The strange luggage train made it's winding way back up through the labyrinthine undercity of Tarravus, meandering through the damp and musty tunnels and passageways, past debris and fungus and drizzling streams of muddy water from the rainy surface above. The battle-weary band, laden with acquisitions, made slow time through those dark ways, Trin always leading with his torch, occasionally pausing to look scrutinisingly around at an intersection or to sniff some powder from one of his myriad bags. Anyone watching the verman might coem to the conclusion that he was addicted to the strange spices and snuffs he seemed to partake. They might also pick up on the fact that he seemed nervous and on edge, the stimulants bringing his sensory awareness up to new levels.
The continual darkness was suffocating in its claustrophobic pressure and dampness; for people already weary from injury and exertion it was depressingly deadening. yet eventually they came to the upper levels of sewers where the occasional shaft of grey light pierced down from above, though everything seemed wet from the rain above and they had to wade. Then they came to the underground black market, the bizarre cavernous bazaar where Trin made his home.
Trin gave a few parting words before he scurried through the gloomy cavern towards his ramshackle house. "If I were you, unfurred ones, I'd be moving soon and quickly. What went on down there'll be known before too long, and then people will begin asking questions. And depending on who it is asking, you may well not want to be around when they turn up." With that the exotic creature slipped in amongst the vendors and stalls of the market.
And so the journey up and into the Rat's Nest began, streams of water poruing down past them into the depths of the earth. Not once did the two enchanted servants that Ak'mun'tep had conjured complain, or even say anything at all, merely wordlessly bearing their loads. They barely seemed to notice the world around them at all.
And so they entered the Nest, wandering amongst the struts of wood as sheets of drizzle and gray light came down through the gaps between the wooden planks that formed an artificial ceiling here. They were watched, huddled groups of beggars and unclean furtively and suspiciously darting looks at them, muttered words passing around. Trin had been right. Already it was known that something had happened down below - some event that had disturbed the status quo of the undercity. The beggars whispered and muttered, disquieted by the change.
* * *
Up through the soggen layers of city Ebri trudged along, laying one foot in front of the other automatically, half dreaming, her awareness split in two. Much as lesser people trusted that their hearts would beat and their lungs breathe, one part of her she trusted to monitor her surroudings, record what she heard and saw, to keep the straggling line of children moving, giving an encouraging word there, taking that one's arm... while the better part of her attention was given over to the flash of insight Sebastion's feeble questioning had led her to.
"Too many attempt to relieve themselves of responsibility by waiting for their purpose to be revealed to them."
It had come out of her mouth, like so much else that served the maintenance of her role, at hardly any instigation of thought. Long ago, long before she'd ever reached the sanctuary of the monastery, she'd learned to weave words to deceive and amaze and confuse; to speak habitually in ways that the weak and fearful could interpret in whichever way pleased them best. Or, not understanding at all, they were likely to assume she was wiser than they, and leave, still satisfied. She'd been Zol, and it had lent her authority, and she had exploited it. It was no different, now, really, from being priestess of Immar. But these words had flashed, lodging in her mind, as if through them lay the opportunity to awaken further.
The Purpose. The Old Master had said that she would prove worthy to understand the Purpose; the more advanced being had been confident of it. To understand the Purpose. She turned that phrase over. It implied that there was indeed a purpose, a point, as Sebastion had so crudely put it. Appropriately for a soldier, he thought in terms of blades and stabbing, the meaning of life being the thing without which a penetrating object was useless.
She, too, had waited and learned, hoping that the mystery would be revealed to her in time. She'd expected the veil of illusion not to simply dissipate, but to wear and grow thin with her efforts, as a cloth of delicate but strong silk would do against a constant steady wind. She would catch glimpses of the truth as worn spots would show the light, until the day the veil sheeted and parted, and the truth was no longer obscured. Is this what it is to understand? Was it that there was no mystery? Perhaps-- she conjectured tentatively, one wastes energy in attempting to discover the Purpose that might be better put to achieving the Prophet's ends?
It was a radical thought, but it seemed worth considering. She did not have to ponder what was in the mind of the Prophet; his wishes for her were made clear by the instructions of the Old Master and her superiors. She was to protect her ward, and secondarily, to continue to operate supporting her order without compromising their operations. It was these two aims which deserved all --and that was a considerable amount-- of her effort and skill. I will visit Karbal when we reach the surface of this stinking mass of rock and mud and plague-ridden mortality, she decided. I will report, and discuss the question with him.
* * *
Up into the drenched city, and the rain poured down on them, unrelenting and soaking as they walked the streets towards the gate. Guards there were uninclined to hamper their progress, the watchmen's cloaks pulled tight around them as they watched the band suspiciously from their posts. Two Wind Hawks, cloaks of feathers draped over their shoulders, stood command under the eaves of the gatehouse, but they too let the mercenaries pass without incident. In the gray haze the Air Tower could barely be made out looming over the sodden city below. Occasionally a crackle of thunder cascaded across the sky as it vented down its contents, lightning arcing out to touch and gently enfold the myriad towerlets of the Air Tower before harmlessly dissipating.
They made their way all the distance back up the valley side to the estate of their patron, and only then, as they reached the gates of the mansion and its grounds, did Wolf hesitate.
"Oh sod, I haven't decided what the hell we're going to tell Ecurius yet."
* * *
Within the small guest wing it was warm, the hearth filled with a carckling fire in the common room from which the bedrooms led off. The servants had recieved the bedraggled and bloodstained mercenaries with some surprise at their state, and had probably gone off to alert their master to events immediately. The two conjured servants had laid down their loads in the common room and then discorporated into thin smoke that rapidly dissipated, leaving without a word nor gesture. Now the party found themselves in the warmth of the common room, their acquisitions piled around them; crates of money, starnge goods, and smokepowder.
Almost immediately Ecurius arrived, appearing with an urgency to his step; his face grim, but not cold or hostile, as his eyes took in the mercenary band. His gaze swept over the loot too, and then he spoke.
"You'd better tell me what has happened. I've heard word already, that something happened to do with the criminal element of the city, and from what I see before me it was bloody, I would guess? The Wind Hawks told me you looked bad but I didn't realise quite how bad they meant. You look like you need some serious medical aid, though I have no idea how much of the blood you've managed to get spattered over yourselves is your own."
Maybe it was the exhaustion, the buzzing discharge of spent corticosteroids in her bloodstream or just the feminist backlash of having been called 'chicken-brained' for the dozenth time, but Mel's sentiments for Lord Ecurius cooled a few significant degrees as he arrived frowning and beginning his demand for answers with "You'd better tell me," as if they were his slaves or something. There was a great deal implied in his last phrase as well. "...I have no idea how much of the blood you've managed to get spattered over yourselves is your own."
"As long as it's red I'm safe," she said stupidly, inspecting the rust-stained hem of her dress. Of course, he would be talking about Kale, Wolf and Ebri Zol, who really did look a sight, come to think of it.
Only a couple of hours before, when Wolf had suggested they make up a story to give Lord Ecurius, Melisande had nearly lectured the veteran on the merits of telling the whole truth and nothing but to a Truth-Seeker; but before she could even open her mouth a little Sebastion-shaped imp in her mind told her that was chicken-brained and she clammed up. Which annoyed her, when she thought about it, so she threw him a couple of stern looks en route when he wasn't clucking away chicken-brainedly himself in the face of Ebri Zol's philosophical discourse, which obviously took a good deal more cortex to fathom than was available to poultry.
Now, on the other hand, she wondered if they were right that it may not be wise to spill the whole thing to Lord Ecurius on the spot. She really had no grasp of the intricacies of informational strategy and no clue how one decided who was to be trusted and who wasn't. Was it naive to think that even if they couldn't trust Lord Ecurius, it was still wise to tell him everything in view of their future employment? No matter which way you looked at it, hiding things from a powerful Truth-Seeker who happened to be your benefactor just sounded chicken-brained. But what did she know? She gave Sebastion another reproachful glare.
The whole day just made her grumpy. There was an ugly side to Tarravus she hadn't wanted to know about. There were traumatized slave-children, abhorrent xenoplanar beasts, cults of evil dragon-gods and to top it off it was pouring down rain. Except for Ak'mun'tep (oh yes and the little chapel fire of victory), the day had been a miserable failure.
She could only imagine what her hair looked like by now. Scowling, she dropped into a cushy armchair by the hearth and let someone else with a more evolved brain do the explaining. And I don't mean you, Pierre. Quit feeling so smug. Chickens are two rungs up from amphibians, let me remind you.
When no-one appeared eager to speak, Sebastion laid down the facts for Ecurius. "Someone has been hunting Kale... we went after them, and found that they might be hunting something a little bigger..." he pointed to the crates of smokepowder. "I'm not an expert, but I guess that could make quite a hole, somewhere."
Ecurius's gaze followed Sebastions gesture to the smokepowder crates, and he stooped low over them, scooping his hand into the fine gray powder and letting it run through his fingers like sand. "Smokepowder... there's enough here to provide for a fair few firearms." He stood back up. "Care to go into more details about how you came upon this?"
"Kale had a run-in with an unpleasant character in the city," Wolf growled, slumped in the chair he had commandeered in front of the fire. "Turned out they were on the look-out for us anyway; probably because they were slavers, and I've hardly had a track record of friendliness with slavers." He shifted to make himself more comfortable as Ecurius himself took a seat in the common room. "It didn't seem a good idea to leave a potential enemy behind us in the city, and our... ah... information acquired through some magical divination implied it would be a good move on our part to deal with the problem." A faint flicker of a smile crossed his face as he remembered the mimir making it's suggestion. "We found out it was some slaver operation run by a cult of Gilamesh, led by a merchant and spellslinger called Cancer Tierholme. We tracked down their base of operations; right down in the bowels of the city, under the sewers and old ruins. Then," he sighed painedly, "we eliminated them. The cult's been cleansed, the few slaves freed, and we nearly took some heavy casualties if it wasn't for the skill of our healers."
"A dragon cult?" Ecurius asked interestedly.
"Indeed. Cancer had a couple of these dragonmen things, big winged lizard-men, brutally strong, down there as guards too."
"Dragonkin? But they're western creatures."
"Maybe, but there were a couple down there, though by the time I came back round this lot had dealt with them," he said with a grudging smile of respect to the others. "And those crates of smokepowder, and it didn't look like they were seeking to equip anyone with firearms, we only found one pistol down there. Sebastion's thoughts might have some merit; they might have been seeking to blow something up. Not any more of course. And Burl, the wise fellow, wasn't going to let us go anywhere without bringing back all the wizard's books and correspondence he had down there. I'm sure you'll be interested to see what he had written down there as well."
Wolf leant back, wincing slightly from the injuries he had suffered during the battle, while Ecurius pasued for a few moments silent contemplation in the flickering light of the fire. Outside the storm seemed to be rapidly abating, to go as soon as it had come, though it remained dark from the lateness of the day.
At length, the sorcerer spoke. "There will be... repercussions, you know. You can't simply go slaughtering people in a city, even if they were cultists. The authorities are already aware something happened, after all."
