Ashes of Verdenheld

by Jack Wright

  She hurried over and crouched behind him. He was an older fellow, likely in his late forties, with short, greying brown hair and a curly, expertly maintained moustache. His face was angular, with a strong, rigid jawline. He had the look of a noble about him, yet couldn’t be with no escort by his side.

  Eris carefully began sawing at the ropes binding him with her sword.

  “Thank you, you showed up just in the knick of time! As you can see, these unsavoury fellows upturned my cart and released my horse. It wasn’t long before they’d take my wares and do away with me!”

  “Wares? You’re a merchant?” Eris inquired, cutting the final rope.

  The man shook off his binds and stood up, batting off the dirt from his fine linen trousers.

  “Indeed, Albert Bexley’s the name - finest produce in all of Verdenheld!” He declared with utmost pride. “Unfortunately, it seems most of said produce is ruined, what with it being dumped to the ground and manhandled. It’s certainly not sales quality.”

  “Eris!” Caesia called from across the clearing. “Bandages?”

  “What for? You got a boo-boo?” Eris sneered.

  “No, I’m going to sort out this man’s wound. We can’t just leave him like this.”

  “Fine…” Eris sighed, begrudgingly swinging her backpack off her shoulders and routing around for the bandage roll.

  “Say, what has a pair of young ladies like you roaming the wilds so well equipped?” Questioned the merchant curiously.

  Young ladies - that was a refreshing change from ‘girl’ or ‘missy’. “We’re adventurers!” Eris exclaimed, pulling the bandage roll from her bag and throwing it to Caesia.

  Caesia dived for the roll and clumsily juggled it back and forth before turning embarrassedly to the wounded highwayman.

  “Adventurers, ay? Well adventurer, I believe you’ve earned yourself a reward! I can’t afford to give much away, what with the loss of all this produce, but here.” Albert produced two gold coins and placed them in Eris’ hand. “A gold coin for each of you. If you ever find yourself in Tryzantopol, be sure to look me up!”

  Albert extended his hand to Eris with a cheesy grin, obscured by his fantastic moustache.

  Eris gave Albert a warm smile and reached out to shake his hand. “I’m Eris, by the way. That’s Caesia.”

  Caesia gave an effortless wave over her shoulder, far too fixated on wrapping the highwayman’s wound. She wasn’t particularly good at it, so it was taking a fair bit of time.

  “A pleasure to meet you Eris and Caesia. Now, I’m going to fetch some guards from the Norskar Gate, you ladies had best keep an eye on these miscreants until I return.”

  Before any word of objection could slip out of Eris’ mouth, he was off jogging extremely unathletically down the road.

  “He was refreshingly pleasant.” Caesia remarked, yanking the bandage impatiently.

  “You doing okay with that?” Eris smirked.

  “Oh, just fine. I just had to take a moment to gather myself before getting started. I absolutely detest blood.” Caesia shuddered. “Uh, just thinking about it makes me sick.”

  “Well, I guess we’d best tie these guys up or something. I think there might be more rope in that cart.”

  Eris walked over to Albert’s cart to investigate the contents. It was largely food - cabbages, carrots, turnips and as luck would have it, a few coils of rope for binding down the produce.

  “We’re not seriously going to wait for him to return, are we?” Caesia muttered.

  Eris screwed up her face disappointedly. “Why not?”

  “Time isn’t exactly on our side here. We wait for him and that’s another hour or so in which this dragon could burn another city!”

  “True. Well, we should at least tie these guys up. The Gate guards aren’t really my favourite sorts of people anyway.”

  “Alright.” Caesia stepped back from the highwayman, having dressed the wound to the best of her rather lacking ability. “You know how to tie a person up?”

  “No…”

  “Well, neither do I.”

  “Ah, let’s just tie them to a tree, it can’t be that complicated.” Eris muttered, grabbing the scrawny highwayman and dragging him over to a nearby tree.

  “Hold on!” Caesia hissed. “Why do you get the little one?”

  “First come, first serve!” Eris declared cheekily.

  She pulled the rope around the tree and began tying. Caesia looked at the two muscular men on the ground, her arms aching just looking at them. She grabbed one and tried with all her might to heave him to the nearest tree.

  “If I throw my back out, I- Are you eating a carrot?”

  Eris withdrew the carrot from her mouth. “Yeah, so what? He said he didn’t want ‘em anymore.”

  “He doesn’t want them because they have been on the floor! They’re all dirty!”

  “So? Carrots come from the ground.” Eris rebuked dismissively, taking another chunk out of the carrot.

  Caesia knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere with this and quickly relented. “Whatever.” She muttered, going back to dragging the massive man.

  The pair fell silent for a time while the tied up their respective highwaymen. As Eris crouched beside the next man, the one Caesia blasted, she became concerned as he was still twitching and convulsing.

  “Are you sure you didn’t, like, permanently damage this guy or something?”

  “Definitely, I can vary how long my targets are disabled for and I simply chose for this fellow to be as such for some time. Don’t fret, he’s not under any pain, rather a body-wide numbness.”

  “Ah, that’s good.” Eris began wrapping the rope around the man. “I was just worried. I mean, from my end that looked pretty hardcore what with him shaking so much.”

  Caesia grinned embarrassedly, hardcore was never a word she thought would be used to describe her.

  “Hardcore? No, my elementa spells are about as soft as the school gets, albeit not very much. The more advanced stuff is frankly mind blowing to behold.”

  Eris hopped up from behind the tree and walked again into the middle of the clearing, where Caesia waited for her.

  “You definitely tied it properly, right?” Eris asked doubtfully.

  “I would like to think so. Even so, I doubt he’s going anywhere for some time what with that blow you gave him.”

  “You think?”

  “Oh yeah, you hit him so hard I could hear the clang from up there! It was rather comedic actually.”

  Eris sniggered quietly. “Right, I guess I’ll take your word for it.”

  Caesia looked around, checking that they weren’t missing something. “Okay, I think we had best be on our way. I don’t want to waste any more time here than we have to.”

  Eris eyed the cart again and hatched an idea. “Alright, just one more thing before we go.”

  She moved over to the upturned cart and opened her backpack, scooping in several carrots to replenish the food they had eaten last night.

  “You do understand that there is no way I am eating those, right?”

  “Eh, more for me. Besides, if we’re going into a forgotten tomb it couldn’t hurt to see better in the dark, right?” “Eris jested, taking another bite out of her floor carrot.

  Caesia smirked very subtly and ignored her, not wanting to accommodate her awful jokes. “Just save some for the road, we’ve still got a few hours ahead.”

  “A few hours?!” Eris gasped. “What’re we gonna to do all that time?”

  “I mean, we can go home if you want…” Caesia muttered. Why was she still trying?

  “I know, how ‘bout we play stone, parchment, trimmers?

  “Stone, parchment, trimmers?” Caesia chuckled. “Doesn’t that just roll off the tongue…”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of it!”

  “Don’t tell me you’re surprised. I’ve as much chance of having heard of a game as you have of giving up and going home!”

  �
��True. Come on then, I’ll teach you how to play. It’s easy!” Eris declared eagerly. “I warn you though, I’m a bit of a master.”

  Chapter Six - The Forgotten Tomb

  “Alright, alright, best of two hundred and thirteen!” Eris stubbornly insisted.

  Caesia chuckled at her pettiness, as she’d been doing for hours. “You do understand that you’ll need to win fifty two times consecutively to overtake me, right?”

  “Which is exactly what I’ll do!”

  They had been on the road now for three hours since the fight in the clearing. Eris had gone through several carrots by now and Caesia was becoming convinced that Eris actually thought they helped her see in the dark. They had played one hundred and six rounds of stone, parchment, trimmers and Eris was still convinced she was going to come out on top.

  “Fine.” Caesia sighed. “Stone, parchment, trimmers!”

  They beat their hands against their palms three times and presented their choices, Eris choosing trimmers as she had at least sixty times. Caesia smirked cockily as her closed fist struck her palm. Eris glared embarrassedly at her hand.

  “How the- how are you so good at this?!” She snapped furiously, stroppily throwing her hands to her sides in defeat.

  “The question is, how are you so bad?” Caesia sniggered. “All you do is pick trimmers!”

  “I do not!” Eris hissed. “Well, maybe sometimes… I pick the other ones to!”

  “Yes, which is the only occasion on which you’d pull a cheeky little smirk before throwing your hand.”

  Eris scrunched up her mouth angrily and narrowed her eyes. She would always destroy Jon at this game, could she really have been so bad at it?

  “You’re too smart for this game…” Eris groaned. “It’s cheating!”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Caesia smirked.

  She had become rather good at picking out little details, her spare time consisting of quite a lot of staring at inanimate objects out of boredom. Talk about translatable skills.

  “Well, I think I’ve played enough of this game to last me a lifetime.” Caesia sighed.

  “Do I hear a forfeit?” Eris grinned cunningly.

  “Shut up.” Caesia muttered, shoving Eris playfully. “So I was wondering, how’d you come to be so adept with the blade at such a young age? That was some impressive stuff back in the clearing.”

  “Well, I’m no master.” Eris sighed modestly. “But my instructors back home always said I was a natural, ‘a gift from the stars’ they said.”

  “Do you believe that?” Caesia asked, interested to see if Eris shared such devout religious views as her people.

  “Nah, I like to think it's all me. I trained a lot, never really had much else to do with myself.”

  “I see. I’m surprised you were allowed to train at all, even being the chief’s daughter.”

  “I wouldn’t have been if I wasn’t an only child.”

  “So, your father had no choice to groom you to succeed him - lucky indeed.”

  “Less than you’d think.” Eris sighed glumly.

  “Yes, I could imagine your responsibilities could be quite overwhelming. My parents had rather high expectations of me as well.”

  “No, it’s not that. My… my mum died giving birth to me.”

  “Oh! I, um, I’m…” Caesia mumbled, withdrawing to a softer, sympathetic tone. “I’m sorry…”

  “It’s fine.” Eris smiled, never one to get upset about it. “What was your mum like?”

  She asked this of people a lot, always wanting to know what she might have been missing out on.

  Caesia smirked, but Eris could see the pain behind the smile. “My mother… was like my father - cold and calculating. Both of them saw me only as a tool to advance their status in the realm.” She muttered venomously. “They didn’t love me, I was naught but a pawn to them.”

  “Is that why your father’s hunting you? Because you’re his pawn?”

  “Honestly, I don’t even know for sure if he’s hunting me. I just assumed so, for as much as they cared not for me emotionally I’m nonetheless an integral cog in their plans. They sent me to the College so that I would train to become a magical advisor to one of the noble lords, to curry favour. By that fact, I’m sure you can imagine why I was so eager to run away.”

  “Your parents sound like real pricks.” Eris muttered.

  “Such is the standard for nobles. They tried to teach me to be a prick to.” Caesia smirked. “Sure, I certainly picked up a fair bit, but I like to think I at least sound a little less pretentious than most.”

  “So if you’re a noble, are you from one of those houses? I’ve only really heard of House Severin and whatever that one you said earlier was.”

  “Yes, I’m daughter to the lord and lady of House Lacroix. It’s not one of the great houses, in fact it was only founded just over forty years ago.”

  “So, does that make you heir to the house then?”

  “No, that honour goes to my brother, Gerard, who I assure you is far more stuck up than even I am.”

  “You really don’t like your family, do you?”

  “You can tell?” Caesia chuckled, her tortured eyes lighting up hopefully. “While I can’t say I’ve had the most emotionally attached upbringing, it’s all behind me now - I’m finally free. Free to live how I want and be whatever my heart desires!”

  “And what does your heart desire?”

  “I’m… still working that one out.” Caesia sighed longingly. “What about you? What are you going to do with your freedom?”

  “Ah, I’ve only got a year. Then it's back to the village where I’ll keep training to become the chief.”

  “Really? You struck me as someone who had nothing holding her back, what with your utter recklessness.”

  “I don’t, not for now at least - and I’m gonna make damned good use of it.”

  Caesia smirked. “I expect nothing less. That is, if we survive this.”

  “Oh, come on.” Eris urged cheerfully. “Stop being so negative, we’re gonna be fine!”

  After a short walk from there, Caesia stopped and looked around, analysing her surroundings. She dug into the shoulder bag and took out her copy of ‘Verdenheld: 0 AV - 400 AV’ and took a look at the map inside. Cross referencing the features shown on the map with the land around them, she came to a conclusion.

  “Alright, the Tomb should be around here. Knowing House Tarantis, it’s going to be hidden behind a magical illusion, so keep an eye out.”

  While Caesia searched the area methodically, Eris wandered over to a tree and stood beneath it for some much needed shade.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Caesia hissed.

  “Leaving it to the expert. You think I know what an illusion looks like?”

  Caesia sighed impatiently. Suddenly, her eye was caught by the tree beside the one Eris stood beneath. Something was off about it - its shadow was facing the wrong way.

  “I believe it may look like that…” Caesia grinned. “You may want to stand back, just in case there’s a defence spell in place.”

  Eris stepped cautiously away from the trees. Caesia flicked her wrist and a arcs of pale green energy streaked up her forearm. She reeled back her arm and the lightning jolted up her arm and into the palm of her hand, forming into a dazzling ball of green light.

  Eris watched intently as Caesia flung her arm forwards and slung a bolt of lightning into the illusion with a sharp crack. The crackling streak of light slammed against the illusion, creating a ripple of green energy that spread across the mountainside.

  “That’s a damned big illusion…” Caesia muttered, watching the ripple roll across the landscape. “There’s no way we can destroy it, but I should be able to make a temporary hole in it.”

  “You can do it again when we return, right?” Eris asked concernedly.

  “Of course. Now, let me concentrate.”

  Caesia stepped up to the illusion and pressed her palms again
st it. She charged both arms with electricity and pushed it out in front of her. The illusion began to sizzle and crackle as more and more energy surged from her hands. She gritted her teeth and screwed up her eyes as she pushed herself to apply enough pressure. From beneath her hands, the image began to gradually melt away. As the hole grew in size, Eris leapt through eagerly. Caesia followed closely, gasping in relief as she drew her hand away and let the tear close.

  “Whoa…” Eris gasped, gazing wide eyed upon the towering entrance of the tomb.

  The exterior of the tomb was enormous, about thrice their height. The archaic stone was old and dark, battered by nature over hundreds of years. On either side of the door stood massive statues twice their size, depicting a pair of hooded battlemages clad heavily in armour and holding their swords to their helmets in prayer.

  Eris shook her head in astonishment. “This is… this is awesome!”

  Caesia smirked and rolled her eyes. “How is it you manage to find such amazement in every little thing you see?”

  “How is it you manage to complain about every little thing you see?”

  “Well played…” Caesia muttered amusedly. “Shall we?”

  They approached the looming entrance, ascending several steps up to the massive, slab-like stone door. As she reached the top of the stairs, Caesia sighed annoyedly.

  “Crap.” She spat, stepping up to the door. “It’s locked.”

  “Seriously?” Eris groaned. “And you thought it would just be wide open?”

  “I had hoped so. The key to this door, if it hasn’t been lost to the ages, is likely sitting in a vault under the Arcana Citadel in Abenfurt.”

  “Abenfurt?” Eris hissed impatiently. “As in the city we’ve just walked four hours in the opposite direction of?”

  “No need to get pissy, I can work up a solution for this.” Caesia insisted, analysing the chunky arkansteel lock carefully. “Yes… I’ve got an idea.”

  “Go on…”

  Caesia crouched slightly and peered into the keyhole. She lifted her hand out in front of her.

  “At the College, students were divided into houses based on essence colour.” She explained, carefully positioning her fingers for a spell. “Rather than putting me in one of the existing houses, they gave me my own.”