Dryad Eyes, part 42.
2,347.
It was actually quite a bit longer, but I broke off a huge portion of the text because I felt it would be more appropriate for entry #43 or 44. Enjoy!
Aorthain was not quite himself. He felt as if far more than just days had passed since he left the Keep, and Rhian, behind. It was more like a lifetime ago, a time when he had enjoyed his double life and felt that his time away from his role as Agani was important. Rewarding. No longer, however. Whatever had come over him that morning when he sat alone in the room he and his lover had shared, he could not say. It had been an epiphany in the form of a feeling of terrible trepidation, worming its way into his heart with the sure knowledge that he had responsibilities that he was not living up to. Agani could be so much more than he had made it, and since taking a room in the city he had maintained an almost constant presence on its streets. In times and a town less tumultuous, so many sightings of a silver-masked man dressed in black would have been the main topic of every conversation for years to come. As it was, he was not certain that anyone aside from the few misbehavers that he had laid hands on had even noticed. He was still not doing enough, it seemed.
As far as he was concerned, Aorthain was essentially dead. It was not even the name that he had given the older couple, Arthur and Tricia, who had agreed to take him in. They knew him as quiet Beldar, who kept to himself and often went out late at night. While perhaps not entirely happy with his hours, and Arthur in particular was mortified by the fact that he did not have his own towel, they were content to let him be. He had already proven his worth, having repaired their leaking roof and shoveled the snow away from their little shop where they sold coffee, tea, and other substances that they described as being ‘almost but not quite entirely unlike tea.‘
It was a comfortable setting, and would make for good cover. By the time the seasons turned again, when warmer weather would cause his warm headwear to go out of style, he planned to have his hair cut and permanently colored, his eyes altered, and perhaps even a darker hue placed upon his skin. These would be easy, if time consuming changes to make, and when next he saw Rhian, Geran, Arimus or any of that party, he would no longer be Aorthain the loyal soldier and friend. He would be a stranger. Such were the resources of Agani.
Having decided that, he was as content as he could force himself to be. That is, right up until he heard the explosion. A great, sharp crack echoed across the entire mountain pass in which Keeper’s Gateway sat. What he could see, with his spy glass from the top of his hosts’ home, was a great deal of smoke streaming out through a window on one of the Keep’s upper floors. It was just visible over the three Great Walls that sectioned off the city between there and where he stood. What was more, if his count was on, then it was coming from Geran’s rooms.
With a sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, Aorthain climbed down from the roof. It took some looking, but finally he found one of his uniforms that he had not yet thrown away. He dressed himself in it, and hid it from view beneath a big, heavy black cloak. This was not something that he looked forward to doing, but in the close confines inside the Keep, where it would be easier to go unnoticed as a soldier who was supposed to be there than as Agani, he had little other recourse. He had to know what had happened.
Was it disappointment that burned within his breast as he walked with the boy named Andrek into the bowels of the Keep? Aorthain was uncertain. Every fear that had crossed his mind during his journey through the city had been laid to rest. He had not run directly into Rhian, nor had he been arrested on sight by the guards on duty. There was no bitter reunion or confrontation to deal with. His passage through the halls had gone largely unchallenged, unless one counted the twice that he was saluted by men who recognized him.
It was a surreal feeling. Had he not walked away from those he cared about? Had he not deserted his post? Though he had been gone only days, he had been certain that his absence had been felt more keenly. There should have at least been standing orders to escort him to the King, Rhian, Arimus or somebody else with some sort of authority.
When he arrived at the scene of the explosion, exactly where he had suspected it was, he had found Geran himself organizing the clean-up process. This was one of the few men in the world that Aorthain outright looked up to, whose opinion concerning his disappearance he had feared, and what reaction did he get? Indifference. The man was so caught up in what he was doing that he had hardly acknowledged the soldier’s presence at first. It had not been until nearly an hour later, when Aorthain had been about to slip away, that Geran pulled him aside. It was not to reprimand him, or to direct him to some specific task in the clean-up, but to ask him to accompany young Andrek down into an unoccupied portion of the Keep to retrieve Treyp, Kurik, and Lithia. He would not speak to what they were doing there, or why they needed an escort, save to say that he would explain later as he needed to get back to what he had been doing.
Why he was going through with it, he could not say. Perhaps it was a measure of guilt, or shame at not being missed more acutely. Either way, that was how Aorthain found himself walking alongside Andrek through some of the Keep’s dark and dry unused passageways. Scarce was the conversation that passed between them. The soldier was preoccupied with his thoughts, and exhausting from having slept only a few hours in several days, and the boy was clearly afraid. He put a brave face on it, but he trembled and shook and seemed prone to jump at every shadow that was set to dancing by the light of their lantern.
Finally, as they rounded a corner, Andrek grabbed Aorthain’s arm and dragged him to a halt. “That! That is it up ahead. Something isn‘t right…”
It took a moment for the soldier who was sometimes a masked vigilante to see what the young courtier was speaking of. There it was, just a short distance down the hall there was an empty doorway that was lit from within by some kind of flame. The yellow-orange glow was just visible through that portal. It made sense of course, that even if Kurik and the others had come down here to hide, they would need light to see by. What was wrong with that? Then it clicked. First, Aorthain realized, there was no door at all connected to the doorframe. It was the only room in their immediate vicinity that did not have one. Also, though they had been obscured at first by the flickering light and dancing shadows, he could see scorch marks on the floor and stretching up the sides of the door frame. Andrek was right. Something was wrong.
This, at least, was something that he could deal with. Reaching into his lantern, he extinguished its light between his thumb and forefinger. Pressing the boy back against the wall, he whispered to him in a sharp, soft voice that would reach no other ear. “Stay quiet, stay close. We’re going to check it out.”
There were sounds coming from within the room, and as the two of them crept closer they became distinct voices. He had considered leaving the boy at the corner of the hallway, but had decided against it. Who knew what they were walking into, and whether they were the only ones approaching? No, Andrek would be safer by his side, for although he did not know it, the courtier walked with Agani. Where could be safer?
“This is it,” a harsher voice was saying. It seemed mildly puzzled. “This is where their trail ends.”
“So they died in the fire?” This voice was familiar to Aorthain, in both of his identities. What was Haron doing down here?
“No.” Answered the first speaker. “But I am meant to believe it so. Heh. She underestimates what she has made of me. This place smells of pain, fear, and deception. Not murder.”
“Are you certain?” A third speaker interrupted. The hairs on the back of Agani’s neck stood on end. Was that Charis? In the same room as Haron? What had he stumbled onto here?
“Perhaps you are mistaken,” she added. “Hiding them from you would be of no benefit to her. Maybe she just killed them and her power is confusing your senses.”
“Dear, sweet Charis,” the original speaker crooned. That was followed by a strangled gasp, and Agani was quite certain that the woman in question had just been grabbed by the throat. He did not dare peek into the room just yet. It was better to listen, and remain hidden.
“You are as transparent as polished glass.” The owner of the first voice was saying. “Did you really think I don’t know about those last few shreds of hope you carrying around in the back of your mind? The ones that see a future where you somehow help them from this ‘insiders’ vantage point you fallen into? I left them there. You’re no fun if you’re completely empty. I own you.”
“Erek!” Haron roared. It sounded as if there were a struggle going on as Charis continued to gasp for breath. “Enough!”
There came a sharp crack, followed by the sound of a body thumping into the wall next to the door. Aorthain, or Agani as he presently identified himself, felt the impact through the brick, just as he had felt the boy behind him tense at the name Haron had said. This was not good. Whoever this Erek was, he clearly had some kind of hold over Charis. Haron was a schemer to begin with, and had already enacted a vendetta against Geran. Even now, as winter bore down upon them with a constantly renewed vigor, people all across the city were talking, fighting about the King’s heritage. It would only get worse before it got better, especially once the weather cleared and people were able to move about more freely again.
Edging back, Agani pushed the boy away from the door. It was time to go. The two of them could not afford to get involved in whatever was happening within that room. They did not know enough about what they would be walking into. Better to stand down for now, and warn Geran.
“Oh,” Erek’s voice came from just inside the door. If it had been Haron that struck the wall, then the other man would be standing directly over him now. “I can smell you out there, Aorthain.”
Damn. Without making a sound, though Andrek ruined that with a whimper, Agani froze mid-step. No, this was not good at all.
“It was the boy! Heh. He’s lead you into a trap.”
What? The boy… it made sense in a roundabout way. Andrek had meant to bring Geran to this place, had he not? Instead, the King had been caught up in something else and had sent one of his men. It made sense. Damn, he thought again. He had almost liked the boy. Twisting around, he seized the boy by the shirt and swung the lantern at his face.
“What--? No! No!”
Hauling Andrek’s limp form up and onto his shoulder, Agani ran. He threw everything he had into it. If he could get away with this one in hand, he could still warn Geran before it was too late.
Erek’s inhuman laughter followed them down the dark hallway.
When Aorthain finally came to his senses, his face was growing numb from being pelted with freezing wind and snow. What had happened? He recalled the near panic that had overtaken him outside the burned out room that Treyp and Kurik were supposed to be hidden away in, and the voice of the man that had called out to him. That one, Erek, had convinced him with but the merest suggestion that the boy, Andrek, was a traitor that had lead him into a trap. Whatever he had done to make that happened, it was frightening. Agani was supposed to be immune to mental tampering. To have somebody so casually bypass every discipline he knew, every ward he carried, was unheard of.
A scream somewhere down below alerted Aorthain to the fact that he was not only outside, but standing on the very edge of a precipice. The dark robes of Agani swirled about him as, for one disorienting moment, vertigo nearly dragged him down. When had he changed into this attire? And where was his silver mask?
Peering down through the swirling snow at the source of the scream, a knot began to take shape in his belly. He was on the roof of the Keep, he realized, overlooking the courtyard. There, directly down the sheer face of the building from where he stood, was a woman kneeling in the bright red stained snow over a body that lay with its limbs all askew. It was Andrek. Even at this distance, he could recognize the boy. He could also recognize the gleaming, silver object that remained clutched in his dead fingers.
“No!” Aorthain nearly took a step forward, off of that ledge, as he took in what he was saying. Then he moved backwards, stumbling, and fell to his hands and knees where he vomited. “No, no… Oh Gods, no.”
It was actually quite a bit longer, but I broke off a huge portion of the text because I felt it would be more appropriate for entry #43 or 44. Enjoy!
Aorthain was not quite himself. He felt as if far more than just days had passed since he left the Keep, and Rhian, behind. It was more like a lifetime ago, a time when he had enjoyed his double life and felt that his time away from his role as Agani was important. Rewarding. No longer, however. Whatever had come over him that morning when he sat alone in the room he and his lover had shared, he could not say. It had been an epiphany in the form of a feeling of terrible trepidation, worming its way into his heart with the sure knowledge that he had responsibilities that he was not living up to. Agani could be so much more than he had made it, and since taking a room in the city he had maintained an almost constant presence on its streets. In times and a town less tumultuous, so many sightings of a silver-masked man dressed in black would have been the main topic of every conversation for years to come. As it was, he was not certain that anyone aside from the few misbehavers that he had laid hands on had even noticed. He was still not doing enough, it seemed.
As far as he was concerned, Aorthain was essentially dead. It was not even the name that he had given the older couple, Arthur and Tricia, who had agreed to take him in. They knew him as quiet Beldar, who kept to himself and often went out late at night. While perhaps not entirely happy with his hours, and Arthur in particular was mortified by the fact that he did not have his own towel, they were content to let him be. He had already proven his worth, having repaired their leaking roof and shoveled the snow away from their little shop where they sold coffee, tea, and other substances that they described as being ‘almost but not quite entirely unlike tea.‘
It was a comfortable setting, and would make for good cover. By the time the seasons turned again, when warmer weather would cause his warm headwear to go out of style, he planned to have his hair cut and permanently colored, his eyes altered, and perhaps even a darker hue placed upon his skin. These would be easy, if time consuming changes to make, and when next he saw Rhian, Geran, Arimus or any of that party, he would no longer be Aorthain the loyal soldier and friend. He would be a stranger. Such were the resources of Agani.
Having decided that, he was as content as he could force himself to be. That is, right up until he heard the explosion. A great, sharp crack echoed across the entire mountain pass in which Keeper’s Gateway sat. What he could see, with his spy glass from the top of his hosts’ home, was a great deal of smoke streaming out through a window on one of the Keep’s upper floors. It was just visible over the three Great Walls that sectioned off the city between there and where he stood. What was more, if his count was on, then it was coming from Geran’s rooms.
With a sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, Aorthain climbed down from the roof. It took some looking, but finally he found one of his uniforms that he had not yet thrown away. He dressed himself in it, and hid it from view beneath a big, heavy black cloak. This was not something that he looked forward to doing, but in the close confines inside the Keep, where it would be easier to go unnoticed as a soldier who was supposed to be there than as Agani, he had little other recourse. He had to know what had happened.
Was it disappointment that burned within his breast as he walked with the boy named Andrek into the bowels of the Keep? Aorthain was uncertain. Every fear that had crossed his mind during his journey through the city had been laid to rest. He had not run directly into Rhian, nor had he been arrested on sight by the guards on duty. There was no bitter reunion or confrontation to deal with. His passage through the halls had gone largely unchallenged, unless one counted the twice that he was saluted by men who recognized him.
It was a surreal feeling. Had he not walked away from those he cared about? Had he not deserted his post? Though he had been gone only days, he had been certain that his absence had been felt more keenly. There should have at least been standing orders to escort him to the King, Rhian, Arimus or somebody else with some sort of authority.
When he arrived at the scene of the explosion, exactly where he had suspected it was, he had found Geran himself organizing the clean-up process. This was one of the few men in the world that Aorthain outright looked up to, whose opinion concerning his disappearance he had feared, and what reaction did he get? Indifference. The man was so caught up in what he was doing that he had hardly acknowledged the soldier’s presence at first. It had not been until nearly an hour later, when Aorthain had been about to slip away, that Geran pulled him aside. It was not to reprimand him, or to direct him to some specific task in the clean-up, but to ask him to accompany young Andrek down into an unoccupied portion of the Keep to retrieve Treyp, Kurik, and Lithia. He would not speak to what they were doing there, or why they needed an escort, save to say that he would explain later as he needed to get back to what he had been doing.
Why he was going through with it, he could not say. Perhaps it was a measure of guilt, or shame at not being missed more acutely. Either way, that was how Aorthain found himself walking alongside Andrek through some of the Keep’s dark and dry unused passageways. Scarce was the conversation that passed between them. The soldier was preoccupied with his thoughts, and exhausting from having slept only a few hours in several days, and the boy was clearly afraid. He put a brave face on it, but he trembled and shook and seemed prone to jump at every shadow that was set to dancing by the light of their lantern.
Finally, as they rounded a corner, Andrek grabbed Aorthain’s arm and dragged him to a halt. “That! That is it up ahead. Something isn‘t right…”
It took a moment for the soldier who was sometimes a masked vigilante to see what the young courtier was speaking of. There it was, just a short distance down the hall there was an empty doorway that was lit from within by some kind of flame. The yellow-orange glow was just visible through that portal. It made sense of course, that even if Kurik and the others had come down here to hide, they would need light to see by. What was wrong with that? Then it clicked. First, Aorthain realized, there was no door at all connected to the doorframe. It was the only room in their immediate vicinity that did not have one. Also, though they had been obscured at first by the flickering light and dancing shadows, he could see scorch marks on the floor and stretching up the sides of the door frame. Andrek was right. Something was wrong.
This, at least, was something that he could deal with. Reaching into his lantern, he extinguished its light between his thumb and forefinger. Pressing the boy back against the wall, he whispered to him in a sharp, soft voice that would reach no other ear. “Stay quiet, stay close. We’re going to check it out.”
There were sounds coming from within the room, and as the two of them crept closer they became distinct voices. He had considered leaving the boy at the corner of the hallway, but had decided against it. Who knew what they were walking into, and whether they were the only ones approaching? No, Andrek would be safer by his side, for although he did not know it, the courtier walked with Agani. Where could be safer?
“This is it,” a harsher voice was saying. It seemed mildly puzzled. “This is where their trail ends.”
“So they died in the fire?” This voice was familiar to Aorthain, in both of his identities. What was Haron doing down here?
“No.” Answered the first speaker. “But I am meant to believe it so. Heh. She underestimates what she has made of me. This place smells of pain, fear, and deception. Not murder.”
“Are you certain?” A third speaker interrupted. The hairs on the back of Agani’s neck stood on end. Was that Charis? In the same room as Haron? What had he stumbled onto here?
“Perhaps you are mistaken,” she added. “Hiding them from you would be of no benefit to her. Maybe she just killed them and her power is confusing your senses.”
“Dear, sweet Charis,” the original speaker crooned. That was followed by a strangled gasp, and Agani was quite certain that the woman in question had just been grabbed by the throat. He did not dare peek into the room just yet. It was better to listen, and remain hidden.
“You are as transparent as polished glass.” The owner of the first voice was saying. “Did you really think I don’t know about those last few shreds of hope you carrying around in the back of your mind? The ones that see a future where you somehow help them from this ‘insiders’ vantage point you fallen into? I left them there. You’re no fun if you’re completely empty. I own you.”
“Erek!” Haron roared. It sounded as if there were a struggle going on as Charis continued to gasp for breath. “Enough!”
There came a sharp crack, followed by the sound of a body thumping into the wall next to the door. Aorthain, or Agani as he presently identified himself, felt the impact through the brick, just as he had felt the boy behind him tense at the name Haron had said. This was not good. Whoever this Erek was, he clearly had some kind of hold over Charis. Haron was a schemer to begin with, and had already enacted a vendetta against Geran. Even now, as winter bore down upon them with a constantly renewed vigor, people all across the city were talking, fighting about the King’s heritage. It would only get worse before it got better, especially once the weather cleared and people were able to move about more freely again.
Edging back, Agani pushed the boy away from the door. It was time to go. The two of them could not afford to get involved in whatever was happening within that room. They did not know enough about what they would be walking into. Better to stand down for now, and warn Geran.
“Oh,” Erek’s voice came from just inside the door. If it had been Haron that struck the wall, then the other man would be standing directly over him now. “I can smell you out there, Aorthain.”
Damn. Without making a sound, though Andrek ruined that with a whimper, Agani froze mid-step. No, this was not good at all.
“It was the boy! Heh. He’s lead you into a trap.”
What? The boy… it made sense in a roundabout way. Andrek had meant to bring Geran to this place, had he not? Instead, the King had been caught up in something else and had sent one of his men. It made sense. Damn, he thought again. He had almost liked the boy. Twisting around, he seized the boy by the shirt and swung the lantern at his face.
“What--? No! No!”
Hauling Andrek’s limp form up and onto his shoulder, Agani ran. He threw everything he had into it. If he could get away with this one in hand, he could still warn Geran before it was too late.
Erek’s inhuman laughter followed them down the dark hallway.
When Aorthain finally came to his senses, his face was growing numb from being pelted with freezing wind and snow. What had happened? He recalled the near panic that had overtaken him outside the burned out room that Treyp and Kurik were supposed to be hidden away in, and the voice of the man that had called out to him. That one, Erek, had convinced him with but the merest suggestion that the boy, Andrek, was a traitor that had lead him into a trap. Whatever he had done to make that happened, it was frightening. Agani was supposed to be immune to mental tampering. To have somebody so casually bypass every discipline he knew, every ward he carried, was unheard of.
A scream somewhere down below alerted Aorthain to the fact that he was not only outside, but standing on the very edge of a precipice. The dark robes of Agani swirled about him as, for one disorienting moment, vertigo nearly dragged him down. When had he changed into this attire? And where was his silver mask?
Peering down through the swirling snow at the source of the scream, a knot began to take shape in his belly. He was on the roof of the Keep, he realized, overlooking the courtyard. There, directly down the sheer face of the building from where he stood, was a woman kneeling in the bright red stained snow over a body that lay with its limbs all askew. It was Andrek. Even at this distance, he could recognize the boy. He could also recognize the gleaming, silver object that remained clutched in his dead fingers.
“No!” Aorthain nearly took a step forward, off of that ledge, as he took in what he was saying. Then he moved backwards, stumbling, and fell to his hands and knees where he vomited. “No, no… Oh Gods, no.”