Once again, I am stood before the Aetheric Gate, its open maw beckoning me inwards. However, this time it’s the Eye that travels, not I.
This will be an experiment, so to speak; the duration of the Observation will be short, only as much as I managed last time, and if the Eye returns unharmed, I will attempt to transfer its observations of the goings on in the Sea Witch to my Journal. If my experiment proves the concept, then I will have a working method to proceed on. If not…well, then I will have to reconsider my options. But my intuition says this will work.
I release the Eye of Morodin and with a little nudge send it floating into the mouth of the Aetheric Gate and the tunnel beyond. The Aetheric mists swallow the little green sphere, and with a bullwhip crack that makes me flinch, the Gate shuts tight, and sound returns to my ears as the Observers Timepiece starts its handless countdown.
Those five minutes seemed to pass with hornet speed. I climbed to my feet from where I have ben sat meditating and crossed back to the Aetheric Gate just as the pressure popped up with an aural screech, that utter silence snatched all noise from the room, the Gate opened and the Eye of Morodin shot out like a baseball, hit straight back at the pitcher’s head. I caught it by instinct, the Gate snapped shut and sound rushed back into the library.
I opened my stinging palms and the Eye bobbed into the air, unscathed. Gently I plucked the it from the air, made my way to the Workbench and placed it on the scrying pedestal. I sat down, took a long easy breath, released as though blowing long on a fading ember, and with my magical intent turning towards it, reached out with the Aether and –
Néit leaned back, face abruptly slack.
“I warned them,” he muttered darkly. “A Halvening was long overdue, you just have to look at how crowded the Wards have become. But they just wouldn’t listen…and here we are.” He shook his head. “No force of Dúmnon is going to burst in here anytime soon. If the Halvening is done then my folk are…much diminished,” he said, sadly, “but we will recover. It is our way,” he added with some pride.
“…Sure, if you say so,” replied Ximo, rubbing his arm, plainly unconvinced. “The short account then, but please…no questions, eh?”
Néit scowled and turned his attention to cleaning away blood from the spear with a splash of mead.
“Bloody Hells,” muttered Ximo, “what was I saying?”
“The Watchers,” muttered Néit darkly.
“Yeah…so, he wasn’t ill, he was stabbed, and a stab in the back surprises the back, never the knife — I should know, been the knife enough times, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” replied Néit, “of -
The clack of the door ring punched through the background hubbub, and both of them shot impulsive glances at the entrance, and another ferryman stepped blinking into the low light.
“Shit…” cursed Ximo quietly. “Well…the Caevàl Watcher was dead before he hit the floor, and the Dúmnon reached out, fist clenched, like he had hold of some invisible grip, and he…pulled, and the doors just sort of…burst: timber and twisted bronze cutting down everyone that stood near ’em. Next thing I know I was on my hands and knees coughing my guts up, spitting blood, dust in my eyes, that stench of torn flesh up my nose.”
He emptied the dregs of the pitcher into his cup and downed it. “It was bad, Néit, really bad.”
Néit nodded, eyes closed, head down. “Go on.”
“Dúmnon lords charged in through the shattered doorway, weapons high, folk screaming and crying, the ting-tang-ting of bronze-on-bronze, lightning cracking the air, fire taking hold on the walls, their Bloodbeard following in the wake, hacking at the injured and the dead alike.”
“I told them the Dúmnon couldn’t be trusted!” Néit said, his temper rising again. “I told them!”
Ximo nodded, running a filthy hand through his mop of dark hair, “Yeah, well, you did yourself a favour in not going, and no mistake. I’ve been caught up in many a street fight; alley bashings, that sought of thing — but this? It was…cruel.”
Néit snarled deep in his throat, a low guttural sound of contempt. “Duelling is the tradition. Before the Reckoning, before the coming of the Fómoran, even.” Ximo spat at his boot at the mention of the old Foe. “The Doriànni are long in the dying and long in the birthing, everyone knows that: Clann on Clann never pays.” Néit dipped his head. “But the Clanns have become…antagonistic towards each other over the generations.”
“If that means what I think it means, then yes, they have,” agreed Ximo, his expression haunted.
“And my kin?” asked Néit, his face already misery-slack at the likely answer.
“They fought back,” replied Ximo, He looked at Néit, eyes wide. “I ran, Néit, Gods help me, I ran, there was nothing else I could do….”
A harsh braying laugh cut through the background noise, making Ximo start, and Néit look up, his hand going to the hilt of his Felcutter street sword.
“Gods, I’m sorry,” breathed Ximo, his eyes cast down at the table. “The air was prickled all about with the Wyrds like a cat rubbed the wrong way; blades flashing gold and red, lightening stabbing overhead in the rafters; folk were being torn apart like cobwebs in a storm, red steam and black smoke everywhere…” He swallowed hard. “They fought, and I ran, to the back, you know, where the door is, in the corner?” Néit nodded, his lips taught, broad neck and shoulders hunched. “By the time I got to the door – I took two Bloodbeard down in the doing of it, mind you — the dais was near lost. I couldn’t see clear, beyond the havoc, couldn’t see Caer or any of the others, and there was Dúmnon coming at me, so I dived through the open door, arrows flying all around — and a shadow stepped between them and me.”
He slumped back into his chair. “It was him…your father, standing between me and a bloody death; First Lord Ker-Caevàl, Foe’s Bane in hand…standing to protect me, of all folk.” Ximo shook his head. “I reckon he’d already done for a load of Dúmnon Bloodbeard, ‘cos the room was littered with bodies, but some six Doriànni piled into the room right after me, and it went tooth ’n’ blade quick as spit.” Néit snorted an odd sound of satisfied contempt. “He killed ’em all, Néit,” said Ximo hotly. “Took ’em down with the Bane,” he added with a nod to the Bear-Spear lying on the table. “Like wheat before the scythe they was; all ‘cept one. Hard to kill he was…and the Lord Uscias took a mortal wound before that bastard fell.” Ximo came forward in his chair again his voice low, “There was fighting still in the hall, but growing less with every shout and cry, and he turned towards me, your father, right arm limp, blood running down his face, dripping from his chin, his armour shredded. He staggered, made to steady himself, and just…crumpled.”
Néit took a sharp breath and Ximo waited, unsure of what might happen next, the wolf-yellow eyes boring into the rafters above their heads, the noise of the tavern suddenly growing loud in the silence between them. Then the Doriànni lord closed his eyes and slowly, as though struggling to release, let out a shuddering breath, his heavy shoulders dropping beneath the supple scales of his armour.
“I am so sorry, Néit….”
Néit shook his head without looking up. “Keep to the Way,” he whispered.
Ximo wiped his brow with a filthy hand, leaving a soot black smudge, “He pushed Foe Bane into my hands, told me to find you, to give you the spear, and commanded you to flee.”
“That can’t be!” spat Néit. “The Halvening Way — tradition demands respect to the Way — why give the Bane to me when others live?”
“I speak the truth, lord” responded Ximo without hesitation, “I may have been a thief in the past, but that never made me a liar, not then, not now; none of the Dúmnon offered quarter, like I said.”
Néit stared at the young man with the black scraggle-beard and unkempt hair sat opposite, face smeared with dirt all streaked by sweat, his dark eyes still wide with the horror they had so obviously witnessed, and again saw the truth of it.
“Not a Halvening then?” he asked. Ximo shook his head. “Not a Halvening then.” repeated Néit, rhetorically, reaching for Foe Bane.
The spear lay there, as familiar to his eyes as the backs of his own hands, but as foreign to his touch as the soil of the Jacaranda Dales, and he almost hesitated to touch it, lest the reality of the situation become too much; too much grief to bear here, now, in this abruptly stifling back-street tavern, cold nausea clawing at his belly.
Be in the world, but not of the world, that is the Stalker’s way. Only then can one know oneself, and only then, can one know one’s prey.
The teachings of the Hunt Master, beaten into him with every error, lapse and lazy misjudgement, until they were as natural to him as his own name — teachings meant for times such as these. He picked the spear from the table, keeping it low and level so as not to attract any attention within the tavern; a drawn blade meant blood will be shed to most, especially here in the Shingles. Candlelight shimmered off the burnished bronze of the haft, no more than a yard and a half long, the whole spear head carved from one fang of a Red-Back Bear; the long, double-edge blade inscribed with the swirl of Doriànni script, the pattern dark with blood, making it stand out to the eye.
Néit slumped against the high back of the padded bench. His head had begun to clear, the anger putting a torch to the mead-fugue, but he had been caught wholly unprepared by Ximo’s Telling, and felt a cold sickness creeping into his belly, making his legs weak. He laid Foe Bane across his knees, and closed his eyes, turning his thoughts inwards.
To feed fear, is to kill courage.
He sat up, inhaling slowly, drawing warm, yet damp air in through the nose, filling his belly, expanding his ribs and chest, grounding him, forming a centre on which to focus, distilling the rage stabbing at his heart into something usable. He exhaled, slowly, flushing the fear from his blood with the outward release, relaxing the tension from his muscles, his focus narrowing, the fear lessening with each cycle of breath, his body easing, the fog clearing, the truth of his situation solidifying by degree; the tavern, the folk, the table, the spear on his lap, and the hole in his heart. He had felt it, that hole, felt it rip into him as Ximo told of the Halvening; snow-cold sorrow tearing at his heart.
“How did you escape?” he asked Ximo.
Ximo’s face snapped round.
“What?” He had been watching the door again.
“How did you get out?”
“I took the back door,” he replied simply. “I reckoned your father killed the force meant to prevent any flight that way, so I just left. It was dark outside, warriors running around, torches flickering everywhere, so I did what comes naturally; dipped into the shadows,” Néit nodded, “and followed the wall round to the side gate. They’d stationed a guard — a troop of Bloodbeard — so, I waited until the right moment, slipped past the bastards, and was off, into the night.”
“No one saw you?”
Ximo shrugged, “I can’t be certain. Folk had gathered, as they do when there’s something to see, and anyone thinking there weren’t Dúmnon spies in the crowd is an Aurochs arse. I made for the Night Market, looking to lose anyone that might be following between the stalls, but the market was quiet; made me itch, you know?” He cast another glance over his shoulder, towards the door. “I took a Gut Cutter, paid the ferryman extra to go against the flow.” He turned back to Néit. “Makes it easier to spot someone following,” he said, with a wink. “It took a while, but I made it to Gizzard Wharf safe enough, but I still had that itch, so I crossed the Throat and made for the Lanes.”
“The Hag and Cat?”
Ximo nodded, “I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go — I was an alley-bashing looking for a shadow to strike; all made up for a moot turned to slaughter — and covered in blood and bone to boot. I needed somewhere to hold up and change, somewhere to stop running and start thinking….” He reached for the jug with a trembling hand, but found it empty. “Gods damn it!” he cursed, raising an arm to attract the attention of a serving boy.
“Wait …” interrupted Néit. “What Watch is it?”
“Eh?”
“The Watch! What is it?”
“Way past Darkwatch, surely.”
“And the Halvening, when did it end — no, when did you escape?”
“The Duskwatch toll sounded just before the doors fell, I heard it clearly.”
“Bloody Hells, why didn’t you say so? An entire watch has been and gone!”
“I told you we should leave when I woke you,” protested Ximo. “I’ve been saying it ever since I walked in here, but you —
The tavern door crashed open, cutting Ximo off, making him flinch. Néit lurched to his feet, Foe Bane in his fist, a snarl growing in his throat as a slim figure pitched through the doorway.
“Fire on the Heights!” cried the figure, staggering to a halt just inside.
And a sudden hush fell across the tavern, all heads turning to the young lad standing in the doorway, hands on his knees, gasping for a breath.
“Ker-Caevàl…burns,” he managed to say between gulps.
The hush erupted into a furore of babbling consternation, gloating affirmations, curses, laughter and confused questioning, as folk swarmed round the lad, interrogating him with their self-interested queries, stabbing the harried boy with so many demands that he seemed to collapse under their assault. The barkeep came out from behind the bar and elbowed his way through the throng.
“Give him some room, you babbling fools!” he bellowed. “This ain’t no way to make a Tell!” He gave the nearest man a shove, and spread his heavily muscled arms, shooing the rest back. “Go on, boy…” he urged, “the Telling is yours.”
The young pale-faced lad looked up at the barman, his eyes wide, then the assembled crowd, and stood up a little straighter, realising the role he now played. He took a breath, wiped the sweat off his face, stepped back, and lifted his chin, his eyes glowing with a sudden pride.
“Terrible it was….” he whispered.
I looked up from the Eye, blinked, and lifted my hand from the page; it was covered with my Dream Writings. It had worked. Five minutes of Aetheric Observation covered the page in automatic writings whose wandering scribble and sigil craft, though only legible to me, were laid down in an instant. It would be a small task then to translate this mass of ink that had bloated the pristine page to an almost bulbous state in some places, so strong was the message within, into a legible form that others might read. My Lady had long mastered a skill that I cannot even countenance; the dark art of Touch Typing, and with my dictation it would be a simple matter to transpose my arcane automata, my own shorthand, into processible data: Wyrds made Word.
I stood. As far as I could tell the Eye was untouched by its efforts in the Alt Mundi and to all intent and purpose, my experiment was proved a resounding success; now, rather than needing rest I was energised to greater effort. I set to the ‘re-calibration’ of the various items needed for the Work immediately and it wasn’t long before the Aetheric and Observers Timepiece were set, and I was once more standing before the Gate, its tunnel diminishing to a pink vanishing point. I released the Eye and gave it a nudge.