65 - A Mess of Bloodied Threads But No Knot to Join Them
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Wednesday, December 11
Hour of the Latter Silence (Early Morning)
In the deep darkness of a shadowed lane, where a fitful lamp cast only the slightest glow, gray armor moved with dire patience. Hooves clicked as Phaeduin walked to the sign on the wall, the black wood upon which black paint wrote the word Maniaque. Phaeduin had been to this boutique once before, and since then he'd been having nightmares about the chaotic panoply of colored cloth inside. He'd thought it was just the neurosis of his aging mind. But now…
Glaring at the large doors, Phaeduin muttered, "What are you hiding?" as he set his metal hand upon it. This was where Amo had gone, and had not been seen since. There was a strange music coming from inside, which Phaeduin hadn't heard last time, and which resonated with the magic that coated the inside of Phaeduin's body. The magic of the cult? Of their god? Or was that just the song of lingering death?
There was an answer here, and death wouldn't stop him. Couldn’t stop him. So Phaeduin pushed his way inside.
* * *
"Nymir."
Shivering in cold terror where he sat in the middle of the fishmonger's shop, bent to press his face against a table of wood stinking of fish guts, Nymir threw his arms over his head. "Leave me alone! Leave me alone!"
A hand fell on his shoulder. "Nymir."
Nymir pushed the hand away. "God damn you! I'm not in hell yet. Can't a man get a moment?"
"No, he can't." Adishesk leaned in, the littorn a suddenly imposing darkness with teeth and claws and many-tined horns, grabbing Nymir by his shoulder to give him a shake. "We've got a job to do."
Nymir flinched away and growled, "What do you want?"
"The beacon in the northwest tower safehouse has been lit."
"Northwest?" Nymir frowned, trying to think. "That's... oh." His voice fell hard. "That's going to be Indirk. She's there."
"That's what I thought." Adishesk let go of Nymir and backed off. His movements were low and fluid, turning to retreat and then turning back, his spiked tail drawing a circle in the air around him. "What do you think we should do about it?"
"I don't care anymore," Nymir shook his head and laid his face on the table again. "You know protocols as well as I do, so do whatever you want. She's one of you, isn't she?"
"One of... what?" Adishesk tugged on his dark hood.
He went outside and stared up at the overcast night, a dark over the city so perfect and heavy that it threatened at any moment to fall and smother them. On the sea, the lighthouse turned its great beacon round and round. Opposite, in the hills west of the city, a small lamp recessed in a rickety tower shivered as though in meager reflection. Cold, salty wind tugged Adishesk’s hair out of his hood, throwing long strands up to tangle among the tines of his horns.
“I guess she is,” Adishesk muttered. “It hadn’t occurred to me. Oh, Voice In Me, what a thought. What a thought! Let’s do something about the quiet-blood traitor, then.”
* * *
A chill fell over Phaeduin as he stepped into the Maniaque. There was an almost audible whine, as though some living thing had been ripped from his shoulders and thrown aside. Three times he heard his heart beat in his head, and then his blood calmed. He took a moment to flex his hands, to feel the renewed youth that had settled into them. The strength persisted, but...
"Something's wrong," he muttered to himself.
A deep voice said, "Enchantments on your armor?"
Phaeduin's gaze snapped up inside his bird-skull helm, eying the dark man in the wide-brimmed hat. This was the boutique's proprietor, who Phaeduin had met during his first visit. An eccentric, haunting man, but harmless, Phaeduin had thought at the time. Since then, the nightmares had changed his mind. Now, looking at the small, dark smile on lips that seemed almost made of onyx, Phaeduin could hear the very air groaning around the man, as though it pained the world to let him pace forward, all silenced when that earth-deep voice spoke. "The room is warded to suppress external enchantments. They affect the fabric, you know? I can't have that. You understand. Whatever magic was on you, it will be there when you leave. Like a checked coat."
Blinking slow at the man, Phaeduin answered only, "Yes, I understand." The power Phaeduin had stolen from the Sinner's Cathedral was the power of the Everliving Himself, and no mere ward could suppress it. The power might be silent now, but it would be there if Phaeduin needed it, he was sure. So Phaeduin lifted his head and paced on beneath the colorful whorl of cloth overhead, the chaos of garments hung brightly all around, and the aberrantly bleak figure to whom he said, "We are investigating another disappearance in this area. This time it was one of our agents, so we're going to be taking a much closer look at everything." He put a sharp edge in his voice, a slow and wordless threat. "Even if we've seen it before."
The onyx-dark man paced to stand in a red stain in the middle of the floor. It hadn't been there the other day. It was coppery, and there was magic in it. The dark man met Phaeduin's threat with a little chuckle, "Indeed, I'm sure you will. I would not expect otherwise."
* * *
As Mirian walked the streets of the Angolhills back toward the Admiralty District, he heard a strange whistle of wind and stopped in his tracks. He’d been rubbing at the mask that covered half his face, cringing at the burning heat radiating through his skull underneath. But that sound was familiar, and instinct had his hackles up, his heart beating hard, ready to bolt or fight.
It faded after a few seconds, and Mirian searched. What he found was a Watch officer crumpled against an alley wall, a long arrow of black wood stuck out of the man’s neck. Crouching in front of the warm body, Mirian touched the arrow, brushed his fingers over its dark feathers and muttered, “A Ranger of the Laines? Inside the city?”
He looked upward and westward, toward the fitfully burning light in the tower where he’d left Indirk to ponder his offer. She was from the Laines, wasn’t she? But she’d never been reported with a bow.
