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'till the rain comes tumbling down
As per ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
faerieboots' request.
She hadn't really expected to *feel* it when she was near the center, but there it was: a light buzz under her feet that startled her even as it delighted ... and even alarmed. She didn't like the unexplained; it had never done her any favors.
The curve of the central bowl was very gentle, perhaps no more than an inch every two feet, but its expanse was such that, standing by the broad marble pedestal - now empty - that served as focal point, Cellin felt as if she were nose to nose with level ground. She gazed around her, wondering at its purpose, teased by inward shadows of human forms who had once lived their lives here.
She sank against the stone for a moment, closing her eyes and trying to banish the weariness that crept over her. Which rhyme to use first ...
Alasdair spat out another tiny bone with a muttered curse.
Birds were worse than rabbits. All those tiny bones, the feathers that inevitably got in your mouth no matter how careful you were when you skinned them . . .
They tasted better than raw rabbit, true, but was it really worth it?
The Aethric tossed the remains aside with a growl, cleaning his knife on a piece of cloth and sheathing it with a practiced motion. That he was reduced to this - it was beyond bearing. He was an Aethreaen of the fifth ail, proven in the aedcath, and here he was hiding in a ruined building eating raw birds and spying on some half-starved woman for the purpose of stealing something she obviously needed out from under her fingertips.
Suddenly he wanted very much to slam his fist into the wall. Hard. He restrained himself with an effort.
He'd been running for five months. Running, and fighting, and running again. Never allowed to relax his vigilance or his guard. How much longer could he keep it up? He had to have that fires-blasted ring, dishonor or no.
He moved carefully within the sheltering shadow he had chosen to hide in, moved to watch the figure in the center of the plaza.
Carriers said that the organism spoke to them.
Cellin lay there a moment longer, absorbing what heat the reflected sunlight offered, gathering her thoughts in the face of a wind that seemed to carry voices just the faintest breath too soft to be understood. And she wondered how very different it was.
Get up, her mind snapped, disgusted. If there had been anyone to watch, she would have struggled on had she been ten times as weary. The one thing she couldn't stand was pity: she took care of herself. She managed. It was a struggle, but it was enough.
Yet it could have been all so very easy.
The next time I see someone with an Oath-Badge, I'm going to rip it off and shove it down their throats until they choke on it, she thought fiercely. Why do they all put themselves out to slaughter just to draw more after them?
Or one of those so-called border guards who patrolled off Ythaeri. Pirates, more like it ... and their murdering and plundering given a free hand in the name of quarantine.
She stood sharply, sweeping away the rubble of irrelevant memories. All right. Down to business.
What in fires was she waiting for? The Aethric kept himself perfectly still, but he was running as low on patience as he was on just about every other reasonable quality he possessed. Discipline was what kept him going, now, and will. It certainly wasn't raw meat and brackish water, that was for sure.
His hands moved out of sight, meticulously cleaning each finger with the cloth as he silently observed.
Cellin cleared her throat, tuning herself to the forces inside her. That necessity, it seemed, was what kept minstrels of her persuasion from blowing themselves up accidentally.
Her lip quirked at the thought.
"As the single star that lights the day,
"To what I seek, show me the way..."
Though the words were spoken softly, their effect was immediate: just above her head and some paces to the right appeared a floating, glowing arrow of pale green. She took that in stride; she was used to the unpredictable manifestations of rhyming. She knew it wouldn't get her all the way, weak mage that she was, but it would start her in the right direction.
Experimentally, she took a step in the opposite direction, and the arrow followed her, even as it pivoted to indicate the same way as before. Good. She turned and followed it, not sure whether time, distance or something else entirely would dissolve the rhyme-spell.
Fires! She was moving again.
Alasdair cursed under his breath, turned, took a running step, and threw his body into the air through the place a wall had once been. This time he stayed lower, using the remains of buildings as cover, weaving in and out, landing and taking off again. Staying parallel and perhaps slightly ahead of . . . what did she say her name was? Cellin n'something.
Maybe she was insane, he thought hopefully. All that time working her way to the center of the city, and now she was headed off again in some random direction for no reason that he could see.
It was not easy going. More than once, Cellin had to climb over a pile of rubble to follow the arrow, or detour carefully around buildings, keeping an eagle eye on the arrow's gyrations as she did. The glow indicated a perfect, straight route ... if one were a ghost. Which was the reason she was here: avoiding that fate.
She slipped half of a piece of flatbread from her cloak, inwardly thankful that she'd had the foresight to ensure that it wouldn't crumble. She forced herself to nibble at it slowly as she maneuvered through a maze whose design was both familiar and foreign in the same breath, though she would have liked to gulp it down in no more than two or three bites. It would last longer this way; maybe it would trick her body into believing she'd eaten more than she had.
Alasdair carefully noted her position and her detours, and eventually realized that she was headed on a straight path to . . . somewhere. Curious, he gained height, trying to predict where her course would take her.
A faint whisper of sound caught his attention, made him pause in his flight. He cast a glance under his wing, and nearly missed a wingbeat.
A goose. A fires-blasted goose flying slowly through the still air.
Impossible fortunes were gods-given and not to be ignored. He could catch up; this would only take a moment.
The silly bird never had a chance. Satisfied, the body hanging limp in his arms, the Aethric wheeled in mid-air and hurried to make up what he'd lost.
The arrow pointed her through the doorway of an austerely grandiose mansion, though faded and vine-covered, still evidently sturdy and intact enough that she hesitated only a moment before leaping from the stone steps to the doorway. The broad porch that might once have connected the two had long since rotted away. The golden knocker, in the shape of a gargoyle, lay a few paces into the darkened room and, though she had just hotly denied being a treasure hunter, she awkwardly folded it into her bag. Even if it was plated - very likely, from its weight, not that she'd ever handled that much pure gold - she might have need of it.
That settled, she lifted her head, wrinkling her nose against the faint but unmistakable scent of neglect, and peered into the shadowy vastnesses of the room. Three windows cut through the walls to either side, though the space between two had since crumbled, and two far larger arches greeted her some fifty paces ahead, flanking the back passage. If there were any room divisions, they had been made entirely of wood. Either that, or dividing screens had been the fashion ...
She picked her way through chipped stone, her attention drawn by the designs carved into the walls. Sailors and ships, dolphins and mermaids ... kraken and sea serpents. Myth mixed freely with history in a tapestry treated with surprising kindness by time.
Cellin stared as if hypnotized. All Unari were taken to their oracle at birth ... that had been before the quarantine, no reason then not to acquiesce to the prophetic insistence that she be taken beyond the sea before she passed out of her first decade. They had given their word.
And tried to fulfill it.
She shook herself and turned away.
Alasdair flew a lazy circle around the building she'd entered, but could find no easy upper entrance that he could use. Which necessitated landing.
He carefully chose his spot, making the normal, ingrained check for danger that had been enforced since he was young. Barely a winglet, he remembered- never assume that you're safe.
The moment his feet touched earth, he knew he'd missed something. Years of experience taught you how danger felt- even if you couldn't see it or hear it, you knew it was there, like eyes staring at your back.
Something, someone, must have been watching.
There was only the faintest whisper of a bolt being drawn before it was fired.
Alasdair was moving even before the missile was let loose. Wings folded tight to his body, he dropped to the ground- but landed on all four limbs and changed direction like a cat, charging directly for the source of the shot with speed a snake would envy. The high, exulting cry of an Aethreaen's battle cry tore from his throat like a hawk's shriek, and slowed his rush not at all, his hands drawing blades from their sheathes.
The discovered archer flung the crossbow aside and leapt backwards, reaching for his sword as he shouted out for aid evidently near at hand.
"What the..." Cellin hurried for the doorway. Common sense arrested her just within the shadows of the arch, and she pressed herself against the stone to listen before she moved any nearer.
The hapless fool didn't even have a chance against the Aethraean warrior. Alasdair was on him almost before his blade had cleared the scabbard. He swept the weapon aside with the knife he held in one hand and drove his own curved blade upward under the man's ribs and into his heart.
He'd freed the sword before the archer 's body had a chance to realize it was dead, was already moving and looking for his next adversary.
Three of them burst upon him a second too late to save their comrade. The footing was too uncertain to support the fourth, who remained below, seeking any opportunity to move in or press an advantage.
This was not the type of battle one fought cautiously. Right now, speed and surprise were to his advantage - certainly he could maintain them through another death.
Three to one . . . at least that was approaching fair odds.
He leapt right into attack, feinting at the first one and directing a wide, vicious swipe at the other two - which was in its turn a distraction from plunging his knife at the second.
The feint brought only a flicker in reaction, from nerves well-trained ... the one who found himself fending the knife was quick enough by no more than a split-second's margin in parrying, no time to counter-attack ... his companions, both of them, took care of that.
Cellin crossed the back alley and pressed herself up against the break in the dividing wall, slowly edging about the corner to see what was going on with her own eyes. She pressed her face to the break in the wall, no more than part of one eye and a half curl visible, knowing she should cast a rhyme to obscure herself, but too caught up to do so. Unlikely anyone would notice her or care ...
Alasdair easily shrugged away from one swipe, caught the second blade and knocked it aside with a continuation of the knife's movement, and drove at the second man again, this time with an oddly-wavering attack that seemed almost to flicker through a guard not recovered from the first thrust, aiming for the man's belly. He was already moving into the next attack before the first was complete, flowing seamlessly from one to another.
The strike didn't drive all the way home, though it drew more than a little blood. The man wrenched backwards with a startled snarl.
Alasdair was moving past the three, but his motion naturally brought him into a quick 180-degree spin. His sword swiped towards the first man to be challenged . . . but as he turned his arm flung outwards, and plunged the silver-bladed knife into the second and wounded man's heart with a backhand thrust.
The first of three countered the strike, but instead of lashing out in recompense, backed off a step. Only rank beginners have trouble recognizing when it's not going to go well for them.
The third was no rank beginner, but not about to let the deaths go unavenged. He burst forward, remembering only the slightest measure of caution.
Their comrade below stared hard at the limp form as it fell still ... and ran, skidding into the protective environs of a mostly-standing structure.
Alasdair deflected the first move partially by moving away and partially by a somewhat awkward cross-body parry- which became far less so in the middle, because he switched the sword from his right hand to his left without weakening or pausing. His right hand dipped for another knife as he brought the sword around and down in a figure eight pattern that suddenly dissolved into an upward slashing strike for the head before the third could riposte.
The man ducked out of the path of the strike with sharp fluidity, immediately looking for an opening of his own. His companion hesitated an instant, then moved to aid him, with the air of someone who knows he's going to regret the decision.
Most certainly he would. The Aethric noted his ill-made choice, coolly flipped the dagger into balance in his right hand while bringing his sword slashing down on the other man with his left, and sent it spinning towards him.
It was a momentary distraction justified by the strangled gurgle as the blade buried itself in the attacker's throat.
Cellin clutched the stone, transfixed. Disbelief took her past thought as she watched.
A wordless cry slipped past the throat of the one who remained. He batted aside the blade as if there were no weight behind it at all, and twisted the sharp parry into a high strike.
Alasdair's face twisted into a snarling hiss as the blade cut through the cloth of his tunic and left a line of fire in its wake. But it didn't slow his reaction in the least. He returned the cut with a vicious slash of his own, deep into his final opponent's midsection. The man staggered, his sword fell flashing from his hands, his knees collapsing, but the return stroke ended it with a cut to the throat.
Stillness reigned again. There was not the slightest hint of the one who had fled.
Cellin gave a strangled gasp and slid down against the rubble.
Alasdair stood for a moment, the only sound in his ears that of his own heavy breathing. Sensing no more danger, he slowly let his body retreat from the killing edge.
Enough so that he could access the scene. Four men in various states of dead at his feet. Blood and worse liberally splattered and pooled over most of the scene. A pulsing pain across his chest.
He craned his head to examine that . . .
"Fires eat you all, you fires-blasted fools in your fires-blasted uniforms! That was my only fires-blasted tunic!" It was ruined, now. Gore-spotted, cut and stained with his own blood. He could almost feel it drying on his bare arms.
With a rumbling sigh he leaned down and wiped his sword clean on the dark blue uniform of the nearest body. "I'm so fires-eaten sick of seeing your fires-blasted uniforms . . ." he growled under his breath, retrieving one of his daggers and using a black-trimmed corner to remove the red from it.
Well, at least his cursing is fairly harmless ... the absurd reflection filtered in through her shock. Cellin put her hand to her forehead, trying to control the pounding in her thoughts. Admit it, you recognize the uniforms ... why were they attacking him? However unwitting, he had done her a favor, but why had the fight even started?
A favor? Four men were dead, in little more than moments. Life's blood spilled ... for what? Neither of them was worth it. Only doing their jobs, poor fools ...
Poor *dead* fools.
She staggered to her feet, vaguely finding and grasping onto the threads of logic through a sickened sense of disbelief. She tried to cast out for something else to dwell on. There was plenty. Face it, Cellin, this whole encounter is too near to you for coincidence ...
The Aethric was carefully cleaning the first dagger he had used when he remembered his original spying objective. He set his teeth - there was nothing to be done about it now. One was hardly an effective observer if one attracted flies. He would have to hope that he didn't miss anything . . . and come back the next morning with washed clothing.
He slipped the knife back into its sheath while considering possible sources of running water when realizatation made him stiffen. His goose!
He'd dropped the fires-cursed thing when he'd first landed.
The warrior spun and raced back to his touch-down point.
Cellin jerked herself back out of view, sliding soundlessly against the far side of the wall. Watching the gap warily, she worked her way along the corner of the building. Didn't want to be seen, didn't *dare* be seen ... not after that. If he'd done that without hesitation, what if he decided she had what he sought? She would pick up the tentative trail she was following later, once she'd gotten away - far away.
Alasdair knelt on the cobblestone courtyard and remorsefully tried to brush the dirt off the dead bird's plumage, to straighten out the skewed wings.
Poor thing, he thought sadly. I'm sorry I dropped you.
The goose's fixed, dead eye stared at him accusingly.
"Well, I am," he said aloud, indignantly. The bird didn't blink. "Fine. Be that way. Don't believe me. See if I care."
He brooded for a moment. He needed to wash his clothes, and come to think of it he did remember catching a glimpse of a glassy surface that could only have been a stream. And perhaps a fire, at last- to dry out his clothes (and himself), and finally to get some cooked meat!
Suddenly cheerful despite his misfortunes, despite encroaching desperation, he slung the bird over his shoulder. "Come on, bird, let's go find some water."
Against her better judgment, Cellin whipped about to the gap in the stones again to stare at him. Was he talking to a ... yes, he was talking to a dead, bedraggled and definitely uncommunicative goose.
The man was definitely out of his head.
Somehow, she felt better about the situation, having affirmed that.
She started down the streets of Nasdumarak again, reasoning that she would travel a little bit and then retire to one of the sturdier structures. There was some shelter from the weather, at least. She was exhausted, she realized now, but when she was comparatively so close ... how could she stop, how could she rest? And what point was sleeping with one eye open, anyway?
She was tired of trembling before she fell asleep, tired of not being sure what would greet her when she awakened.
No. Never again. She could last out. She felt vibrant now, determined. She wouldn't sleep until this mess reached its conclusion, one way or another.
Alasdair ducked the low overhang of the buckled doorway, unable to believe his luck.
He had found what he sought - a quick stream partially obscured by stone banks, running a clear course over a sandy bottom that he could see even through the water. And as he followed it, it disappeared into a crumbling building much like the others -
Except this one had a perfectly lined stone pool cut into its floor that the stream flowed into. And it must surely flow out again, because the water did not overflow. Because of the three walls still standing, and the partially overhanging ceiling, the pool had remained utterly free of taint.
The Aethric took in the floors of broken marble and the remains of what had probably once been an elaborately inlaid design. Perhaps this was someone's bathhouse. He'd never been in one, but he'd heard a traveler tell about one located in a large city.
Cellin drifted to a halt, clasping her hands together. She glanced over her shoulder: nothing, and yet ...
She fiercely shoved down the feeling of foreboding.
Her eyes snapped open as soon as they'd closed. She pulled her cloak tighter and gritted her teeth, hurrying onwards, letting herself seem unaware even as she used the decaying state of the path to give her an excuse to turn just a little to look behind her.
She *knew* she had counted five.
But he hadn't seen her, not yet ... and that was the way she intended to keep it. Cursing under her breath, she slithered easily through a gap in shattered stone and slid into webbed shadows.
A glimmer of silver flickered with the motion of the pool.
Alasdair had his boots off, laid neatly on the ground beside sword and knives. All lined up in a row, unsheathed and easy to grab. He was concentrating his mind on his fingers, which were twisted around behind him and undoing the laces that closed the shirt beneath his wings. He didn't wince when the open cut across his chest pulled with his arm movement. He had finished one and moved to the other when the glitter of metal caught his eye.
Curious, he stepped closer to the pool. Trick of the light?
It wasn't. The smallest pinprick of a rainbow-hued gemstone became apparent amidst the setting of silver ...
Cellin worked her way through the ruins, stepping from a bell tower to a collapsed second-story balcony, where she clung out of sight ... silent, still and watching. Her fingers wrapped themselves around chalky stone. Right on slow and wary cue, the uniformed figure came into view, glancing about. He slipped past her location without so much as a glance in her direction.
But not knowing how close or far she might be to her goal, she did not let herself be satisfied with that. She straightened and climbed up to what was still, arguably, the highest story.
The warrior's attention was well and truly caught. He finished with undoing the laces and peeled the fabric slowly over his head, murmuring a curse as the cloth stuck to his wound and pulled at the tender skin surrounding it. It started bleeding again, but not enough to cause him any worry.
He sat on the edge and slipped smoothly into the water, shocked a little by its coldness, and waited for the ripples to subside so he could search the water.
Cellin half stepped over, half leapt the short distance from the broad column to the bell-tower again, wrapping her arms around one supporting side of the archway. Her hand slipped momentarily, clawing away a small shower of dust. Muttering under her breath, she steadied herself. She was beginning to enjoy the quiet eeriness of this endless maze; she could, as she had thought impossible before, perhaps hide here forever.
If she could face the fear and the risk ... always the risk.
And she wasn't that strong.
She kicked the side of the tower as she craned her neck up at the empty alcove where the bell had once rested. And how would she eat, keep herself alive? There was only so much her rhymes could do. There still remained only one solution.
The water was deeper than he'd thought - it came up to his waist. He took a few cautious steps out, looking for the glitter that had attracted his attention. It was much harder at this angle . . . it had been to the center of the pool, he remembered, taking another step. The water rippled slightly, and he squinted through it - there. There was something there, vaguely silver against the pale bottom. He steeled himself against the shock of cold water and submerged, extending his wings to keep them as dry as possible. Not that water would hurt them, but they took their time in drying. The cut on his chest began to hurt, sharply, as the water washed over it, but he ignored it and opened his eyes instead.
There. Something circular, apparently metal. Too fuzzy through the water to see much more. It took him two tries before he closed his hand on it.
A small, quivering shock rippled through his fingers and up his arm. It was neutral in sensation, as if acknowledging his presence ... and then stilling again.
Alasdair jerked and opened his mouth to curse - getting a mouthful of water. He came up sputtering and pushed a strand of water-darkened hair off his forehead before opening his fingers.
Innocent and motionless, the ring lay on his palm. Three wrapped strands of silver formed the band, coming together in an intricately detailed, multi-layered knot. Nestled in five wrapped corners were pale, smoky emeralds, the star's center drawn upwards by the small, ovoid gemstone that had caught his eye earlier.
Alasdair examined it closely, flipped it over, turned it. He was a warrior and no judge of skill, but he knew that the craftsmanship was extraordinary. It was quite a beautiful piece. Beautiful - but otherwise, it seemed completely ordinary.
He snorted. Was this it? It seemed nothing magical, a simple ring, except for that strange shock when he'd first picked it up.
For a second, the ring seemed to glimmer ... but it turned out to be only an effect of the light seeping in.
Cellin had folded herself to the floor of the bell-tower, tracing designs on the faded stone with her right middle finger; the one whose neighbor halted at the first joint. Give her uniformed pursuer time to get that much more lost ... and minimize the risks of her running into him in her search. Alone, he was no trouble; she could easily elude him, or cast a rhyme to bind him, befuddle him, cast him low. But she couldn't take her chances hand to hand, and that oath, that blasted foolish oath she had cursed so many times, made casting an offensive of any kind uncertain. The rhymes could just fizzle at a crucial moment ... or worse.
And the elite reclined smiling, gloating, lecturing with such apparent concern that the oath was the only way the people would suffer magic in their midst...
Cellin shoved herself to her feet. She'd waited long enough.
She set her chin and gathered herself, speaking in the same soft, understated voice. "I seek this ring, and seek it well,
"Take me where its silver fell..."
Cellin plunged into icy water before she had time to react. Disoriented, head throbbing, senses spinning, she flailed to the surface, coughing so hard her eyes squeezed shut in protest.
Why, why, *why* don't I phrase myself with a little more care?
faerieboots' request.She hadn't really expected to *feel* it when she was near the center, but there it was: a light buzz under her feet that startled her even as it delighted ... and even alarmed. She didn't like the unexplained; it had never done her any favors.
The curve of the central bowl was very gentle, perhaps no more than an inch every two feet, but its expanse was such that, standing by the broad marble pedestal - now empty - that served as focal point, Cellin felt as if she were nose to nose with level ground. She gazed around her, wondering at its purpose, teased by inward shadows of human forms who had once lived their lives here.
She sank against the stone for a moment, closing her eyes and trying to banish the weariness that crept over her. Which rhyme to use first ...
Alasdair spat out another tiny bone with a muttered curse.
Birds were worse than rabbits. All those tiny bones, the feathers that inevitably got in your mouth no matter how careful you were when you skinned them . . .
They tasted better than raw rabbit, true, but was it really worth it?
The Aethric tossed the remains aside with a growl, cleaning his knife on a piece of cloth and sheathing it with a practiced motion. That he was reduced to this - it was beyond bearing. He was an Aethreaen of the fifth ail, proven in the aedcath, and here he was hiding in a ruined building eating raw birds and spying on some half-starved woman for the purpose of stealing something she obviously needed out from under her fingertips.
Suddenly he wanted very much to slam his fist into the wall. Hard. He restrained himself with an effort.
He'd been running for five months. Running, and fighting, and running again. Never allowed to relax his vigilance or his guard. How much longer could he keep it up? He had to have that fires-blasted ring, dishonor or no.
He moved carefully within the sheltering shadow he had chosen to hide in, moved to watch the figure in the center of the plaza.
Carriers said that the organism spoke to them.
Cellin lay there a moment longer, absorbing what heat the reflected sunlight offered, gathering her thoughts in the face of a wind that seemed to carry voices just the faintest breath too soft to be understood. And she wondered how very different it was.
Get up, her mind snapped, disgusted. If there had been anyone to watch, she would have struggled on had she been ten times as weary. The one thing she couldn't stand was pity: she took care of herself. She managed. It was a struggle, but it was enough.
Yet it could have been all so very easy.
The next time I see someone with an Oath-Badge, I'm going to rip it off and shove it down their throats until they choke on it, she thought fiercely. Why do they all put themselves out to slaughter just to draw more after them?
Or one of those so-called border guards who patrolled off Ythaeri. Pirates, more like it ... and their murdering and plundering given a free hand in the name of quarantine.
She stood sharply, sweeping away the rubble of irrelevant memories. All right. Down to business.
What in fires was she waiting for? The Aethric kept himself perfectly still, but he was running as low on patience as he was on just about every other reasonable quality he possessed. Discipline was what kept him going, now, and will. It certainly wasn't raw meat and brackish water, that was for sure.
His hands moved out of sight, meticulously cleaning each finger with the cloth as he silently observed.
Cellin cleared her throat, tuning herself to the forces inside her. That necessity, it seemed, was what kept minstrels of her persuasion from blowing themselves up accidentally.
Her lip quirked at the thought.
"As the single star that lights the day,
"To what I seek, show me the way..."
Though the words were spoken softly, their effect was immediate: just above her head and some paces to the right appeared a floating, glowing arrow of pale green. She took that in stride; she was used to the unpredictable manifestations of rhyming. She knew it wouldn't get her all the way, weak mage that she was, but it would start her in the right direction.
Experimentally, she took a step in the opposite direction, and the arrow followed her, even as it pivoted to indicate the same way as before. Good. She turned and followed it, not sure whether time, distance or something else entirely would dissolve the rhyme-spell.
Fires! She was moving again.
Alasdair cursed under his breath, turned, took a running step, and threw his body into the air through the place a wall had once been. This time he stayed lower, using the remains of buildings as cover, weaving in and out, landing and taking off again. Staying parallel and perhaps slightly ahead of . . . what did she say her name was? Cellin n'something.
Maybe she was insane, he thought hopefully. All that time working her way to the center of the city, and now she was headed off again in some random direction for no reason that he could see.
It was not easy going. More than once, Cellin had to climb over a pile of rubble to follow the arrow, or detour carefully around buildings, keeping an eagle eye on the arrow's gyrations as she did. The glow indicated a perfect, straight route ... if one were a ghost. Which was the reason she was here: avoiding that fate.
She slipped half of a piece of flatbread from her cloak, inwardly thankful that she'd had the foresight to ensure that it wouldn't crumble. She forced herself to nibble at it slowly as she maneuvered through a maze whose design was both familiar and foreign in the same breath, though she would have liked to gulp it down in no more than two or three bites. It would last longer this way; maybe it would trick her body into believing she'd eaten more than she had.
Alasdair carefully noted her position and her detours, and eventually realized that she was headed on a straight path to . . . somewhere. Curious, he gained height, trying to predict where her course would take her.
A faint whisper of sound caught his attention, made him pause in his flight. He cast a glance under his wing, and nearly missed a wingbeat.
A goose. A fires-blasted goose flying slowly through the still air.
Impossible fortunes were gods-given and not to be ignored. He could catch up; this would only take a moment.
The silly bird never had a chance. Satisfied, the body hanging limp in his arms, the Aethric wheeled in mid-air and hurried to make up what he'd lost.
The arrow pointed her through the doorway of an austerely grandiose mansion, though faded and vine-covered, still evidently sturdy and intact enough that she hesitated only a moment before leaping from the stone steps to the doorway. The broad porch that might once have connected the two had long since rotted away. The golden knocker, in the shape of a gargoyle, lay a few paces into the darkened room and, though she had just hotly denied being a treasure hunter, she awkwardly folded it into her bag. Even if it was plated - very likely, from its weight, not that she'd ever handled that much pure gold - she might have need of it.
That settled, she lifted her head, wrinkling her nose against the faint but unmistakable scent of neglect, and peered into the shadowy vastnesses of the room. Three windows cut through the walls to either side, though the space between two had since crumbled, and two far larger arches greeted her some fifty paces ahead, flanking the back passage. If there were any room divisions, they had been made entirely of wood. Either that, or dividing screens had been the fashion ...
She picked her way through chipped stone, her attention drawn by the designs carved into the walls. Sailors and ships, dolphins and mermaids ... kraken and sea serpents. Myth mixed freely with history in a tapestry treated with surprising kindness by time.
Cellin stared as if hypnotized. All Unari were taken to their oracle at birth ... that had been before the quarantine, no reason then not to acquiesce to the prophetic insistence that she be taken beyond the sea before she passed out of her first decade. They had given their word.
And tried to fulfill it.
She shook herself and turned away.
Alasdair flew a lazy circle around the building she'd entered, but could find no easy upper entrance that he could use. Which necessitated landing.
He carefully chose his spot, making the normal, ingrained check for danger that had been enforced since he was young. Barely a winglet, he remembered- never assume that you're safe.
The moment his feet touched earth, he knew he'd missed something. Years of experience taught you how danger felt- even if you couldn't see it or hear it, you knew it was there, like eyes staring at your back.
Something, someone, must have been watching.
There was only the faintest whisper of a bolt being drawn before it was fired.
Alasdair was moving even before the missile was let loose. Wings folded tight to his body, he dropped to the ground- but landed on all four limbs and changed direction like a cat, charging directly for the source of the shot with speed a snake would envy. The high, exulting cry of an Aethreaen's battle cry tore from his throat like a hawk's shriek, and slowed his rush not at all, his hands drawing blades from their sheathes.
The discovered archer flung the crossbow aside and leapt backwards, reaching for his sword as he shouted out for aid evidently near at hand.
"What the..." Cellin hurried for the doorway. Common sense arrested her just within the shadows of the arch, and she pressed herself against the stone to listen before she moved any nearer.
The hapless fool didn't even have a chance against the Aethraean warrior. Alasdair was on him almost before his blade had cleared the scabbard. He swept the weapon aside with the knife he held in one hand and drove his own curved blade upward under the man's ribs and into his heart.
He'd freed the sword before the archer 's body had a chance to realize it was dead, was already moving and looking for his next adversary.
Three of them burst upon him a second too late to save their comrade. The footing was too uncertain to support the fourth, who remained below, seeking any opportunity to move in or press an advantage.
This was not the type of battle one fought cautiously. Right now, speed and surprise were to his advantage - certainly he could maintain them through another death.
Three to one . . . at least that was approaching fair odds.
He leapt right into attack, feinting at the first one and directing a wide, vicious swipe at the other two - which was in its turn a distraction from plunging his knife at the second.
The feint brought only a flicker in reaction, from nerves well-trained ... the one who found himself fending the knife was quick enough by no more than a split-second's margin in parrying, no time to counter-attack ... his companions, both of them, took care of that.
Cellin crossed the back alley and pressed herself up against the break in the dividing wall, slowly edging about the corner to see what was going on with her own eyes. She pressed her face to the break in the wall, no more than part of one eye and a half curl visible, knowing she should cast a rhyme to obscure herself, but too caught up to do so. Unlikely anyone would notice her or care ...
Alasdair easily shrugged away from one swipe, caught the second blade and knocked it aside with a continuation of the knife's movement, and drove at the second man again, this time with an oddly-wavering attack that seemed almost to flicker through a guard not recovered from the first thrust, aiming for the man's belly. He was already moving into the next attack before the first was complete, flowing seamlessly from one to another.
The strike didn't drive all the way home, though it drew more than a little blood. The man wrenched backwards with a startled snarl.
Alasdair was moving past the three, but his motion naturally brought him into a quick 180-degree spin. His sword swiped towards the first man to be challenged . . . but as he turned his arm flung outwards, and plunged the silver-bladed knife into the second and wounded man's heart with a backhand thrust.
The first of three countered the strike, but instead of lashing out in recompense, backed off a step. Only rank beginners have trouble recognizing when it's not going to go well for them.
The third was no rank beginner, but not about to let the deaths go unavenged. He burst forward, remembering only the slightest measure of caution.
Their comrade below stared hard at the limp form as it fell still ... and ran, skidding into the protective environs of a mostly-standing structure.
Alasdair deflected the first move partially by moving away and partially by a somewhat awkward cross-body parry- which became far less so in the middle, because he switched the sword from his right hand to his left without weakening or pausing. His right hand dipped for another knife as he brought the sword around and down in a figure eight pattern that suddenly dissolved into an upward slashing strike for the head before the third could riposte.
The man ducked out of the path of the strike with sharp fluidity, immediately looking for an opening of his own. His companion hesitated an instant, then moved to aid him, with the air of someone who knows he's going to regret the decision.
Most certainly he would. The Aethric noted his ill-made choice, coolly flipped the dagger into balance in his right hand while bringing his sword slashing down on the other man with his left, and sent it spinning towards him.
It was a momentary distraction justified by the strangled gurgle as the blade buried itself in the attacker's throat.
Cellin clutched the stone, transfixed. Disbelief took her past thought as she watched.
A wordless cry slipped past the throat of the one who remained. He batted aside the blade as if there were no weight behind it at all, and twisted the sharp parry into a high strike.
Alasdair's face twisted into a snarling hiss as the blade cut through the cloth of his tunic and left a line of fire in its wake. But it didn't slow his reaction in the least. He returned the cut with a vicious slash of his own, deep into his final opponent's midsection. The man staggered, his sword fell flashing from his hands, his knees collapsing, but the return stroke ended it with a cut to the throat.
Stillness reigned again. There was not the slightest hint of the one who had fled.
Cellin gave a strangled gasp and slid down against the rubble.
Alasdair stood for a moment, the only sound in his ears that of his own heavy breathing. Sensing no more danger, he slowly let his body retreat from the killing edge.
Enough so that he could access the scene. Four men in various states of dead at his feet. Blood and worse liberally splattered and pooled over most of the scene. A pulsing pain across his chest.
He craned his head to examine that . . .
"Fires eat you all, you fires-blasted fools in your fires-blasted uniforms! That was my only fires-blasted tunic!" It was ruined, now. Gore-spotted, cut and stained with his own blood. He could almost feel it drying on his bare arms.
With a rumbling sigh he leaned down and wiped his sword clean on the dark blue uniform of the nearest body. "I'm so fires-eaten sick of seeing your fires-blasted uniforms . . ." he growled under his breath, retrieving one of his daggers and using a black-trimmed corner to remove the red from it.
Well, at least his cursing is fairly harmless ... the absurd reflection filtered in through her shock. Cellin put her hand to her forehead, trying to control the pounding in her thoughts. Admit it, you recognize the uniforms ... why were they attacking him? However unwitting, he had done her a favor, but why had the fight even started?
A favor? Four men were dead, in little more than moments. Life's blood spilled ... for what? Neither of them was worth it. Only doing their jobs, poor fools ...
Poor *dead* fools.
She staggered to her feet, vaguely finding and grasping onto the threads of logic through a sickened sense of disbelief. She tried to cast out for something else to dwell on. There was plenty. Face it, Cellin, this whole encounter is too near to you for coincidence ...
The Aethric was carefully cleaning the first dagger he had used when he remembered his original spying objective. He set his teeth - there was nothing to be done about it now. One was hardly an effective observer if one attracted flies. He would have to hope that he didn't miss anything . . . and come back the next morning with washed clothing.
He slipped the knife back into its sheath while considering possible sources of running water when realizatation made him stiffen. His goose!
He'd dropped the fires-cursed thing when he'd first landed.
The warrior spun and raced back to his touch-down point.
Cellin jerked herself back out of view, sliding soundlessly against the far side of the wall. Watching the gap warily, she worked her way along the corner of the building. Didn't want to be seen, didn't *dare* be seen ... not after that. If he'd done that without hesitation, what if he decided she had what he sought? She would pick up the tentative trail she was following later, once she'd gotten away - far away.
Alasdair knelt on the cobblestone courtyard and remorsefully tried to brush the dirt off the dead bird's plumage, to straighten out the skewed wings.
Poor thing, he thought sadly. I'm sorry I dropped you.
The goose's fixed, dead eye stared at him accusingly.
"Well, I am," he said aloud, indignantly. The bird didn't blink. "Fine. Be that way. Don't believe me. See if I care."
He brooded for a moment. He needed to wash his clothes, and come to think of it he did remember catching a glimpse of a glassy surface that could only have been a stream. And perhaps a fire, at last- to dry out his clothes (and himself), and finally to get some cooked meat!
Suddenly cheerful despite his misfortunes, despite encroaching desperation, he slung the bird over his shoulder. "Come on, bird, let's go find some water."
Against her better judgment, Cellin whipped about to the gap in the stones again to stare at him. Was he talking to a ... yes, he was talking to a dead, bedraggled and definitely uncommunicative goose.
The man was definitely out of his head.
Somehow, she felt better about the situation, having affirmed that.
She started down the streets of Nasdumarak again, reasoning that she would travel a little bit and then retire to one of the sturdier structures. There was some shelter from the weather, at least. She was exhausted, she realized now, but when she was comparatively so close ... how could she stop, how could she rest? And what point was sleeping with one eye open, anyway?
She was tired of trembling before she fell asleep, tired of not being sure what would greet her when she awakened.
No. Never again. She could last out. She felt vibrant now, determined. She wouldn't sleep until this mess reached its conclusion, one way or another.
Alasdair ducked the low overhang of the buckled doorway, unable to believe his luck.
He had found what he sought - a quick stream partially obscured by stone banks, running a clear course over a sandy bottom that he could see even through the water. And as he followed it, it disappeared into a crumbling building much like the others -
Except this one had a perfectly lined stone pool cut into its floor that the stream flowed into. And it must surely flow out again, because the water did not overflow. Because of the three walls still standing, and the partially overhanging ceiling, the pool had remained utterly free of taint.
The Aethric took in the floors of broken marble and the remains of what had probably once been an elaborately inlaid design. Perhaps this was someone's bathhouse. He'd never been in one, but he'd heard a traveler tell about one located in a large city.
Cellin drifted to a halt, clasping her hands together. She glanced over her shoulder: nothing, and yet ...
She fiercely shoved down the feeling of foreboding.
Her eyes snapped open as soon as they'd closed. She pulled her cloak tighter and gritted her teeth, hurrying onwards, letting herself seem unaware even as she used the decaying state of the path to give her an excuse to turn just a little to look behind her.
She *knew* she had counted five.
But he hadn't seen her, not yet ... and that was the way she intended to keep it. Cursing under her breath, she slithered easily through a gap in shattered stone and slid into webbed shadows.
A glimmer of silver flickered with the motion of the pool.
Alasdair had his boots off, laid neatly on the ground beside sword and knives. All lined up in a row, unsheathed and easy to grab. He was concentrating his mind on his fingers, which were twisted around behind him and undoing the laces that closed the shirt beneath his wings. He didn't wince when the open cut across his chest pulled with his arm movement. He had finished one and moved to the other when the glitter of metal caught his eye.
Curious, he stepped closer to the pool. Trick of the light?
It wasn't. The smallest pinprick of a rainbow-hued gemstone became apparent amidst the setting of silver ...
Cellin worked her way through the ruins, stepping from a bell tower to a collapsed second-story balcony, where she clung out of sight ... silent, still and watching. Her fingers wrapped themselves around chalky stone. Right on slow and wary cue, the uniformed figure came into view, glancing about. He slipped past her location without so much as a glance in her direction.
But not knowing how close or far she might be to her goal, she did not let herself be satisfied with that. She straightened and climbed up to what was still, arguably, the highest story.
The warrior's attention was well and truly caught. He finished with undoing the laces and peeled the fabric slowly over his head, murmuring a curse as the cloth stuck to his wound and pulled at the tender skin surrounding it. It started bleeding again, but not enough to cause him any worry.
He sat on the edge and slipped smoothly into the water, shocked a little by its coldness, and waited for the ripples to subside so he could search the water.
Cellin half stepped over, half leapt the short distance from the broad column to the bell-tower again, wrapping her arms around one supporting side of the archway. Her hand slipped momentarily, clawing away a small shower of dust. Muttering under her breath, she steadied herself. She was beginning to enjoy the quiet eeriness of this endless maze; she could, as she had thought impossible before, perhaps hide here forever.
If she could face the fear and the risk ... always the risk.
And she wasn't that strong.
She kicked the side of the tower as she craned her neck up at the empty alcove where the bell had once rested. And how would she eat, keep herself alive? There was only so much her rhymes could do. There still remained only one solution.
The water was deeper than he'd thought - it came up to his waist. He took a few cautious steps out, looking for the glitter that had attracted his attention. It was much harder at this angle . . . it had been to the center of the pool, he remembered, taking another step. The water rippled slightly, and he squinted through it - there. There was something there, vaguely silver against the pale bottom. He steeled himself against the shock of cold water and submerged, extending his wings to keep them as dry as possible. Not that water would hurt them, but they took their time in drying. The cut on his chest began to hurt, sharply, as the water washed over it, but he ignored it and opened his eyes instead.
There. Something circular, apparently metal. Too fuzzy through the water to see much more. It took him two tries before he closed his hand on it.
A small, quivering shock rippled through his fingers and up his arm. It was neutral in sensation, as if acknowledging his presence ... and then stilling again.
Alasdair jerked and opened his mouth to curse - getting a mouthful of water. He came up sputtering and pushed a strand of water-darkened hair off his forehead before opening his fingers.
Innocent and motionless, the ring lay on his palm. Three wrapped strands of silver formed the band, coming together in an intricately detailed, multi-layered knot. Nestled in five wrapped corners were pale, smoky emeralds, the star's center drawn upwards by the small, ovoid gemstone that had caught his eye earlier.
Alasdair examined it closely, flipped it over, turned it. He was a warrior and no judge of skill, but he knew that the craftsmanship was extraordinary. It was quite a beautiful piece. Beautiful - but otherwise, it seemed completely ordinary.
He snorted. Was this it? It seemed nothing magical, a simple ring, except for that strange shock when he'd first picked it up.
For a second, the ring seemed to glimmer ... but it turned out to be only an effect of the light seeping in.
Cellin had folded herself to the floor of the bell-tower, tracing designs on the faded stone with her right middle finger; the one whose neighbor halted at the first joint. Give her uniformed pursuer time to get that much more lost ... and minimize the risks of her running into him in her search. Alone, he was no trouble; she could easily elude him, or cast a rhyme to bind him, befuddle him, cast him low. But she couldn't take her chances hand to hand, and that oath, that blasted foolish oath she had cursed so many times, made casting an offensive of any kind uncertain. The rhymes could just fizzle at a crucial moment ... or worse.
And the elite reclined smiling, gloating, lecturing with such apparent concern that the oath was the only way the people would suffer magic in their midst...
Cellin shoved herself to her feet. She'd waited long enough.
She set her chin and gathered herself, speaking in the same soft, understated voice. "I seek this ring, and seek it well,
"Take me where its silver fell..."
Cellin plunged into icy water before she had time to react. Disoriented, head throbbing, senses spinning, she flailed to the surface, coughing so hard her eyes squeezed shut in protest.
Why, why, *why* don't I phrase myself with a little more care?