Part the Sixteenth
Thirty hours and counting…
Jelliana is being held in a small stone room, far beneath the Temple. She sits in a plain wooden chair, wrists secured behind her. She slumps in her seat, looking with hatred through half-lidded eyes at the small window in the door in front of her. Her mouth remains resolutely shut.
“She knows we have magic to keep her from lying to us, so naturally, she’s not inclined to talk. The monk either.”
The priest overseeing the interrogation is a quiet man, who goes about his work with a businessman’s precision. The party stands with him in the corridor outside Jelliana’s cell. “I’m sure they both have more to tell us, the only question is how long it will take them to talk. Obviously, we have very little leisure in this matter.”
“Can you use magical means to compel them?”
The priest throws a rueful glance over his shoulder at the cell door. “They’ve both proved to be… strong willed.”
“Then how…?” Reyu asks.
The priest makes a gesture with his right arm as though to dismiss an unpleasant matter not proper for mixed company. As he does so, his large sleeve lifts and Thatch notices for the first time the very long dagger belted to the man’s side. “We have… some reliable techniques.”
Thatch can hear Dennis swallow dryly beside him. Silently, he seconds the sentiment. Even Anvil is disinclined to linger, and he makes the group’s excuses with a short, “We will not detain you then. Please advise Tenacious or myself if you learn anything of import.”
**********
Kettenek’s Pillars live to serve. It is their mission to support all worthy and noble undertakings, and they provide the foundation on which all such deeds can rest.
The main chamber of the Pillars’ Temple is ringed by a line of columns, each one a figure carved of stone quarried from throughout the Halmae. There is sandstone from Ebis, slate from the Ketkath Mountains, even Aegosian marble. The austere symmetry of the scene is rather marred by Anvil placing the knight’s severed head on the central dais.
“Do you know this man?” he demands of the order’s leader, Sir Malcom.
The Pillar takes a moment before he nods, causing his armor to chink lightly. “Sir Allen. I knew him well… At least, I thought I did.” He corrects himself. “You say he was a part of a group plotting some kind of attack on the Mages’ Academy?”
“He was.”
Sir Malcom shakes his head. “Myself, I do not hold with those who support the eradication of the arcane. However, not all my brothers in arms are of the same mind. Without a ruling by the Church, that cause is as worthy as any other.”
“We believe his cell was connected to a larger conspiracy which will attempt to go forward with their plan tomorrow night. Do you have men who will stand to the Academy’s defense?”
“I know there are those of my order who feel as I do. We will be ready.” He looks down at the head on the table. “To plot an attack on so many innocents… May Kettenek have mercy upon him.”
Anvil nods soberly. “And upon us all.”
The party turns to leave, but Sir Malcom calls out to them.
“If you would, do you think you could arrange to send the rest of his body?”
Lira raises a skeptical eyebrow.
“He was one of us. It is our right to bury him.”
Anvil indicates his assent. “It will be done.”
Outside the temple, Thatch takes a deep breath of clear air. “Well, that’s one down. How many of the other orders do we need to visit?”
**********
Late that evening...
The party collapses into chairs in a meeting room at the Temple of Justice. Lira takes off a shoe and flings it at the wall in disgust. "Well, we’ve got the Pillars and the Givers of Life, and every other sect in the city figures they’ll let the gods sort it out later.” She scowls. “I hope that was worth it."
Reyu is much calmer, although just as tired. "I thought it went surprisingly well."
"You," Lira informs her, "did not spend the day listening to every religious nut in Dar Pykos imply that you were an unholy freak of nature. And," she continues, "it didn't help that you and Anvil were standing there nodding the whole time."
Reyu regards the young sorcerer patiently. “It is a difficult matter which demands careful consideration.”
Lira makes an inarticulate sound of exasperation and sends her second shoe flying to join the first.
She exaggerates the situation only slightly. Although the phrase “unholy freak of nature” was never actually uttered, most of the religious sects of the city were reluctant to commit open support to the defense of the Mages’ Academy. No one came out and explicitly condoned the idea of an attack, but it is clear that many in the city would not be sorry to see the school quietly close.
“Weren’t you going to go talk to Devon tonight?” Thatch asks the sorcerer, glancing out the window at the setting sun.
“Crap. You’re right.” Lira heaves another sigh, then goes to retrieve her shoes. At least, she thinks, this will be a friendly meeting.
**********
Devon sees Lira, as always, in his office at the Questor chapter house. Lira settles herself in her usual chair, and tells him about the threat to the academy the party has uncovered.
Devon listens, and shakes his head sadly as she finishes. “That’s terrible. To stage an attack within the city, at the risk of so many innocent lives…” He exhales heavily and runs a hand through his hair. “It’s not that I approve of the academy—teaching unnatural arts—but…”
Lira stops listening, staring dumbly past Devon’s knees and into the hearth. The fire crackles brightly, but she feels suddenly cold—as though all of her blood has been suddenly siphoned into the pit of her stomach. No, not him too…
Lira does not make a practice of telling people about her magical talents. She has informed the party, mostly because she didn’t want them to find out the first time they saw her casting magic missile. If any had a problem with what she was, she’d rather not find out in the middle of a fight. She’s never explicitly told Devon, but neither has she been as circumspect as is her usual habit. She had assumed—since they share mutual acquaintances in Dar Henna—that he already knew.
Sitting there in his office, Lira begins to mentally review their conversations since she arrived in the city, trying to remember if she has said anything to reveal to him that she is the embodiment of “unnatural arts.”
“Lira…?” Devon’s voice breaks into her thoughts. She forces her attention back to the present. “Is everything allright?”
“Yes… fine…”
Devon’s brows knit with concern. “You seem troubled.”
Lira forces the diplomatic smile that she does so well. “Distracted. There is a great challenge before us.”
“That there is.”
Lira gets up to leave. “Do you know anything of this… group? There was an Ehktian among them.”
Devon shakes his head. “From your description, he doesn’t sound like a member of this chapter house, but I will make inquiries.”
He promises to leave a message with Mrs. Blackburn if he hears anything, and Lira departs soon after.
About halfway back to the boarding house, the young sorcerer calms down enough to think clearly. Since she first arrived in Dar Pykos, Devon has shown her nothing but kindness. She has apparently been wrong in her assumptions about his attitudes towards arcane magic, but surely if he was aware of her talents, he would not have revealed to her his feelings about the academy.
He may not be a friend, but he is not necessarily an enemy either. He’s just one more person to be cautious with.
Lira pulls her cloak a little tighter against the autumn chill, and hurries through the darkening streets to Mrs. Blackburn’s.
**********
The morning of October 14th dawns bright and clear. Anvil arises to find a message waiting for him from the chief interrogator. Jelliana has revealed a name.
, the other SH legends (that means you, spyscribe) are gonna have to step up and update as frequently as time permits. It's a delicate ecology here in the forum...
