Find the man.

[Duquesne]

"Thank you for returning from your assignments, gentlemen. I know it must have been difficult to extract yourselves in order to meet me, but what I have to say is important enough to warrant the trouble."

This is an assembly of four, men who have worked among one another now for many months and years. Between them, there is a wealth of history, as some fought a war together, both shedding and taking blood in the field. Long has been their association, duty giving way to friendship, with Syl Duquesne at the helm. It is he who sits before them now, with features equipped with quiet resolve and some pale aspect--had he not grown paler, in their eyes, even since they had gone?

Colfax alone had not left Aithne, being dutifully bound to the man in both professional and personal ways, as Syl had been instrumental in changing Colfax's life forever and, as it were, for the better. So it was Colfax who suspected the nature of such a conference as this, and who even now sits with some mute solemnity at this wide and dark table overshadowed by the high shelves of the 'library of lords'. His eyes lift and he looks from Syl to Kraegan, from Kraegan to Conor.

Syl continues: "Some time ago, Grosvenor was contacted privately by letter by Lord Marshall Farazh. It was the Marshall's desire to know the honest nature of my... failing health and the doctor replied as he was bid--with honesty." A cautious breath is taken, not one made tentative by a need to protect lungs but a need to steady and measure ensuing words. His elbows come to his chair's arms and fingers begin to steeple loosely. "It was not the first nor the last of their communications with one another on this subject, and I have come recently to know the fruits of that. By the Marshall's decree, I am relieved of this command until such a time as I improve in health and, though you will be stationed elsewhere, I have arranged that your orders should keep you together."

There is a period of silence in the room now, in the wake of this news. Sceale's eyes move from of Syl's pale features and afix Conor, then Colfax after him, and then return to the young lord from whom they have all taken proficient direction for months. "This... will compromise everything we have achieved. It is nearly impossible to accept, for I'm not fond of the idea of falling under the command of someone else. Someone perhaps less competent. And yet I can't fault the Marshall for his decision. I would rather that you were well again than see your dedication, though it is highly rare and admirable, a model to us all, put you in your grave. Sir."

"Aye," Conor says quietly in agreement, looking up at last. "Does the Marshall's command allow for consultation?"

"Only in the most dire circumstances," Syl replies, musing on the question for a moment before adding with a humorless smile. "Essentially when there is no alternative but to seek me out."

Silence again. Colfax is leaning his brow into his fingers, rubbing slow and then pinching the bridge of his nose as if to ease his tension. He would be reassigned. He would be leaving Aithne and his lord behind, and hated such changes. Hated, what's more, what circumstances damaged Syl Duquesne so much that he should be put in such a position of sickness. And this prompts Colfax to speak with firmness: "You can be sure, though we will be gone from your society, my lord, that that which we have long strived for will not be abandoned. Justice will be served those we have sought, I assure you."

Kraegan is nodding his affirmation, even as Conor offers agreement as well and it is the latter who speaks again with resolution. "Indeed, sir, we will continue without failing."

And the young lord is looking among these three, searching their features and what unrivaled determination they exhibit, and Syl will nod slowly... careful with the emotion that wars, that it might not show its own face. "I believe you will, gentlemen... I believe you will succeed, too. None are more capable than you; none have been more selfless, more loyal to such noble causes as those by which we have stood firmly all this time." Green eyes begin to lower, a light swallow hidden by the similar lowering of chin and a press of collar fleece making shadows against his skin. This jaw will firm somewhat, the mouth to grow resolute for composure. He lowers his steepled hands and reaches inside his jacket, drawing out a bundle of papers, each folded and sealed. These he lowers onto the table's black surface and slides them forward. "These are your new orders. Farazh desires that you leave without delay, that there be no further interruptions in the course of your investigations and duties. I am sorry, my friends... I wish it could be otherwise."

[Duquesne]

He had watched them ride away, those loyal agents, those three friends. Long would he stand upon the semi-circle breadth of Aithne's stairs, with the wide entry to its halls behind him, the courtyard before him, and the mouth of his long, winding lane that had swallowed the men up. And he stood there long after the dust had settled.

It was a bizarre fate, that the very cause of his coming into this office was also the cause of his being removed from it. A prison sentence began this duty; a bitter, lightless cell took it away. Finally he would turn and leave the empty aspect of his courtyard behind.

The days since then had proceeded with a haze, would begin and end slowly, one dawn feeding lazily into one more sunset. There was enough to keep him occupied, yet he was restless and often found his mind drifting when other such neglected duties were attempted. An array of mundane business matters lay unfinished, documents and contracts unsigned. There were merchants in search of financing; there were others in search of employment; there were museums in search of answers, information, artifacts, donations of objects and money not least among them. There were letters from old friends and, more preciously, notes in imperfect and childish scrawl, with orphanages as addresses. Little friends asking why he no longer visits. It is one such note which his fingers keep, though these eyes are far from here, gazing through the glass of this vast window at hand. Watching rain in rivulets, trickling down.

To Mister Syl. How are you? I am fine and I hope you are too. Today we lerned about art in the books you sent us and it was fun. I thought about you. Remember when you were here?

The afternoon has faded, gloomily become another evening. The mansion is silent, its many rooms gone to sleep, windows drawn like closed eyes. He feels its weight around him, that great debt of silence encroaching even here where the fire crackles and casts its warm glow. Still, green eyes will stare through this rain-streaked glass, distantly watching the light disappear.

We werked on drawing things and you drawed them pretty. I have the bird you drawed for me. It is on the wall by my bed. I try to draw it the same but it is not good. Our teacher does not teach like you. I like you better. Trinny says you are scary. She says you are a big tall shadow and your cane makes you grumpy. But I do not think you are.

Slowly, his head sinks into the cushion of this sofa's pillow, pain throbbing in that knee-joint according to his pulse. An endless pulsing, like the rhythms of some cruel orchestra, with his sinews as strings. The pain was moderate tonight, perhaps a little easier than it had been the previous night and day, but his breathing was troubled and he strained to catch it. A firm command from Grosvenor saw him at rest, no more rides for him, nothing to jar his body, nor tax these lungs overmuch.

Will you visit us again soon? I like the books you sent but it is better when you are here to read them. Please write me back soon. I like to get letters. I do not get them very often. It is time to go now. We have to eat supper. Sincerelly, Adeline - p.s I miss you, Mister Syl. p.p.s. I drawed you a picture.

"I will visit you soon," the heir murmurs low, though the letter had been read and concluded hours and hours before, this promise whispered into the empty air above him with none to hear. His eyes close; he did not think he would visit. He did not think he could.

[Duquesne]

A light knock comes to one of two doors, stained glass arranged in a design of colorful elegance, doors which stand open to admit the warmth and mild manner of spring into rooms inside. "Am I intruding?"

Green eyes will rise above the rim of a book, darkly leatherbound and unmarked, the edges of its pages trembling in some discreet breeze. Pages which are bright with sunlight. The book lowers in degrees to expose the pale visage of this heir, who gazes forward at the figure in the doorway. "Not at all, Walhem. You are welcome to join me if it please you." A moment's assessment, and then: "You are looking well today."

The once-prisoner emerges from the urbane shadows of the mansion, squinting somewhat as the light of day steals into his eyes, but the heat of the sun on the back of him is a comfort and he approaches a padded chair, sitting and leaning back. From this roost, he regards his benefactor for moments in silence, taking careful note of the heir's pale visage and his very black attire--this detail never changes. Indeed, Syl appears to be wrapped close in the dense folds of some fur-rimmed garment, whose cloth challenges the very darkness of the man's own hair. Walhem folds his arms and leans into the edge of his chair. "I am feeling well, thank you. Every day marks an improvement. Bruises are abating; wounds are becoming scars...." Domenic lowers his eyes somewhat, picking at the cuff of his sleeve and letting his response trail away.

And the heir is watching, assessing the movements of this one's features, paying careful mind to the manner of him. He lowers his book slowly and almost soundlessly closes it, keeping his hand wedged inside as a marker. "But?"

Walhem looks up somewhat, the edge of his mouth betraying a smile. "I am simply anxious, sir."

"I see," Syl replies with a musing tone and nods, taking in a slight and limited breath, feeling the restriction. The previous night had been a season of productive coughing and pain, hours during which the good doctor Grosvenor had stayed awake with him. There was no sleep to be had. "You are feeling well enough to join the Watch."

"The doctor says I am able."

"The doctor would know. I will speak with him and if he indeed gives you a clean bill of health, I will write to Farazh and commit you to him with recommendations."

Walhem exhales amid a smile and nods, searching the heir's features intently... looking for something, perhaps. Looking for improvement and seeing nothing of it. Indeed, the heir appears the worse for wear today, truly of a sickly constitution and a low spirit according to his manner, according to the way his eyes have changed over these last weeks and grown dark. The once-prisoner lowers his eyes and nods again. "You have my gratitude, my lord."

"And you have mine, sir," Syl replies quietly, offering a subtle and solemn smile that goes unseen. It is gone by the time Domenic is looking up again. The heir dips his chin in degrees, resting a hand on the top of this dark-bound book with fingers spread. A curl of ink visible on the back of this very hand there where the sleeve cannot cover it. "You will make a vital addition to his force. I am in no doubt of your success."

"Thank you, sir." Walhem leans forward to emerge from his chair, straightening up with a sense of vigor in his limbs--he had not thought he would ever feel this freedom again. Thought for certain his end would come in the darkness of a filthy cell, his own waste piled in a corner, a bed of straw and lice in another. He closes his eyes, shuddering internally as he turns away and faces the sun, wandering toward the steps leading down from this semi-circular terrace. Syl watches him descend into the gardens and lowers his eyes thereafter to the top of his book.

Good. The better for him.

The heir's head leans back into the cushion of this somewhat reclined and highbacked chair, grateful for the heat of the sun penetrating his dark clothing, grateful for the hot atmosphere therein. It was among the few comforts he took and when the sun was gone? to the fires he would go. At last, eyes close and... what are these but workings of the imagination, for can he not feel the dry heat of desert wind? Is that not the scent of spice, the whisper of window-sheers on blonde stone, the taste of that vital water seeping up from far underground? Is that not a slim figure there, clothed in russet things, in silk and beads and sun-toned skin... is that not her, she with eyes like shadows. Do not forget me... this memory whispers, demands of him. He must comply.

[Duquesne]

The north garden was a tangled maze of growth, of limbs overgrown or broken, of vines reaching round all things like greedy hands, of over-tall grass and once elegant roses become like shrubs. Chamberlain, familiar with chaos of this kind and knowing full well the ability of gardeners to become overwhelmed by the extent of the work to be done, smartly sectioned the garden and drew a diagram of its contents. According to this, he and his laborers worked from section to section, clipping, trimming, cutting, raking, sawing, and digging, loosening some of the darkest and richest soil the man had ever seen.

They heaped the waste into hand carts and time and again hauled it out through the gate, transfering it into a larger wagon which would eventually be driven down Aithne's network of cobbled lanes, taken out of sight and the contents forked onto a burn pile, the ashes collected and strewn. For days and weeks they worked, freeing the north garden from the clutches of neglect, just as spring was reaching to liven these diverse plants, these trees, these shrubs, these roses and flowerbeds, these vines and bulbs and patches of greening turf. And Chamberlain was well-pleased.

The master of Aithne, however, never checked in on their work. His shadow was never seen crossing the gate's threshold, his presence never caught hovering outside, as everyone had noticed the heir who had once spent so much time on the estate's grounds now never emerged from his rooms. But there were times when Chamberlain would take a moment to lean on a shovel outside the garden's gate, or stop to adjust his slouching cap and catch a glimpse of the man in one high window, a grim silhouette gazing out. Whether he studied the high walls of the garden or something else entirely, the chief gardener could never tell... but there he periodically stood, with features like a ghost's and a body like night.

It was one such occasion that Chamberlain once more noticed the heir standing, gazing out. The sun was sinking toward late afternoon, painting the rear of that wing of the mansion with blue shadows, though the garden and its walls were still warm with sunlight. The gardener was turning to step in through the gate again when he spied Aithne's master in that high window... and there was something in the sight of him that struck a solemn note in Chamberlain's mind, a feeling the man took with him into the garden as he returned to finish up for the day.

And stepping onto the pale pavement of the main walk, with the gate at his back and the distant sight of the pale sepulchre arrayed before him, Chamberlain would halt and stare. The structure, gracefully built and mournfully beautiful, was white. White as light and elegantly strange in the moment. Of course, it was all explained by the posture of the sun in the sky and the physical nature of the sepulchre's stone itself, but it brought a chill to the gardener's spine which was not to be explained by the breeze that seemed to stir up in the moment. Was it a whisper he heard, tendering that breeze? Shaking his head, he would turn and resume his work, trying not to steal glances at the sepulchre, trying not to be distracted...

But it was such a breeze as to be heard elsewhere, to be felt rousing in through this open window-door, turning into the elegant fabrics of drapes, caressing pale skin and the grave weave of coat-skirts. Lids lower and green eyes hide. Take me home. The heir inhales slowly and lowers his head, regripping his cane tightly and turning. It had become difficult to walk, not because the knee was weak but because his body was weak, because his body needed air he could not give it. Take me home, the wind whispers, even as he turns away from his window.

"Archibalde," he says, approaching the open doors of his main rooms, attracting the attention of the old servant who had just been dusting surfaces. "Archibalde, my friend, will you send a messenger to me? I have a letter."

"Certainly, sir." And the faithful Archibalde, who outlived his own son, wanders down the corridor to fulfill this request.

Meanwhile, the heir painfully takes a seat in the library of lords, finding his breath short and difficult, finding himself tired beyond experience. A page is drawn near, an inkwell un-stoppered and a quill taken to hand.

It is not my way to address you so forthrightly, sir, without even those crucial formalities by which we regularly keep abreast of the current events of one anothers' lives. Ordinarily, there would be a process of explanations preceding my request but I fear I can give none other than what apt assumptions your intelligence might make.

The quill is re-dipped and reapplied to the page, the letter continues.

I would ask of you the services of your staff, that they open the graves sealed and kept inside the sepulchre which you once asked me of, which I once told you held those dear to me, and that those coffins be transported by them to 'r Chyr'laud and the deserts of Lanesse. You might think this a peculiar if not offensive request, according our customs regarding the dead, but I ask it fervently and with all sincerity. You know me, sir. I hope you may weigh this matter against what integrity I have shown and deliberate upon it fairly. It is with great respect that I write you and with anticipation that I wait upon your answer.

And this letter is signed, folded, its envelope addessed and sealed with wax and the heir's distinctive seal. No sooner is this done than the messenger which Archibalde had fetched is entering and receiving his order. When he is gone, Archibalde remains. His nobby hands are folded before him and he surveys this young lord from beneath bushy brows, surveys him with wisdom... knowing he is tired, knowing he is slowly... slowly giving up. "If I may say, young master, you look very tired. What may I do for you?"

Syl's fingers tremble as they stopper the inkwell. "Nothing, my friend," he murmurs in a rasp, green eyes dark with solemnity and conviction. Eyes begin to close somewhat and he leans weakly backward into the cushion of this high-backed chair, his breaths coming shallow and labored on the inhale. "Please forgive me... I only want to be alone."

[Duquesne]

"It's important. You should open it," the doctor murmurs, voice pitched low so as not to disturb the sensitive ears of this man whom he treats, a one who sits in the russet glow of some guttering candles. Night air is subtle in its movement outside the open windows, the open doors of this second-floor space, this chamber belonging exclusively to the lord of the house. Night air, it whispers in, trembles among those candles' warm flames. Grosvenor's eyes rise from off the leather wallet resting on the floor beside the heir's couch and afix the man himself, searching his profile in a quest for clues.

"That is what Sense would have me do," Syl whispers, green eyes caught somewhere between the space before him and the darkness beyond open terrace doors. "Letters are meant to be read after all." Eyes rise as the heir turns his head somewhat and looks along at his physician, pinning the man's visage with the acuity of his stare. "I have... developed a sense which seems to tell me already what is written. I know, yet I cannot bring myself to truly confirm..."

The doctor raises his chin somewhat, lowering to sit slowly on the edge of some chair. "Your worst fears are--"

"Realized."

There is a considerable silence here, for the doctor has no words for what has been said, no consolation which his caregiver's spirit has want to express. To say a thing would be, in a way, to insult Duquesne... something the doctor has no will to do--enough suffering had gone on.

Here, Syl's eyes lower from off Grosvenor and fall onto the unopened leather wallet lying there, contrasting the vibrant threads of tribal color composing the carpet. His features are marshalled in a way familiar to Grosvenor's eyes, poignant in a way the doctor has seen before now. Each time preceded some particular action, some event almost epic in nature. Uncomfortably, the doctor inhales and straightens his spine with slowness.

"Tomorrow, my friend," the heir murmurs now, drawing his eyes from off that bundle of letters and looking outward into the darkness of night--not merely night to him, he with his sensitive vision, but a new world exposed and unique in the absence of light. "Tomorrow, Brennr Grel and his men will open the tombs. I... must sleep tonight." Some haunted look creeps in at the edges of his features, so that when he glances at the doctor, it is with near-desperation that he does so. His voice is a whisper, a shell: "I cannot do this without sleep."

Grosvenor leans forward somewhat, nodding slowly as he locks eyes with his patient, offering what reassurance he has it in him to offer the tormented in this world. "You will sleep and deeply--that healing, I can give you."

[Duquesne]

This sun rose and painted all the miles of Aithne with solemn hues. This sun drew itself up over aged trees with hulking and complex boughs, brought warmth despite what warranted sobriety here dwelled. Yet perhaps it was Aithne herself and not that old sun--Aithne who created her dim colors, Aithne who spoke of sadness. It was a feeling felt throughout, strangely, so that animals bedded down when they ought to graze and no bird chimed, nor insect flew. At the hour when the master's boot-soles crossed into the north garden, there was but silence.

Aithne held her breath--her lord drew his keys.

He alone ascended those white steps, with the darkness of his attire heavy and grim in comparison. The sun shone on this stone, on these strange and imported doors indestructable and feral in their look. The key went in, the lock disengaged, and the doors stood closed for long seconds--suffering was in the fingertips of the heir, who, though touching the wood, struggled to muster resolve. None present and waiting behind him offered their help, nor spoke a word, for it was not their place to rush such a man. Besides, Lord Duquesne's various fates were not unknown to them. His was, if the term be wise, a shape almost legendary.

Men held their breath. They did not, indeed do not, hold it much longer...

At the present moment, the heir will lean, will put his weight into the doors and thrust them inward away from himself. Slowly and with weight, they swing in and light spills bright and fast into the vaulted chamber beyond, with some swirl of disturbed dust coiling upward, illuminated. The heir's cane meets with stone again, the opal regripped as he leans into that support and walks forward, sensitive nostrils all full of the scent of mourning and neglect.

It is cold here, unchanged. Light is coming in from above, from star-vaulted windows whose beams distort themselves on the floor and on two coffins arrayed in the center of the octagonal space. These are also stone, beautifully carved with burial patterns and rites, speaking of customs which are dying, ones which could be but memories in the blink of an eye. The last of a tribe are failing, childless, their legacy a thin vein of vibrance in a sea of sand and shadows. He can feel the traditions of ages around him, a thousand spirits come to look on, to witness these goings-on. To approve or disapprove of the disturbance of the dead.

Syl Duquesne might as well be a ghost himself here, a vapor caught in the figure of a man. He feels thin, exposed... weary of the conflict between hoping for eternity's sleep and knowing this desire to live. There were things left undone, words left unsaid. There were also hurts breaking him under their weight. He stands at the head of one coffin, one beautiful stone vessel mounted on an oblong pedestal of same-length, larger than the one at its side. And he leans his cane in slowly, leaving it braced here, and takes one limping step closer while lifting his two hands to touch. Breath is breakable in his mouth and he is pressing these hands onto the cold and dusted stone, stirring up the latter as fingertips delve sadly, longingly into the carvings' grooves as if clutching. Just as if he could rouse one awake from a long sleep.

(to be continued)

[Duquesne]

The sepulchre had been authored by him, first an idea and then a sketch, thereafter a careful set of plans drawn up with precise dimensions and specifications as to material. It was not meant, in the beginning, to become so intimate a structure for him, was not meant to be used at Aithne. Not meant to be constructed on these grounds, in this garden, here on this site so serenely conjoined with the calm shore of a small lake. It was to house the retired bodies of those he did not know, those whose names and faces were indistinct and unfamiliar--others' families, not his own.

And then he found himself searching for the plans, digging among a host of scrolls to find them. The white stone and the mortar's iridescent elements were imported, the star-vaults' glass carefully crafted and transported with excess to spare lest panes be broken en route, as many were, found to be shattered in their heavily insulated crates. Those workers whose toil firmed this foundation and raised these stones found the heir to be a hard taskmaster, driving them to perfection, forcing them to redo work which did not meet his approval, sometimes repeatedly so that by the end of the project they hated him, cursed him as the maker of their bruises and aching bones and weary backs. Even so, the men could not, in their private hearts, blame him for his exactitude.

The sepulchre stands now as a monument of human ability, a thing of genuine beauty, pale as snow and elegant in the best of ways. A shape with eight sides, its circumference boasts eight orders, or columns, supporting each corner, with smooth trunks and highly detailed echinus. The columns guard a walk encircling the structure entire, and also uphold the dome roof into which the star-shaped windows are inset to admit sunlight. And it is this sunlight that overlaps the stone coffins, haunted by a fine layer of dust. Haunted, too, by this black-clad figure suffering anew. To be here was to relive. To be here was strange, mortal agony. To be here was necessary.

Brennr's workers are patient, waiting in silence in the shade of the hulking limbs of an oak for their work to begin. Wait without a word or noise to disturb the peculiar calm of the north garden, while the man inside that pale and beautiful and sad structure makes his acceptance and says his good-byes once more.

There were no tears to be shed, for his body could spare no more on account of this, perhaps itself harboring a sense of its own proximity to the mortal condition of those housed inside these two stone coffins--in this sense, there is quiet hope. But the soul, the heart... these enduring organs have died a hundred deaths already, die again even now and are resurrected, slaves to the still-living state of his body. A hand loosens from the surface of one coffin and sets down on the other much smaller vessel whose carvings are different, gentle and innocent... and there is brokenness in his touch, a softness that seems morbid but which is, according to the contents of that coffin, completely warranted.

And tired now, tired so that he must once more search, search for the will to move, he withdraws both hands from the dusted surfaces, reaches the left for the cane and fists the right at his side as he collects himself just enough. Just enough to half-turn himself into the sun which veritably blinds him, just enough to look along his shoulder and nod lightly once to the watchful Brennr that he may begin. And while Brennr and his staff collect their tools, Syl Duquesne withdraws to edge of the sepulchre's cold space, where he would stand watch alongside those thousand spirits, a spirit himself still imbedded in a mortal's body. An observer, scrutinizing to the end those men whose talent it is to loosen such firm stone and transport its beautiful and very dead contents away without error. She wanted to go home, he knew. She could not rest in this place, nor could he rest having her near.

[Duquesne]

The coffins had first been cleaned with ritual delicacy. Soft-bristle brushes were used to sweep the surfaces, soft so that their effort may leave no scar or scratch on the white stone. Afterward, a bellows-like device was used to blow excess dust from the detailed carvings and cloths were used then to collect the residue, leaving the stone as white and new as it had once looked. And the scholar watched all.

With the utmost precision, the coffins were each swathed in padding, covered and covered until no portion could be seen, and then a solid framework was constructed around each. Once done, long poles were run through rings on each side and with men on each side, first one coffin was raised from off its pedestal and then the other. Removed from the sepulchre and into poignant daylight, the coffins were put upon the sturdiest of wagons, reinforced with hardwood and steel, thereafter covered with canopies and hidden. And the scholar was there.

And he was there to watch when, ready to depart the next morning, the wagons and the men set about the courtyard of Aithne and took the long lane to the main road, taking their safe and precious cargo away from here forever.

His emotions were mixed, for he both felt suddenly and specifically alone, and relieved. He felt pain and confusion. He felt restless. He became distracted and distant, so much so that to speak to him was to encounter silence... just as if he had not heard a thing. With the onset of this mood, the heir cloistered himself away and would see hide nor hair of anyone for two days, taking no food and no treatments. It was only when a particular rough bout of coughing seized him that he allowed Archibalde and the doctor to enter, and such time was spent in the prolonged care of him, as it seemed to both that he had faded, lost weight, seeming perhaps a little paler than he was before. Yet again.

And yet next day when the sun rose, when all his rooms were vessels of light and heat, he seemed to recover himself and grew better with food, drink, medicines. Time spent at work in the study improved him, providing a fair distraction for one whose resolve had been incredibly tried days before. There were old letters to respond to, business to attend--the young heir was a man of many investments and ventures, and these could not be neglected for long. There was also this matter of schematics, as a certain architectural project was on the horizon and a few necessary alterations were made, plans reviewed, notes reread. For a while, according to Archibalde who knew him longest, Syl Duquesne seemed to be returning to some healthy normality... and it veritably altered the estate's atmosphere.

So here, this night, there is easier and natural sleep--it in and of itself being a shock. The first night of many in which doses were not administered, nor bottles confiscated by a displeased doctor. He sunk into a supportive arrangement of pillows put there simply that he might better breathe--to lie flat was to virtually drown in his lungs' painful edema. This night of peace, of summer-like warmth drifting in among open windows, stirring window-drapes of light material, it made him easy in spirit. Sleep is, however, broken, eyes opening with a pull of breath through lips. Pupils stir to accommodate the darkness of his bedchamber and the heir leans forward, sitting up. Listening, reaching with this sensitive hearing. Something is wrong.

He guides his left leg to the edge of the bed as he twists, this movement practiced and efficient, and reaches for a tunic to cover his bare torso. Slides into this dark linen, pulls it down 'round hips and the rim of dark leggings. From the width of an embroidered cuff, perhaps slightly too long but not meant for any use aside from sleep, the opal cane-grip is taken up tight and the young man, not so young in soul or mind, limps across this too-dark room, needing no light to guide him--he could see through this encompassing dim. The handle of one of his outer doors is tested, the door opened... with this scholar suspended on the threshold, listening. Simultaneous to a set of hooves in the courtyard, he hears the main doors opening along with voices re-echoing lightly--urgency paints their words. Something is wrong, indeed.

[Duquesne]

The entrance hall is a circular affair, swirling with shadows and newly-kindled light, with voices and movements, all these echoes transmited up the staircase, into the second floor corridor where one heir tries to affect haste. A weak knee, however, limits him a great deal and yet he manages well enough, ignoring the grating pain of bones rubbing on bones--deterioration had seen the wasting of cartilege there. As he rounds the elegant detail of the upper rail and slows to a halt, he finds himself staring down a long flight of stairs curving downward, their last three steps sunk into the gloom of the lower floor. A long way down and he felt such need to defeat the staircase in short order, felt such pain too in this sore hindrance of a left leg.

With a small shake of the head, he limps one step to the banister and pushes himself up to sit onto the wide and smooth rail, seeing it as not as much a hazard as perhaps he should. The ride down is fast, or seems fast perhaps--a tribute to much polishing, he is sure--and yet the end of the rail, which does not boast a decorative knob of any kind, is looming below him at an alarming rate. Let it not be said, however, that Syl Duquesne is not capable in body and fast in reactions, sure in what balance he does maintain. His shadow of a figure slides from off that banister and into the circular entrance hall, while even before bare feet touch cold stone, he is seeing all. The eyes, too, are fast.

And what he sees is this: the main doors, tall and carved wooden things, are standing somewhat open but not completely, and beyond them a frothing horse trembles below the main steps on which blood has been trailed, smeared as with a body dragged inside. Two servants are kneeling over this very body which they clearly have just discovered, only just now brought inside.

Suddenly the banister is gone from beneath him and for a moment, perhaps only one second but seeming far, far longer in the mind, he is airborne and reacting. His body manipulates, twisting forward and angling, so that when he lands, he lands sure upon his right foot, with the cane coming down to brace him a second later. The servants are looking up, pale-faced, bloody of hands. "My Lord," one exclaims in alarm, even as the sight of the heir is such great reassurance.

"Go wake the doctor. Quickly now," he says as he approaches and this servant, this woman with her scarlet-stained hands, rises from her knees and rushes across the entrance hall to the stairs, hastening up them with gathered night-skirts. The remaining servant, a stableman who must have been about his watch when this rider came in, is using his hands to compress a very badly bleeding wound on the lower right abdomen of this unfortunate victim, a man whose eyes rise toward Syl when the heir sinks to the floor at his side, cane abandoned. "Colfax."

"Sir..."

"What happened to you."

The agent lifts a hand up from off the floor, a scarlet-stained hand that trembles as it reaches toward the heir. Syl unhesitatingly grips that hand with his own. "They are dead," the agent whispers hoarsely, beseeching his former commander with urgent and somewhat hollow eyes--the look of death is with him. "The king, queen... all." A chill stirs down Duquesne's spine, with a sinking in his stomach. His jaw firms, flexes as he holds tightly to Colfax's hand and listens, for clearly the agent had more to say. He continues: "Reule has done it. Do not believe... w-what you hear, for it is being said that... Nnurian soldiers acted apart f-from orders. It is being said that hate, ambition, drove them to... to defy." Colfax begins coughing here, choking back a little blood. The stableman curses softly, as the flexing of the stomach spurts blood up from among his pressing hands. Meanwhile, the doctor is hastening down the stairs, with the maid-servant behind him.

"It was by... Reule's order that they acted and yet they are executed for their 'crime'. Sylvius." The agent grimaces and relaxes his head onto the stone floor, knowing he had little time to warn the man in whose service he thrived. "He searches for you. He's sent men to find you. His... hate for you is deep." The doctor, by the light of lamps, kneels at Colfax's side and quickly assesses his wounds, while the stableman continues to hold pressure, trying to keep blood at bay. But all are aware there is little use, so that as Grosvenor lifts his eyes up toward Duquesne's expectant stare, there is a tiny shake of head--Colfax had but moments left. Syl's eyes lower grimly toward the agent's face and he grips his hand a little tighter. "Syl," Colfax whispers thinly, staring upward. "The king's granddaughter is the only royal alive. She is... sought. She is in danger. You are in danger here. They are behind me, they are... coming..." And lower and lower has his voice become, more a whisper, a ghost in his mouth in the last word. Then there are no more words, no breath as the last is breathed.

Duquesne lowers his head somewhat, using his free hand to smooth the lids down, cover those familiar eyes. And he leans back slowly, coaxing Colfax's bloody hand from his own, only to find the agent had pressed a folded paper into his palm, it too stained with red. A moment's gaze and then he is unfolding it lightly, pupils shifting to read its shadowy ink. Mouth-corners tighten somewhat and he inhales deeply, pushes this tense breath out as a sigh. "May I depend on you," he says, raising his green eyes toward the doctor and the two servants, "to tend to and conceal this body? Clean up the blood, hide the horse, and do so as quickly as possible. Much depends on speed."

[Duquesne]

The man's blood stains this water. It was not the first time Colfax had bled on him, as once upon a time a wound was fresh and such quantities of blood had not been lost--such shock had not set in. Such hope was not lost then. To die at Aithne, the agent once said, was a wish he could only hope for and yet fate had favored him with that desire. Still, the death is raw. It is a burn in the heir's soul--a pain he cannot now face. Worse things had happened, worse were on their way and now was no time for grieving.

While the doctor and the servant roll Colfax's body into a blanket and conceal him in a suitably secret location, the maid-servant mops scarlet up off the floor, weeping because never before had she seen so much blood nor watched the life sift from within a man's eyes--it will haunt her beyond this hour, this day, this year. It will stay with her, as it stays always with those who enter a scene unprepared. Duquesne's first witnessed death is with him--it can never leave him. While the heir dresses quickly, there are hoof-beats on the pale lane twisting through Aithne's leagues of terrain. While he moves among lightless chambers with sight for the darkness, horsemen clothed in shadows gallop forward, their steel-trimmed forms winking grimly by starlight.

This hour was no stranger to him, this event no surprise. Long ago, he read the signs of this doom; long ago, he perceived such a fate. The royal grounds had been breached, the guards slain, their blood mingling with regal blood, all pooling together among gilded halls. The stench of destruction was stretching from the Nnurian border inland, a swath of theft, rape, death. He could almost hear the land lifting its voice in a low grieving wail. He could see it coming, yes, but all the work and toil done by he and his men to eliminate the threat seemed to be a waste. They had been undermined from within, suffered the weakness of sabotage. Not all was lost, however, even as Lanesse was brought to its knees. In a girl-child, there was promise of rebirth; in an heir, there was promise of vengeance. He knew the source of this. He would destroy it.

Ball-spurs flash silver. Coat-skirts ride his movement and hems dust darkened courtyard cobbles. A cane's opal grip is a colorful eye closed under the lid of his gloved palm. A grim hatbrim is drawn low and angled slow. "Where are you going?" the doctor's voice demands, as the heir slings his cane through leathers and swings up into the saddle. "You know the risks of riding, my lord."

Duquesne looks down at the man from under the defining shadow of his hatbrim--the eyes are lost here, but the mouth, the jaw, these things speak of hard things. Severity, resolve. Some regimented wilderness. "I would much rather die by a good ride, doctor," he says with a rasp, collecting and tightening up reins, his mare shifting readily for sensed urgencies. "This danger is much larger than I. This risk is one I must take." He lifts his chin in the direction the main doors, standing open still where the heir can see the maid-servant collecting bloody rags. "Do you remember what to do?"

The doctor takes a cautious breath and nods. "I remember."

"Good." Spurs and boot-heels dig into horseflesh; the bay lunges forward full of speed, taking not to the lane but to the yard, to the trees, to Aithne's night-swollen expanse--Syl Duquesne had a man to find.

[Duquesne]

It was not difficult to find the camp. He knew its location in general, but no specific landmark had been given, no measured miles to its quietly watched boundary. To find it, he had only to choose what geography he himself found defensible and resourceful. He followed a river upland; he entered an old wood and waited to hear perfect silence.

And when he heard it, he simultaneously felt eyes upon him. They were watching him, but he did not return their vigilance. Did not betray his Mind by looking.

The mare was left, her reins dropped that she should stand as if tethered, and he regimented his movement as he went forward among these wide and high trees, cane in hand and the limp always with him. The crowns of trees here were dense and obstructed the sky, so that what starlight could be had was limited if it was present at all. It was, therefore, very dark... and human eyes suffer their insufficiency here--his watchers lose sight of him in minutes, as his dark blends with the forest's.

He could hear their movements afterward and stood a while against the girth of a wide trunk, hatbrim brought low by a down-turned chin. He listened to the discreet whisper of their steps, reaching out with a cultivated sense of hearing that he might isolate their locations, count their number. There were three and they bore the weight of weapons with them--daggers, bows because he could hear the subtle click of arrows bundled into hip-sheaves, moving when they moved.

There was a game of evasion going on, a language of stealth being spoken here. They understood him to be valuable in riches, lame in the leg, knew him also to be ill, labeled him among the weak as a result, and for men of this kind... weakness in the body was an offense. To have lost him, therefore, was to have underestimated, to have gauged him below his capacity and they would be angry for it. He would indeed have them reconsider their belief--to judge by the look, by the impediment, by the sickness of him, was to find oneself at a true disadvantage.

This is quickly learned, here in the present moment, as the heir surprises the soldiers in his brother's camp by walking into it unescorted, a darkish figure complimented by a low-angled hatbrim and a virtual sea of heavy coat-skirts. There is a tense moment of registration before weapons veritably spill out into the open air, with the song of drawn swords and creaking bow-strings. Syl Duquesne lifts his chin somewhat, binding himself to a neutral posture as sword-points glint sharply in the atmosphere inches from him--it would be his neck cut should anything go very wrong.

Somewhere ahead, the sound of a tent's flap swept heavily aside joins the jogging stealth of approaching perimeter guards, those whose job it was to track him all along. Their faces are painted with frustration, with some nervous eyes cast in the direction of the man here walking forward. And this is a sight, so that Syl's hatbrim rises a fraction that he might fully observe the approach of this older brother, a twenty and nine years to his twenty and seven. They had not set eyes upon each other for a long, long while... and it is a critical exchange as one assesses the other, here in the shadows before dawn.

Ethan slows beyond the ring of his men, whose swords are as narrow bands of cold light in the near-darkness, reflecting bits of sky and the lamps in a few tents. His eyes are sharp, vivid green and watchful because his brother, a near-cripple and dying, had just breached his carefully arranged security, cane and all. "You to lose nothing of Ability," he expresses in his difficult Common, contrasting Sylvius in every possible way except for the blood-similarities which make them brothers, which make them of the same world. One is seemingly a raw creature in his bearing, in his leather and steel and ink-etched flesh; the other is an image of expensive, well-tailored shadows, a soul tethered fatedly to a failing body.

"You lose nothing of your diligence," Syl replies by the rasp of his voice, only to be rewarded with a grunt of amusement from the older brother. Ethan's eyes sift from off him, stir among the acute postures of his soldiers, judging their faces. Seeing distrust, but also the confusion of curiosity--how was one such as this able to surprise them?

It makes him laugh outright, a single crucial laugh. "Darostwng 'ch arfau," he commands, with gravel in his tone and a sudden severe eye put upon these warriors who slowly begin to lower their swords and their drawn bows, backing away to leave Syl to his space. Exposed, however, to the musing approach of Ethan whose ability for very dangerous speed is not far from Syl's mind. The warrior-brother slows and pauses, to the creak of leather and a little glinting metal. He determines the language of this conversation, makes it their native speech that he might more easily speak: "Why are you here in the middle of the night, come like a ghost? Why... do you come looking like Death."

[Duquesne]

"... and the king is dead. His heirs are dead but for one girl-child, you say."

"Yes."

"Who is left?" the warrior-brother asks, raising eyes up from off the gulch below his camp, in which morning mist is creeping, so much like the spirits of the dead, and fixes his attention on the profile of the younger, more weighted soul beside him. Caught, as it were, in this body still.

"A few members of parliament who, I think, could be persuaded to act in rebellion to the occupation were there to be a strong movement. They may already see their days are over as effective statesmen, were things to continue. And General Sutke, who has refortified Afan Bant and holds it with two-thousand."

Ethan expresses sound in his throat, offering a subtle nod of approval for what ground Sutke had managed to obtain and hold, but he is disappointed by the small number of soldiers. Sniffing, he stirs and lowers himself into an easy crouch, stimulating the creak of leather as it strains in reaction. Syl, meanwhile, has taken a seat on a jutting stone slab half-buried in earth and painted with yellow lichens. Ethan raises his head and looks up at his brother. "There must be pockets of military presence. They can't have destroyed all our army."

"They haven't," the heir replies, prodding soil musingly with his cane's steel-capped foot, loosening rich and fragrant humus. A brown centipede of a kind coils up and out from this disturbed earth and scurries between his boots, quick to find concealment under a dew-bent clump of grass. "Forces are broken, scattered, but they remain. They need only to be rallied, given direction."

"Can Afan Bant support more men with the resources it has?"

"Easily another thousand in the stronghold alone, with what food stores I know they possess, but more could be lodged in the forest and passes where they could support their stomachs on game."

"Soldier's signal. Summon men to Sutke," Ethan murmurs, peering upward at his brother and scrutinizing the younger's visage, resenting, admiring, fearing, loving him all at once. "What do you want?"

Syl is watching the mists, green eyes dim as with the creeping shadows before dawn, something distant in his expression, something calculating. "If she is not protected, the king's heir, removed from where she is and hidden, she will die." He looks toward his brother now, the one soul who gave him strength to press on when there seemed to be so little reason to do so. That was long ago, though, before poison came between them. The heir inhales somewhat and leans forward a mere inch. "This occupation cannot and will not be crushed easily. Lanesse will suffer now and we can do nothing, but we can protect its future... by protecting the girl."

"You want me to find her," the warrior-brother says, an elbow put upon his thigh, fingers here for a shadow of stubble on his chin. And he watches Syl, who nods a light nod of affirmation. Ethan inhales deeply and looks over his camp, assessing its state as the blue hues of dawn change the look of things. "I will do this. Not for you, brother, but for the people. For the girl's sake, I do it. Tell me where to look."

[Duquesne]

Hooves dig into dew-dampened earth, skidding into the mud of a seeping stream at the forest's edge, here where old and broad trees overhang with such a reach, as if hungry for that which lies just beyond their leaf-green fingertips. Hooves dig and this mare separates her mouth in response to the urgency with which her bit is strained, its reins taut in the gloved hands of this young man, who has seen smoke, who has seen flame. The mansion burns.

This heart is in his throat in a cruel surge of emotion and adrenaline, and he is digging spurs into the flanks of this mare, putting her to speed in a way she has so rarely endured. Sensing the need, she leans her head into this movement, consuming and shredding ground with the power of her hooves, all the while the firm, unrelenting pressure of her rider's spurred heels reminds her to maintain this thunderous rate.

Even as the mare powers into the open and her hooves strike sparks on cobblestone, the heir is assessing, sensitive eyes registering detail in seconds. Smoke wheels upward from the left wing of the mansion in a blackish spire, vomited from first-floor windows. The front doors, those imported things carved of foreign wood, are gaping open and the light of loose fire illuminates the stone entrance hall. He counts two outside guarding what his eyes see as twelve riderless horses grouped at the courtyard's stable-side. The mare slows into a canter in response to his cue and the two guards are moving, their dark garb, their armor glinting in the blue-pale of dawn being all familiar to him, all distinguishing them as enemies. Only two of a host of those whose intentions are either to kill him or take him captive.

He spurs the mare onward as enemy horses trot past, loose and somewhat startled by fire lurching from some visible window. He leans, a gloved hand reaching out, closing 'round the leather grip of a sword sheathed in saddle-leathers, stolen from one passing startled mount. Swung underhand and gripped tight, this sword, as his horse closes fast on soldiers now. He steers her to the left of one, with a startling clash of blades in passing, and he flexes a calf, pulling rein into her neck as he wheels her around in a tight turn, spurring her back in that direction even as the first guard drops with blood gushing from an open neck and shoulder. The second guard is posturing for defense, sword raised and ready. But with precise horsemanship and timing, the heir cues the mare to change leads in the last seconds, feigning leftward, enough to convince the guard so that his posture changes to compensate. An error, however, as a spurred heel and tight hand cue a second time--the mare changes leads again, to the right, and there will be mere inches between her shoulder, her flanks, her rider's boot-toe and that soldier, who realizes this mistake only in the eye-blink it takes for horse and rider to be upon him. His back is exposed, it is cut into with a severe downward swing, and the man arches away from the blow, a single cry to come before he drops his sword and himself.

The heir slows this mare into a canter as they come 'round the courtyard to the semi-circle front stair, protected by a vine-wreathed port-cochere and that massive doorway standing open, showing that fire burns where it can burn. Blood drips down the naked sword in Duquesne's hand, held leftward away from his thigh, point downturned as he stares upward along those steps and into the entrance hall, jaw flexing angrily as his hat's tilted brim guards the harsh look of green eyes. He could detect crashing inside, things being thrown down, broken. He could hear the rush of flames as torches ignite flammable upholstries. Glass shatters. A specific odor is in the air, a thing that makes nostrils flare with its seemingly toxic capacity--his instincts flare, warning him.

Once more, spurs set to the now-bloody flanks of the bay, who lunges into movement obediently, shod hooves clopping up stone stairs, that horse and rider might pass through those great and open doors left open to the night air. And all the while, the sun creeps a little higher, brightens the sky a little more; all the while, smoke still churns blackly from low windows. Again, glass breaks as hooves clop and re-echo in the circular stone hall, dotted with thick columns unholding the second-floor landing overhead, which is creeping darkly with veils of smoke. He halts the horse, listening carefully to noises, employing this acute sense of hearing for what it had been cultivated to hear--adverse motion, positioning. Stragetic information. It tells him they destroy with purpose; it tells him they search for something here; it tells him, with every crash, they find themselves empty-handed.

(continued)

[Duquesne]

A torrent of noise filters down from the floor above and this hatbrim rises somewhat, as his head angles discreetly in that direction, exposing an ear to the vibration of overturned furniture. This is a neutral assessment, a collection of facts--this reaching sense isolates voices, boot-falls, counting four on the second floor. At one and the same time, crashes from the left-wing corridor draw his focus, this threat more immediate. His eyes move in the direction of those doors, some efficient calm sinking in over the veins of panic and greater anger that he had felt before, so that the heat of these things is channeled. Compacted, weapon-like.

He loses stirrups and tucks his right leg over the pommel and the mare's neck in a pivot, dropping to the marble floor with weight to his right to save his weaker knee. His cane is drawn from saddle-leathers and the mare sent on her way outside with a swat to her haunches. She needs no further encouragement, since the smoke and the noise and the bloodshed of the last minutes outside combine to secure her fright. As the clatter of her hooves on stone recedes, sword and cane are transfered, one into the right hand, the other into the left, and weight is turned into that cane as he walks forward with caution. More sound, more voices as smoke whirls high above his head, blackish and toxic as fibers and lacquered woods burn, their elements turned atmospheric and dangerous.

Entering the left-wing first-floor corridor, he takes note of the long space as a whole, with doors flung open and at odds, decorative tables thrown down, vases shattered, statues strewn with stone limbs sadly fractured. His eyes assess and move on--there would be a later hour to rue the destruction of his belongings. He nears the open doors of the first room and his boot-soles promptly skid on the polished stone floor, something slickening this surface as he braces against the jamb, hand and cane pushed into the wood to steady himself. Eyes are falling, collecting the supine posture of this body in a little sea of blood and eviscerated organs. The doctor's eyes are still open in a blank death-stare. With a brief swallow, Syl steps over the blood pool and into the room, stooping to fold his gloved hand over the eyes to close them, just as he had closed Colfax's mere hours before. But the mansion is empty of staff--Grosvenor had remembered what to do, but had inexplicably returned, only to die in the worst of ways.

More talking, more sounds raise his eyes and regulate his thoughts, seeing him straightening up and turning more into the room. The chambers on this side had the benefit of being connected by inner doors, so that one could bypass the corridor entirely, moving from space to space. Duquesne, needing a free hand, loses the bloodied sword to the floor and reaches for one of these inner double doors, testing the latch, opening. Exposing the next room as empty but ransacked, a chaos of objects over which his eyes pass fleetingly as he enters, careful not to disturb broken things with careless boots.

Always, the smell of smoke is present, a quiet haze seeping from open room to open room, like a host of ghosts combining to haunt, or one large dark enemy with a capacity to suffocate. A sinister shadow overhead. He opens the next set of inner doors, only to encounter a startled soldier whose sudden stillness attracts a glance from his partner in destruction. They both seem to shout in unison upon seeing him and hands go for swords as Syl steps calmly back behind the door, leaving it open as the men foolishly rush to cross the threshold. As the second man is entering, sword drawn in a flash of steel, the door sweeps in with a solid smack, connecting with and distorting his helm's nose-guard and breaking the nose beneath with so sudden an impact as to drop him fast in a bulk of armor and leather, unconscious. Startled, the first soldier whirls and sees the heir there behind the door which has evidently decommissioned his companion, but he has only a second to register the man before he sees a flash of molten orange, brilliant blue, ignited by the firelight of things burning in the room across the corridor. The cane's opal grip catches him across the cheek, his helm hurtling away as his head pivots grossly on its neck, a spray of blood loosed from the mouth. With balance lost, the soldier reels sideward with a stagger and strikes his head on the leg of an overturned couch. On the floor, he does not move again and blood creeps out dark and slow from under his brow.

Duquesne inhales somewhat as he corrects his posture, straightening and turning, stepping quick around the door-turned-weapon, over the unconscious body and into the next room. Twelve horses, two men dead outside, two dead inside. Four upstairs... four downstairs. His heart is pounding as, the farther he moves into this wing of the mansion, first-floor, the closer he comes to smoke and fire, all the closer to some area of the house in which open flame is a tremendous hazard. For this reason, no fires have burned in the hearths of these rooms, nor candles lit, nor lamps burned. These are dayrooms only, summer rooms where kindling fires to ward off chills is wholly prohibited. And yet the house burns.

He understood there was so little time, that a moment would come in the very, very near future that it would behoove him to leave the vicinity with as much haste as possible, but he had to risk being here for now--there was something he could not let be found, something he could not let burn.

He feels the heat of the door-knobs before ever touching them, a gloved hand extended to grip but hesitating and drawing back. The room beyond is hot. He lets it lie and turns instead for the corridor doorway, stepping over glass and pieces of a broken chair, blackish coat-hems sweeping over these things in a heavy torrent of cloth. A cautious gaze 'round the door frame betrays an empty corridor, so he leans into movement, gripping his cane as he walks out with this limp half-masked by drape of coat and mastered steps. Ten feet taken and a soldier emerges from a room, hesitating in stride upon seeing him. A shout to his companions to follow and he is running forward, even as Syl composedly veers into another room--incidentally a certain chamber once full of sunlight and thin scarlet window-sheers and an iron girl-sculpture, a reminder of his blood. He is aware of her, that iron figurine, that Clawu whose fierce and challenging look is here challenging him. There is a hitch in his step as he notices her, stares for what is but few seconds but what feels like longer. And he inhales slow before turning aside, hearing the running steps of hobnailed boots in the corridor, approaching with the song of swords drawn.

And there is so little time to linger here, so little time to act.

(continued)

[Duquesne]

Four pairs of hobnailed boots skid to a halt in what is otherwise a chamber empty of human presence. After the customary turning of four heads on four perplexed necks, the soldiers' eyes begin to meet in questioning and their evident leader gestures to the glass doors that they should check outside. It was the only explanation--the dark figure slipped out of doors.

As three men hasten forward to look outside, the one remaining, a man with some measured rank bound up in the very structure of his helm, captain perhaps, cautiously looks around the room in which he finds himself, distinctly aware of its themes and not liking them one bit. He spits on the stone floor in response, offended by the presence of the 'r Chyr'laud in this place and as he begins to turn, he too spies the iron figurine crouching on a table across the room: a likeness of a warrior-girl all clad for violence, boring iron eyes into him and offering an iron orb which she clutches. The captain frowns, a cool chill curling slowly down his spine, and he turns away purposefully to leave the room, wanting no more to be in the presence of that thing--something about it made him uneasy.

Out in the corridor, he pauses and looks first one way and then the other, having been aware of the peculiar scent on the air which he has assumed is the result of a burning structure. He can have no idea its significance. His three men return to him from various directions, having come in from the out of doors empty-handed. The captain grunts something in a foreign tongue, gesturing with a hand that they find the other two soldiers who have been searching the other end of the corridor. The men grind broken plaster and glass underfoot as they follow orders and the captain, though he begins to turn to follow, hesitates and looks over his shoulder. He could have sworn he saw movement just then, there beyond flame and smoke curling from one of the rooms. Part of him explains, the smoke tricked him; part of him warns, the dark figure is still here.

A shout of foreign words lures the captain's eyes and his helmed head turns in the direction his men had gone, so that he is made aware in a slur of gutteral language that one of theirs is dead, the other unconscious. His mouth-corners tighten and he turns back to face the smoke choked corridor, staring through its shadows as if he could see what thing threatened them there. And still, that smell... it was almost sweet but seared one's nostrils with too deep a breath, so that it felt as if lungs were empty and one had no breath at all. His hand sinks onto the hilt of his sword and he turns back, feeling compelled to leave, but his boots skid in his sudden hesitation. The bodies of two of his men, alive moments before because he had looked into their eyes, are strewn and their blood is combining into a miniature sea on the pale floor.

The captain's sword comes free and he walks forward with caution, feeling the heat from a closed room as he passes, glancing to see the white-wash on the walls bubbling and dripping in gobs to the floor, while the roar of burning is contained beyond closed doors. He approaches the bodies, careful not to track into that dark blood, glances into the room by whose open doors they sprawl. The rest of his men lie therein, dispatched so quickly their swords had not been drawn in defense. Superstition lurks at the edges of the man's thoughts, for he had seen what that other room contained, the relics from the desert race. No mere tribe, but one that had been declared extinct long ago; one from which strange myths were spoken to frighten the young at night.

But now there is this distant hissing noise, a sometimes-whistle of contents under pressure, as if a kettle were boiling over in complaint. He turns, whites of eyes evident in the pale-glow of dawn seeping in through undamaged and damaged windows. He sees some strange kind of lumination emerging from among the seams of a wall, a secret doorway only now evident because of what mists seep, from light creeps. His instinct tells him to run like hell, but his logical mind tells him that beyond that door there lies that which they had come to steal.

Against the warning in his gut, he moves forward to this door, cautiously extending a hand to feel for heat, and when he feels it only marginally, he pushes on the panel and steps back as it rotates. Some raw smoke and fumes and heat belch from the illuminated space inside and he angles away, shielding his face from these things, trying not to breathe them in but coughing a few times nevertheless. And when the smoke has abated enough, he edges his way forward, keeping his sword naked in his hand as he peers into the open space. Finds himself at the top of a stairway, glowing eerily from some light source below, with waftures of high temperatures trembling and sweeping upward to him in uncomfortable drafts.

(continued)