly cried out as her vision snapped into focus.

Cailean was grabbing at the earth, off balance from Molly's rushed entrance back into the Circle, and there was a man in tattered black robes nearly upon both of them, a horrible looking knife in his hand. The Seer hurriedly clapped her hands together, freezing the water that had splashed onto the dark being in an instant.

[Moreth]

The frost crystallized around Moreth with a cracking noise, forcing him to a halt and freezing him in mid-stride.

The crackling continued as he strained against the ice. First his hand freed itself. And then his arm. Shards of ice fell away, taking blackened chunks of ash with them.

[Parsideon Denix]

Denix recovered, bringing his sword up as he paced around the semi-frozen fiend.

"What manner of creature is this that the combined elements cannot destroy?"

He swung downwards, lopping off the free arm that held the root dagger at the elbow, and kicked it away from Moreth, setting the evil seed itself alight in a searing cone of fire as it rolled away. He steadied his shield and stood back, completely doubtful that even this would stop the threat.

[Moreth]

The root burned readily, but no sooner had the flames touched it than it released a ear-splitting, mind-piercing scream that drowned out everything else. Just beyond the Circle, the horses bolted, while those inside the Circle were nearly overcome.

Moreth roared in rage and twisted with such force that one of his legs, still encased in ice, snapped off, and his maimed form fell to the ground on the stump of an arm and one leg.

At last the root had burned up, and the last echoes of its scream dissipated over the breadth of the Steelwood. Moreth looked up at Denix with a venomous gaze.

"You may have stopped me from tapping this Circle's magic," he said, with a rattle that suggested his lungs were crumbling from the inside, "but you've just made enough noise to raise the dead."

From all around them, there was a sound of something stirring in the woods.

[Calleh]

Calleh lifted himself to his feet, then found he had dragged his hand through Moreth's ashes. Repulsed, he shook them off and then replaced his swords in their sheaths.

His ears still rang from the mandrake scream, and his own footsteps sounded to him like they were coming from the bottom of a deep well. He crossed the circle unsteadily to stand next to Denix, towering over their stricken foe. With eyes full of righteous contempt, he conjured a tongue of flame in his right hand and held it menacingly over the monster.

"Tell us your business, demon," he demanded.

[Moreth]

"You are in no position to make demands, son of the Eridan," Moreth gloated, as if he were the one standing over a fallen enemy. "Do you think you threaten me with your little burning light? Hah!

"All the elements are passing. Your affinities will come to ruin. Fire burns out. Wood decays. Earth crumbles and metal tarnishes. Even water and air will become poison to living things before the end. Only the Seventh Affinity will remain."

Around them there was the noise of earth being displaced, ancient metal clattering, and bone turning on bone.

"And no matter what side you start on," Moreth said, "eventually, inevitably, you will all join ours."

And with that, he crumbled entirely, every piece of him left on the Circle, and flew away on the wind.

[Blind Molly]

Molly shuddered, her ears still ringing from the awful sound the unnatural weapon had made while it was being burnt. Cailean got to his feet, and if she had not been concentrating on Calleh and the demon creature he was addressing, she would have liked to have spent more time seeing what her young companion looked like before the water that touched his skin evaporated. The Seer coughed as ash tickled her nose, and she shivered a bit in the wind that blew through the Circle.

Her clothes dripping with water, she cocked her head to the side. "Our horses have fled, and with them our supplies. And..." In the sudden absence of an enemy, the company within the Circle was mostly silent. A clank of armor was heard in the woods, and Cailean bristled uncomfortably as the trees moved around them, waving their branches as the dead beneath their roots clawed out of the soil.

The seer did not need to use her powers to see the immediate future. There was only one thing in the Steelwood that would make that noise, and she turned to face the forest, still soaking wet. "The dead rise..."

The travelers turned from the ashen spot where Moreth had lain, and looked around to the edges of the Circle. The slave boy, crouching at the far edge of the Sacred Circle, having been unable to hold onto the reins of the Necian's gorrath, screamed in terror and ran towards the center of the Circle as an armor clad skeleton clanked towards him.

The party backed up, and it was soon apparent that the former denizens of the underworld could not cross the border into the Sacred Circle. Molly turned her head towards Calleh. "Should I be glad I cannot see them?"

The scholar did not answer, and she swallowed hard, the Steelwood full of the moans of the reanimated warriors.

TO BE CONTINUED....

[The Scribe of Ages]

Come. Let us read on, to Chapter Two (http://www.sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18473)...