Session Ten, Part Two: Di'Fier's Very Bad Day
Di'Fier stood before the Captain's Council, nervously clutching the piece of paper on which he'd scrawled his speech. Oddly - ominously, perhaps - the two strongest contenders for the position of Sea Lord had not yet arrived.
Arias Soderheim and Lady Elise Grossette, he pondered.
Which one of them has the backing of the claw? He hoped it wasn't Lady Elise.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Captain's Council..." he began.
As Di'Fier began to speak, Katya noticed Quooral appear at the door. The big genasi looked concerned, and she made her way over to him. "What's going on?"
Wordlessly, Quooral pointed down the hall and out the door. Katya could see a large group of people approaching - but even from here, she could tell it was no mob. They were marching in formation.
Behind her, Di'Fier continued: "The Dragon's Claw of Highgate has come to Freeport."
Katya watched as the troops marched through the gates of the palace. At their head, Arias Soderheim, his velvet jerkin streaked with drying blood, and beside him Captain Donnach. She had never seen the Captain look like this: crumpled, battered...defeated.
"Stand aside, Watch-Sergeant," the Captain said quietly.
Di'Fier was dimly aware of more people entering the room, but he kept his mind on the Council, fixing each of them with his gaze as they looked up and began to murmur. "They would not have stopped there. Once the Sea Lord-"
"Stop this at once!" The commanding voice of Arias Soderheim rang across the Council chamber, cutting through the Watch-Lieutenant's words. The half-elf let the silence ring for a moment, then turned to the man beside him. "Watch-Captain, do your duty."
Donnach, his eyes fixed on the ground before him, withdrew a parchment bearing a heavy seal. "Watch-Lieutenant Di'Fier," he said, opening it. "I have been given a
warrant for your arrest."
"Warrant?" Katya exploded. "On what charge?"
Donnach's eyes finally lifted from the floor to meet hers, and his words fell like lead. "Conspiracy to commit murder. Theft of material evidence. Aiding and abetting a criminal organization." The Watch-Captain hesitated, and looked down at the paper as if for confirmation. "...and High Treason."
Di'Fier sat down on the stone floor of the cell, placing his back to the wall and looking sourly at the broken bench. He could tell the cell hasn't been used in some time - probably not since the Sea Lord's Guard had been in charge of law enforcement. It showed every sign of being a hastily cleared storage area. Besides the broken bench and a battered chamberpot, a few wisps of straw were the only furnishings.
His mind was still reeling from the events of the morning. Soderheim's arrival at the Council meeting...his arrest...and the shocking announcement that Lady Elise had been murdered - shot by one of the strange weapons they had taken from the "ghost ship". And the murderer was none other than Andrea Blax.
How had they known about the guns that Dru had taken? It was just one link in the tenuous web that connected him to the murder. He'd given the guns to Dru - and thus, the Naïlos. Dru had been seen talking to Blax. And now, with the deaths of both Lady Elise and Mikros Stonemason - apparently also engineered by the Naïlos - all the obvious signs pointed to a conspiracy to get Blax into power.
Which, he reflected,
does a nice job of removing Blax from the picture. Leaving only our good "friend" Soderheim.
His stomach began to growl.
Late afternoon, and still no sign of human life. Di'Fier had fashioned the straw into a crude hand-broom and swept some of the dust into a thick mat, which he was now writing in with his finger.
It was not going well.
"I know I wanted some time off for my research, but this isn't what I had in mind," he grumbled. His stomach answered with a complaint of its own. When were they going to feed him? Or
were they? Maybe Soderheim was already the Sea Lord, and had issued an executive order that he be forgotten?
Di'Fier got up and began to pace.
The last of the light had long since slipped away from the tiny barred window, plunging the cell into an almost insufferable gloom. Di'Fier's eyes had adjusted as well as they could.
Banging on the bars with the remnants of broken bench had proved fruitless, as had shouts both out the door and window. At least Ampiel had gotten through to Jemis. Hopefully the little smuggler would be able to tell which books were the spellbooks, and keep them safe. He got up and began to pace again.
A flagstone shifted under his feet.
Slowly, he backed away, watching the stone begin to lift itself. Inhuman hands pushed it up from the floor and slid it back, then climbed into the cell with sinuous grace.
Di'Fier seized the section of broken bench and held it threateningly before him as a second serpentman crawled forth from the hole, tongue tasting the air.
Then, a third figure emerged, and a very familiar voice said, "Do you want to get out of here or not?"
The next morning, an astonished member of the Sea Lord's Guard stared open-mouthed at the empty cell.
Empty?
Not quite.
Written in the thick dust coating the floor were five words:
"You should have fed me."
(Jon, I'm still working on yours.)
