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Alethian rather suspected that what happened was his fault.
Of course, this in itself was nothing terribly new – only this time he had actually been trying to do the right thing, helping Elendil with his investigation – and all the better if he managed to make a little money on the side. Given the outcome though, he could hardly admit his part to his companions.
***
Alethian’s eyes snapped open, staring up at the shadow dappled timber ceiling above him, as his hand slowly moved towards the rapier that he knew would be at the side of his bed. His keen elven ears had detected some slight noise that shouldn’t have been in his room.
“You really should get into the habit of closing your window at night,” came a low voice close to his ear, and turning his head Alethian saw a face painted half white half black, framed by long dark hair resting level with his. Moonlight glinted off a crooked toothed smile as the woman squatted easily on the floor beside his bed.
Alethian had of course closed his window against the chilly winter air, but that would hardly stop a thief of Jil’s calibre. This was the second time that she had surprised him in this manner, and it was getting rather embarrassing, not to mention that it probably did little for his bid to join – or infiltrate as he liked to put it – the Last Laugh. He sat up in bed, his hand resting nonchalantly on the blanket within easy reach of the rapier, assuming that Jil had not already moved it.
“Got another job for you, if you’re interested?” the woman continued. Alethian shrugged. “Could be,” he said. “What does it involve – and what’s in it for me?”
“Oh, you’ll be paid,” Jil replied, grinning again in her unnerving way. “And if this goes off without a hitch, then you’ll definitely be strongly considered for full Guild membership. We need you to break into a warehouse on Magma Avenue – number 23, North East. It’s important that you get in and out without a trace – think you can handle that? Oh, and the job is time sensitive, so don’t try anything until we give you the go ahead and the details, in about a week. But thought you might like to do some reconnaissance ahead of time.” She stands suddenly, fluidly. “So, I ask again – are you in.”
“Sure, I’m in,” said Alethian. “Just let me know the details – you know where to find me.” A hint of bitterness crept into his voice at the last.
“Good.” Jil moved back towards the open window, her eyes never straying from Alethian. “No doubt I shall see you soon. Always nice talking to you, elf.” The woman reaches the window, and quickly pulls herself outside and out of view. After a few moments Alethian climbed out of his narrow bed and walked warily over to the window, gazing out over the city and the lake below for several moments before pulling the heavy timber shutters closed.
He really needed to get a proper lock for that window.
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Elendil dreams.
He stands on an open plain, the landscape bathed in a dull red glow from the burning sky above. Flames leap and writhe, burning nothing and everything, but they do not touch the ground, and he does not feel their heat. The ground beneath his bare feet is dry and slightly spongy. It does not look like earth or loam – more like dry, leathery, wrinkled flesh.
He looks about him. In the distance is an enormous white skull, lying on its side, half buried in the ground. He knows instinctively that it is colossal and far away, not smaller and closer. Flickers of red flames belch from the one exposed eye socket and stream up to join the dancing flames in the sky. Far beyond the skull is a distant ring of dark, jagged mountains. He turns, spins right around, and the mountains follow the horizon.
A dark speck, spotted low in the sky soon resolves itself into a dark winged, humanoid figure. It comes to a landing some distance away, turns, and begins striding towards him, long legs covering the ground quickly. He tries to move – towards it, away, he does not know, but he cannot.
The figure nears and he can make out more detail – a very tall, human man, but with black feathered wings sprouting from his back. As he approaches the feathers fall from his wings, littering the ground behind him, until his wings are gone. Nearer still, and his pale skin is covered in scars and tattoos, barely concealed by the torn and tattered robe that he wears.
The man stops, several paces away, looking at Elendil with dark eyes. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but suddenly all is fire and burning.
Elendil awakens.
***
Alethian is already at breakfast when Elendil makes his way down the rickety staircase into the common room, chomping his way into a lamb sausage. He glances up as Elendil approaches his table, and gestures for the young man to take a seat.
“Where’s Elsbeth this morning?” Elendil asks, sitting and gesturing to the young girl at the bar to bring him a plate. Alethian arches his eyebrow in the gesture that his companion has learnt is equivalent to a shrug, and continues chewing. “Gone,” he replies after swallowing, removing a stray chunk of sausage from between his teeth with his tongue, “dawn service.”
Elendil frowns slightly, and leans back in his chair. If she was at the temple of Pelor for the dawn service, that meant she was with Zanth. Elendil was not sure how he felt about that. Oh, Zanth was a good man no doubt – hells, he was a priest of the god of light, he could hardly help but be good … still, there was something about the man that Elendil did not quite like. He was from Sasserine for one, related to some bigwig at the temple there, and Elendil felt that he sometimes looked at his Cauldronite companions as being a little … backwoods. For two, he was somewhat reckless in battle, and that had nearly cost the group on a number of occasions. Elendil’s mind drifted back to the battle with that thing, the lizard demon on the nightmare beach beneath the city. Zanth had charged at the beast, swinging his mace and invoking the name of his god … but had been quickly overwhelmed, and almost lost to the dark waters – leaving the rest of them to fight the creature without the benefit of the priest’s healing magic.
If he was honest with himself though, it wasn’t so much those things. The truth was, Elendil didn’t like the direction he was seeing the relationship between Zanth and Elsbeth heading … and the implication of that disturbed him somewhat. Elsbeth was his cousin … but somehow, in this situation, he felt like more than just a protective relative.
He quickly pushes the thought away, glancing at Alethian, but the elf is concentrating on the last of his food rather than trying to read the thoughts of his human companion. Elendil shakes his head. “I’m going to speak to Jenya today – see if she can shed any light on that strangeness with Alek at the ball the other night,” he tells the elf. “Do you want to come with me?”
Alethian arches his eyebrow again – this time in the “surely you jest” expression. “Not today,” he says. He gestures vaguely out the open door to the street, or the city, or the world. “I have … things to do.”
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A little legwork soon revealed that the warehouse on Magma was deeded to Maavu Imports. Alethian knew that name.
Either the Last Laugh really have it in for this Maavu character, he thought, as he headed back through the rain-slicked streets to his room at The Tipped Tankard, or they want to distance themselves from these jobs.
The elf inwardly winced as he recalled the last time he had taken on a job for the Guild with Maavu as the target. They had neglected to inform him that Maavu was a mage as well as a merchant, and he had fallen afoul of several magical traps and guardians within the man’s townhouse that had almost cost him the job. He’d managed to retrieve the tome that the Last Laugh had sent him after, but it was not a clean getaway, and he’d been quite badly injured in the process.
Reflecting on that night, Alethian realized that he still had several outstanding questions from that night. Jil had never told him what they wanted the tome for, although she had remonstrated him severely that he had gone against her instructions in opening the book – not that he could read a word of whatever tongue it was written in. Not only that, but he still had the small timber box with the fading red and yellow paint that he had found in Maavu’s attic stashed away amongst his gear; the box that was nailed shut, and occasionally emitted faint scratching or knocking sounds… He really had to get that looked into – or just get rid of it.
Some other time; for now, there was a job to be done.
***
A few evening’s observation, a few ales purchased, a conversation with a rather drunk and dimwitted warehouse worker, and Alethian had what he needed to know.
He’d decided that he wasn’t going to risk stumbling into another magical trap this time – not only might that be bad for his health, but Jil had seemed fairly insistent that he should leave no trace of his passage – and an elf running down the street screaming and aflame might just give the game away.
No, getting hold of a key was the trick here. Alethian’s dimwitted friend thought that yes, perhaps there were some sort of magical wards on the doors, but the foremen never had any trouble opening up of a morning. Alethian had noted one of the foremen, followed him home at a discreet distance one evening, and was confident that he had that part of the plan in hand.
Maavu employed a night watchman for his warehouses. Fortunately, it seemed that the merchant was a somewhat stingy character; he owned several warehouses, offices and a shopfront along the same stretch of Magma Avenue, and only employed the one watchman to oversee them all. And from what Alethian had observed, the man did a fair amount of his watching from the comfort of the nearby Slippery Eel tavern, particularly if the night were especially cold or wet – so that part of the plan was also in hand.
Right. Now, if only he knew what it was he was meant to steal.
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Elendil was being followed.
He pulled the hood of his cloak down low over his face, trying to shield himself from the heavy rain, and quickened his pace. The streets were not crowded, with those who could do so choosing to stay indoors out of the weather, and those not so lucky dashing from doorway to doorway, or huddling under wide awnings.
Oblivious to the figure that watched him from a shadowed doorway, Elendil’s mind drifted, thinking back to his first meeting with Alek Tercival. He’d searched the paladin’s face closely, looking for any sort of familiarity, but what he was looking for was hard to tell … At any rate, the man had made a good impression, seeming measured, courteous and wise – and far less gung-ho than some stories that Elendil had heard about paladins.
That was what had made his behaviour at the Demonskar Ball so jarring; he was loud, unsubtle, and frankly rather embarrassing to be around. Perhaps he had just had a little too much to drink, except that he’d been acting strangely since the beginning of the evening, and discreet enquiries had revealed that the man did not touch alcohol; so if he were drinking that night, that was strange enough.
So, a man makes a fool of himself at a party; nothing too unusual in that. What concerned Elendil was that this behaviour might somehow be linked to the paladin’s coincidental absence from the city during various recent events. Where had the paladin been during the kidnapping crisis? Where again when Sarcem Delasharn was killed, or during the near disastrous Flood Festival? Elendil did not know if there was a connection, but he was determined to find out, and being in the good graces of the newly appointed High Priestess of Saint Cuthbert, this seemed like a good time to find out.
***
The rain had reduced to a fine drizzle by the time Elendil approached the imposing façade of the church of Saint Cuthbert. He smiled to himself as he noted the russet-clad guard standing stoically outside, rain dripping off his wide-brimmed hat. Seems I’m not the only one who’s been getting wet.
Stepping into a sheltered shopfront on the other side of the wide avenue and several buildings away from the church, Elendil removed his cloak and shook the water out of it as best he could, before turning towards the pitted glass window behind him to check his appearance. As he did so, he caught sight in the reflection of a tall, darkly clad figure, it’s face concealed by a wide-brimmed hat, striding quickly towards him from the mouth of a nearby alley. The figure held a naked sword in one hand, and there could be no doubt that it was headed directly for Elendil.
The phrases of an invocation sprang into the young sorcerer’s mind, and his hands began moving in the arcane gestures of spell casting even as he spun to confront his attacker; but his assailant was cat-quick, and was upon him already. A strong, browned hand shot out and grasped Elendil’s wrist, hard, painfully, forcing his arm down, and the eldritch energies that the sorcerer had begun to gather dissipated harmlessly.
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Elsbeth’s silver blade flashed as it caught the light of the flickering flame.
Two glowing darts streaked past her, impacting with the crocodilian monster’s flank as her sword descended sluggishly, as if slicing through thick mud. Thrice damned magic! she thought, cursing whatever effect was causing her to move so slowly, rather than Elendil’s magical missiles, which at least seemed to have caused the creature some pain, judging by the way that it hissed and flicked it’s sleek head in her cousin’s direction.
An arrow suddenly sprouted from the fiend’s neck, causing it to hiss again – Elsbeth had not even seen where Alethian had been hiding – but her own blade skittered slowly down the beast’s flank, not causing any damage. It whipped around fast, swinging its three remaining tails at her – she had managed to sever the fourth – and the razor sharp fronds ripped through her armour as if through paper, as she struggled to bring her shield to bear.
The impact caused her to stumble in the dark, shin deep water, and she fell slowly backwards, landing on her rear, as the monster moved fluidly past her to where Zanth lay unmoving, face down on the blood-clotted sand. Alethian’s next arrow bounced off the creature’s tough hide, while Elendil shouted something that she could not make out. The fiend’s reptilian head darted forward as it opened its powerful jaws, before clamping them shut, hard on Zanth’s leg, the razor sharp shark teeth digging into his inert flesh. It began dragging the unconscious priest further into the subterranean lake.
Elsbeth knew she had one chance. Not bothering to try to stand within the creature’s slowing aura, she let go her shield, and, gripping the hilt of her bastard sword in both hands, lunged at the creature, her muscles straining to strike with enough power to overcome the supernatural force and cut deeply into the monster’s scaled hide.
She missed.
“No!”
Elsbeth sat bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily in the grey, pre-dawn light. No. That was not how it went. Her strike had been true, the heavy blade cutting into the creature, which had let go of Zanth, shrieked, and dived under the surface of the water, not to be seen again. Why did she keep having nightmares about that place? Nightmares where her companions – or herself – kept dying. Were the gods trying to tell her something. She shook her head. No. More likely it was just that place – the close, humid air, the darkness, the constant dripping sound, the faded carvings of strange, tentacled beasts on the walls … and of course the plethora of dangerous monsters they had encountered.
Still … the gods may not be trying to warn her of anything, but praying never hurt. She climbed out of bed, padded over to the window on bare feet and peered through the cracks in the shutters to the city outside. It was difficult to tell through the heavy clouds, but she guessed that dawn was not far away. Time enough to make the morning service at the temple of Pelor if she hurried.
She sat down on the bed and began to dress.
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Elendil stared into the face of his assailant. Under the hat’s brim he saw weather-beaten skin, piercing grey eyes, and scarred lips, apparently sewn shut with a length of black ribbon.
“Pilgrim!” he exclaimed in shock and surprise, shaking his arm free of the other man’s grasp. “What are you doing?”
The tall man half turned and nodded down the broad street, away from the church. Elendil followed his gaze and noticed a cloaked and hooded figure watching the two of them from a sheltered doorway at the far end of the block. Under their scrutiny, the figure turned away and disappeared around a corner.
“Who was that?” Elendil asked, but Pilgrim did not – Elendil supposed could not – answer, just kept staring down the street. The man’s a nut-job, he thought, rubbing his wrist and glancing at Pilgrim’s unsheathed sword. I suppose he must have caught Tongue Eater finally then.
Elendil and company had first encountered the man known as the Pilgrim when they had been hired by Jenya Urikas to rescue the old high priest of Saint Cuthbert, Sarcem Delasharn from bandits at the Lucky Monkey road house. Pilgrim had accompanied them on their mission – Elendil thought he was some kind of priest, and certainly he seemed to employ some of the divine magic that devout clerics could use, but he was definitely not like any priest Elendil had met before.
They had been too late to save Sarcem, but they managed to rout the bandits and rescue the one survivor of the brutal attack. The bandit’s leader, a hulking, feral were-baboon called Tongue Eater, had fled off into the jungle after the battle, and Pilgrim had gone after him. The others had not followed, figuring that tracking down the missing wands of water control that Sarcem had been carrying was a more pressing concern than avenging the high priest. A week later, Pilgrim had not returned to Cauldron, and Elendil had half-supposed he was dead. It seemed he was not.
“You’re back then,” he said, somewhat redundantly. “Did you find the were-baboon?” Pilgrim nodded, but continued to stare down the street for a few moments, before slowly returning his sword to the scabbard at his belt.
“Well … I think whoever that was is long gone. It was probably just someone trying to keep out of the rain – got spooked with the two of us staring at him.” Elendil was not entirely sure he believed that, but he certainly wasn’t likely to hear anything reassuring from the grim man by his side. “I’m headed into the church to see the high priestess,” he continued, “were you going in too?”
But Pilgrim shook his head, and began walking slowly away, his hard boots clapping loudly on the wet cobblestones. Elendil let out a sigh of relief and hurried across the road towards the church.
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Alethian stared down at the halfling incredulously. “What?”
The diminutive man shrugged. “I’m just the messenger,” he said, raising his hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s just what I was told. You gotta get this crate into the place – whatever place you was already told about – tonight. No witnesses.”
Alethian shifted his dismayed gaze to the burly half-orc standing beside Flick, then down to the large, heavy looking crate by his feet. “How am I going to get that thing anywhere without being seen?” he asked.
Flick shrugged again. “I’m just the messenger,” he repeated. “Now, you got some place Patch here can stash this for ya? We gotta get going.”
***
Alethian strolled down Ash Avenue, looking out carefully for street numbers on the crooked, weather stained buildings. He’d never been to Weer’s Elixirs before – he and his companions normally frequented Skye’s Treasury if they needed to source – or sell – mystical items. But he’d met old man Weer recently, and wondered if the old curmudgeon might be able to help him.
The shop was not hard to find, the façade in rather better repair than most of the buildings along the avenue. The elf mounted the short flight of steps up to the door and pushed it open, triggering a small bell that jingled to announce his entrance. A young blonde haired woman looked up from her position behind the timber counter; “May I help you?” she asked.
Alethian glanced around the shopfront. The area was quite small, with the counter relatively close to the front door. A series of shelves behind the counter held an array of glass bottles of various sizes and shapes, filled with coloured liquids. Coloured water, the elf thought. Didn’t seem to be much in the way of security here – but then Weer was said to be a pretty powerful wizard, and for all Alethian knew the woman here might be a trained killer. He studied the girl for a moment, who was looking at him with a rather bored expression on her face. Young and pretty, for a human, he thought. Won’t be long before she looks as decrepit as Weer though. “I need to speak to Vortimax Weer if that is possible,” he said out loud.
The woman nodded, stood, and pushed through a purple curtain that hung in a doorway beside the shelves. There were some muffled voices, and a moment later an old man with a hooked nose and a short grey beard emerged into the room, and looked at Alethian questioningly.
“Good day Vortimax,” began the elf. “I’m Alethian – we met at the Demonskar Ball this last fortnight, if you recall?”
“I do,” replied the other dryly, and continued to look at the elf expectantly.
I think I liked him better when he had a few drinks in him, Alethian thought. “The young lady that you have working for you here – you mentioned you have a daughter, is that she?”
“No.” Weer’s eyes narrowed slightly. “That would be my wife.”
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Zanth Gosalar sighed. He was not sure that he wanted to be high priest.
According to the letter in his hands, that was what his aunt, herself high priestess of the temple of Pelor in Sasserine, was recommending to the Council. Oh, that recommendation would need to be ratified, there would be a vote, it would take some time for things to be made official out here in Cauldron … but in likelihood, Zanth would soon be appointed high priest of Pelor for the city of Cauldron.
He wondered if Father Kristof suspected anything – wondered how he would take the news. Zanth sighed again. Kristof was a good man, a good and humble servant of Pelor. After several months in the city, Zanth was sure that his superior had had nothing to do with the deaths of the two previous men to hold the post. It wasn’t just his intuition, or even his investigative skills that made him so sure; in truth he’d made subtle use of divination spells to determine the truth of the man’s words, to search his aura for any trace of evil … and had found neither deceit nor evil.
No, Kristof was good … but he was not great. The church here in Cauldron needed a strong, charismatic high priest to lead it through these times, or risk losing even more of its worshippers and prestige to the other three churches. Father Kristof was too humble, too quiet, too … uninspiring. Given Zanth’s recent heroic actions in defense of the city, his growing ability to wield the divinely granted magic that Pelor bestowed – which now outstripped Kristof’s own, and his ability to draw people in, he was perhaps an obvious choice.
The truth was though, he would rather be an adventurer. Putting the letter down onto the desk, Zanth idly wondered whether, as high priest, he’d be able to sneak off to slay monsters and plunder old ruins … probably not. He further wondered what people might think of the high priest of Pelor romancing a certain tall swordswoman; of course, that would actually require him declaring his intentions sooner or later…
Zanth sighed again, and leaned back in his chair, glancing out of the window of the small office. If he craned his neck he could see the spire of the cathedral of Wee Jas a few blocks away. Father Kristof was convinced that the work being undertaken on the rival cathedral, when complete, would block their temple’s access to the morning sun – an unpleasant thought for worshippers of the Sun God. He might be right too; Zanth would not at all put it past Embril Aloustinai of Wee Jas to concoct such a plan. Perhaps, between himself and Lightbringer Regiden, they would have enough clout with the city council to force the Wee Jasites to change their plans.
A sudden question occurred to Zanth; did the Lightbringer know of his aunt’s plans for him? She had made no mention of the man in her letter … perhaps she did not even know he was in the city, investigating the deaths of the two former high priests. After all, he had been sent all the way from Greyhawk, and it was possible that the clergy in Sasserine had been left out of the loop. Politics, he thought in disgust. A nasty business.
His musings were cut short by a sudden noise from the main hall of the temple. It was unusual for a worshipper to be here at this time of the afternoon … perhaps one of the novices was in there, or perhaps there was someone seeking assistance. Zanth stood, smoothed down his vestments, and hurried down the short hall and into the main temple.
There did not appear to be anyone within. The front doors stood open as they should. Nothing appeared to be out of place. He cast his eye over the rows of pews, looked behind the alter, glanced into the two small chapels off the main hall, but there was no one there. I must have been mistaken, he thought. A noise outside perhaps. He gave a shrug and returned to his small office.
It was not until some time later that he realized the letter he had left on his desk was gone.
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“Pilgrim’s back,” commented Elendil. “I ran into him at the church of Saint Cuthbert the other morning.”
“Good,” said Elsbeth, chewing on a piece of toasted bread. “I liked him. I suppose he caught up with Tongue Eater then?”
Elendil looked up from his fried eggs, giving his cousin a sceptical look. What was it with her and men of the cloth? At least Zanth was marginally pleasant – Elendil could not truthfully say the same of Pilgrim.
“What?” asked Elsbeth. “I just meant he’s a good person to have around in a fight. Knows how to handle a sword. Always gets his man. Granted, he’s not a sparkling conversationalist…” She popped the rest of the toast into her mouth and finished chewing before speaking again. “Did you speak to the high priestess then?”
Elendil shook his head. “No – she was busy. Seems we need to make appointments now. Apparently being the top dog in a large church entails a lot of work – who knew? I had a short chat with Rufus though…”
Elsbeth sighed. “Poor Jenya. Sarcem was like a father to her. She didn’t ask for this.”
No, thought Elendil, but I bet the pay is not bad. He thought back to Alethian’s throwaway comment about all the dead high priests in this town. No, surely he was just being paranoid now; Jenya can’t have had anything to do with that. Maybe it was a good thing that he didn’t talk to her though. He had been planning to ask her about his dream, but suddenly he didn’t want her to know about that.
He studied Elsbeth’s face for a moment. She looked tired. Had she been having bad dreams too? Or was there some other reason she wasn’t sleeping well? Elendil hurriedly pushed the thought away.
“So,” he began, in an effort to change the topic of conversation. “I spoke to Garlowe the other day too; the goods we retrieved from the ruins below the city will be auctioned off in the next few days. The proceeds from that should be quite good, gods willing. Enough to retire and live a life of luxury in Kingfisher’s Hollow perhaps?” The last is said somewhat in jest, but to his surprise Elsbeth seems to take a moment to think before answering.
“I’m not sure,” she said slowly. “Elendil, the things that we saw down in those caverns really disturbed me … but I don’t think I’m ready to retire from this life just yet. I think you might be right … that there’s some bigger picture here, something bad going on in this city – and I feel like we need to help. Like we’re important. I think we should get together – the four of us – and decide what we’re all going to do next. And you can update us all on what you’ve found out.”
Elendil ran his hand through his brown hair. He was glad that his cousin was not planning to return to life on the farm, at least not just yet … and he was somehow both relieved and frightened that someone seemed to have the same fears that he did. He hadn’t found out very much so far in his research, but there were a few things. There was also the person that may or may not have been following him, he remembered suddenly. “Yes,” he said. “We should all discuss it. Speaking of which, have you seen Alethian? Or, um, Zanth?”
“Zanth has been quite busy at the temple this last week,” Elsbeth replied, “and I haven’t seen much of Alethian for a few days now… you don’t think he’s up to something, do you?”