by Lee LaCroix
“Do you really think my parents could be here?” Ilsa asked as she looked around at Domminal and Garreth.
“To be honest, we are the blackest few I have seen in town all day, but the dark insignia has not failed to escape my eye,” Garreth explained.
“With the upheaval in Bouldershade, I’m sure any Blackwoods here are laying low for the time. We probably did the right thing by not staying in the open as long as we did,” Domminal guessed, nodding his head.
“I see. Is there any place where they could be kept in particular?” Ilsa inquired.
“There’s a Crown Aegis outpost right beside the windmill. They used to use the windmill as a watchtower to coordinate their patrols as well as survey the area. They have a couple cells in there, but I wouldn’t imagine keeping a family in there for an extended period of time,” Domminal told them.
“Well, that’s a start. Anywhere else?” Ilsa quipped, her earnest as quick as her words.
“Of course. The birthplace of our favorite usurper and head of the Blackwoods. Surrounded by a section of pine barrens, Vyse’s manor lies past the windmill in the next valley. While I’m guessing he wouldn’t choose to fortify himself anywhere else than Deepshine in this war time, it could still be a secure location because there were always guards and servants alike to fill its largess. It is possible that Vyse may be treating the Vemsdowers to an imprisonment more fitting to their stature. Something more comfortable than a cell. Perhaps to coerce them into signing the Bouldershade mines over to him?” Domminal guessed.
“That could be possible, I suppose,” Ilsa replied.
“Let us wait for nightfall and put these blacks to good use,” Garreth said with a faint smile.
As they stepped from the torchlight that lit the street into the darkened alley, the three men could hardly see Ilsa venture into the black, let alone themselves. As soon as their eyes adjusted, the shine of her daggers led them forward, and from time to time, her flawless white face looked back and waited for them. They went unseen and unheard through the black yards. Over the wooden fences of the comfortably separated properties, they riled a frightened goat into impassioned baaing and barely escaped a pen full of yipping sheepdogs. They soon found themselves in the wide shadow of the windmill with its repetitive creaking obscuring the sound of even their heaviest of footsteps.
“Go ahead inside, Novas. Just tell them there’s a fire. Play dumb and what not,” Garreth explained to his son.
Skeptical, Novas raised an eyebrow but relented. A torch on the outside of the barracks drew his form into visibility, and he made his way up the first step and held his breath. As he swung the door open, two men at the far side of the room sat up at attention as if dozing before.
“Hullo! Can I help you, son?” the man behind the desk inquired with a yawn.
Novas made his way into the barracks and looked around. Only messy straw on the bunkbeds remained with no cloth or pillows to be found. A pair of broken spears stood against the armament racks, and the rest of the holsters remained empty. A pile of ash gathered below the single torch on the far wall. The Crown Aegis banner was nowhere to be seen. But the two occupants did not seem to be nefarious to Novas. Perhaps, they were squatters in the least, he imagined.
“Someone set fire to my father’s wagon just outside of town. I was hoping the King’s men could help me. Is there anyone here?” Novas explained as he walked further into the large room.
He could see the cells against the far corner but could not see inside.
“No, no. There isn’t any Kingsmen here. We’re just watching the place for now. You from in town here?” the man asked while his associate gave Novas a thorough looking over.
Novas continued to the desk where he could get a full view of the cells.
“Just passing through on the way to the coast,” Novas told them, taking his eyes off the man and into the cells.
The man turned around and then continued to look Novas over.
“Sorry to have bothered you. I’ll go fetch some water from the well then,” Novas offered with a nod and a shallow bow.
A sleepy grunt was all that was given in return, and then Novas had shut the door firmly in its place again. He strode into the darkness around the side of the windmill and found his compatriots idling against its side.
“So?” Garreth asked.
“Nothing. The cells are bare as is most of anything resembling barracks. Whether the two in there were vagabonds or Blackwoods, I could not guess. They seemed more interested in catching up on their sleep than anything,” Novas reported.
“Then we’ll have to continue to the manor. I can’t say I’m not looking forward to finally seeing inside of there,” Domminal told them.
They all agreed and made their way north with the moonlight as their guide.
The bristling pine cut the light from the manor into jagged edges on the outside of the forest. Even though the manor was completely obscured by the surrounding trees, the glare that the manor’s surrounding braziers gave off made it seem like daytime as they approached. It was only a short distance from the town that the dirt path for commoners became inlaid with carved brick and stone, offering a smooth ride for a carriage down the winding road and into the forest. As they crept parallel to the seamless street and past the border of the forest, the four found the first set of guards who stood in the safety of pillared torches. On Ilsa’s lead, they snuck one-by-one and darted from the narrow chasms of shadow offered by the trees.
They finally came to the perimeter of the manse. It was wide clearing where the carriages and carts pulled up and the front step to the manor lay. Near each of the four corners of the manse, there was an iron-cast brazier with a booming flame. While the infiltration of the Gold Acres had offered them no challenge, the shining steel soldiers of the Queen’s Aegis certainly would while they walked around in patrols of two, securing the perimeter and the entrances to the manse. A head poked from around the darkness, and Ilsa waved Garreth towards her. He sped towards her, and they huddled together in the sliver of darkness.
“How do we get in? We’re going to stand out if we make a dash through that field there. And do you even see a way into the manor?” Garreth asked her as he poked his head out.
“Not yet. I’m still thinking of something. We need to go unnoticed. Let me take a look around,” Ilsa asked.
Garreth nodded and watched her sprint over to another tree and make her way around the perimeter of the manse. Garreth nearly jumped out of the shadow as she appeared again shortly after.
“There’s an open window on the second floor around the back of the house. Rally the others and follow me over there,” Ilsa pointed to another spot in the treeline.
Garreth could not disagree, and he crept along the line of shadow back to his comrades.
All was silent and still as Garreth held his breath, and he drew back the string on his bow. The creaking and twitching soon came to a halt, and he aimed his arrow into the eye of the southern brazier. Willing away the arrow with his outdrawn breath, it sped through the flame and caught fire in its passage through. It landed past the treeline, falling into the thick pile of dried pine needles that soon began to smoke and catch flame. A chorus of voices went up as the ground caught fire and burned hot and bright.
“Water! Fetch water! From the well!” a voice barked, and the four watched the guards scatter.
As Garreth dashed across the brink first, his form was a freed shadow against the field of light. He kneeled under the window, and Ilsa charged straight towards him. Garreth wove his hands together and put his eyes on her feet, and Ilsa hopped, skipped, and then put one foot in Garreth’s hands. He lifted with all his might, tossing her upwards. Ilsa leapt high with the strength she was given and caught the windowsill. With one leg up, she curled into the window, opened it completely, and waved the next one in. While Garreth grunted at the additional weight, Novas made the next run and soared less high but caught Ilsa’s hand on his ascent. With a tumbler’s roll
backwards, Ilsa pulled Novas to the windowsill as well.
“Careful,” Ilsa whispered to Novas as she looked around the room that appeared to be a study of sorts.
Novas nodded and hung out the window with Ilsa, one hand on the sill and the other downwards. With an earthbound leap, Garreth caught both of their hands and was lifted up. Soon, Domminal was pulled in as well. Ilsa returned the window to its partial openness just as the guards had resumed their patrol.
The four each turned to find themselves in a polished library with both of the adjacent walls lined with completely filled bookshelves. To their left, there was an impossible amount of similarly sized and coloured books that struck them as collections. To their right, there was a mismatched assortment sorted with size first and colour next. Although Ilsa had seen her father’s own personal library, for most people of Malquian wealth were bound to carry some of these tomes, the rest of them were awestruck that even that many books existed and would have liked to glance over their spines if they had not been trespassing.
Besides the books, the study was furnished with a variety of painted art, taxidermies, and sculptures. Novas was drawn to the owl perched above the doorframe to the library; its wingspan outstretched with each of its feathers laid in perfect symmetry, and its arched brow still exhibiting its hunter’s guile. Not even death had dimmed the majesty of its lacquered brown feathers or the deep snowy white ones, and its beak seemed carved of onyx. Soon, Novas began to suspect he would find such mesmerizing ornamentation all throughout the house and would have to steel his attention in order to make it through safely.
“These seem to be documents of a sort. I’m going to stay here and rummage around,” Garreth explained.
The rest of them nodded. Ilsa loosely pressed through the papers, drawing her finger over a stamped Blackwoods insignia.
“Novas, I want you to follow Ilsa. Look through the house for signs of her parents and make sure she doesn’t get into trouble,” Garreth asked, prompting Ilsa to roll her eyes and deflate her shoulders.
“Dom, feel free to venture as you wish but please don’t raise an alarm. We’ve already spooked them enough as it is,” Garreth told him.
With a firm nod, Domminal snuck to the border of the room where Ilsa and Novas had just slipped around the corner, and with one look back, was gone. Much to Garreth’s luck, the well-oiled shelves of the polished oak desk opened without a sound, and the padded seat accepted his weight without a similar protest. The first drawer contained communications regarding inventories from around Malquia, tallies of livestock, instruments of the soldier and the craftsman, caches of produce, barrels of mead and wine. The sheer variety of the goods was only matched by the astounding amounts that were beginning to gather as Garreth came across an inventory list for the stores at Deepshine.
His eyes stopped at a particular figure, “Kal’reshian silks”, which was an item which he had never heard before in his life. He began to wonder if it was a creation from the artisans in the Trade District. As he continued, he came across Kal’reshian bronze and Kal’reshian spice as well. He raised massaging fingers to his temples as he tried to ply the name from his memory but could fathom no origin. Considering the time, he put the matter aside and went through the next drawer. There was a statement of accounts from the royal treasury in Amatharsus, a thick book containing the names, trades, and signatures of each Blackwoods employee with plenty of room in the back for more, and a letter of declination from the Vemsdowers regarding the purchase of their mine.
Garreth was rummaging through the opposite side of the desk when he came across a black leather portfolio that was bound tight by a gold threaded tassel. The introduction was completely blank with the exception of calligraphy in a fine black ink which read, “The relations of Malquia and the Holy Order of Vandar”. The Blackwoods logo was stamped in gold below. Kal’reshian? Vandarian? As Garreth could not ignore gravity of the document, he opened it up to the next page and began to read.
Chapter Eight
For the first time in his life, Vyse had felt as if his failure as utter and complete. But he did not bear the blame on his shoulders for long but instead gathered a deep and shuddering hate for the ones who had put him into these difficulties. While Vyse watched from his private carriage as it passed through the Rauros Mountains, he thought of satisfying and merciless methods of torture for those underlings who had forced him into this shameful and costly situation with their failures. His forehead seemed to simmer with rage, and he grit his teeth as he accepted the fact that he would be unable to satisfy such destructive lusts. Vyse brought up a ledger to see the price he would pay for their incompetence, and although he would never admit, his unrivaled greed.
The numbers made his eyes bulge just looking at them. An upfront fee of seven thousand penta as a penalty for his crimes against the kingdom. An overwhelming majority of the Blackwoods revenue would be redirected to fund the war effort against the Vandari. Only the pettiest amount to maintain the operations of the business, and his own expenses, luxuries, or savings weren’t even taken into account. He had already accepted the reality of his business’ demise, and his thoughts strayed to his valuables, how much he could extort from the Trade District, and if he would have to go as far as crossing the sea to live a life of modest and comfortable wealth. Vyse lifted the ledger to the carriage’s wall-mounted candle and left it on the flame until its dense wood blackened and produced licks of flame. As the paper began to sear and curl, he tossed ledger out the window where it burnt to ashes on the roadside.
Every Deepshine defender made themselves as still as statuary, and every Blackwoods grunt made himself as scarce and unseen as the shadows as Vyse’s carriage rolled into the Deepshine camp. No voice would dare call attention to itself. Instead, his underlings hid their whispers, if any were so foolhardy, under the groans of labour at the docks, the forge, or the mine. Although they could not see it, they could feel the slow dread which lay inside that cage of timber and steel, and none would meet the lord’s gaze as the doors of the vehicle whipped open with loud and piercing crack. None except Vyse’s trembling attendant, however. As he caught sight of his servant, the whites in Vyse’s eyes became so large and then so bloodshot that his assistant swore that his master was trying to will his death by sheer anger and rage.
“My apologies, sir, Lord Vyse, sir,” the bowing man stammered.
“What is it, you dolt!” Vyse yelled, restraining himself only in the least amount to avoid cracking his voice.
“The Vandari… they have returned,” the assistant explained as he turned to the side, raising an open hand to the docks where a Vandarian ship was docked.
Vyse drew a sharp breath and walked a pace past his man, looking down into the docks and at the ship. He could feel his pulse on the side of his temple. As he kept his breath, his heart began to pound. He stared down the length of the Deepshine encampment and then back to his manor and into every window. As he ran his hands through his hair, he let the breath go and then pulled the edges of his jacket to a snugness around him. He could not be seen to be unstable or unreliable. Not while there was business to do.
With a powerful, unrestrained push, Vyse let the ornate doors of the dining hall smash against the walls, prompting the waiting Vandari to grant him their full attention as he strode into the room followed by his Deepshine defenders. A smirk was scrawled across the lord’s mind because the Vandarian ambassador was sitting at the head of the table where Vyse himself had only sat. With his black and silver guards lined up in rank behind him, the diplomat screeched the weighty chair as he pushed away from the table to stand but was soon halted by Vyse’s outstretched hand. With a smirk and a nod, the lord took the seat at the opposite end of the table.
“And what do I owe the pleasure of seeing our most honoured and benevolent guests?” Vyse orated across the table’s length.
“I was glad to see you at the negotiations with your king. You followed our request without question. This pleases us. It w
as quite unfortunate that we were not able to speak further at that conjecture, given the outcome of our talks with your leader,” the Vandarian began.
“You want to speak of displeasure? You should see the state of my coffers now. War, it seems, is a costly business,” Vyse announced, irate with sarcasm.
“It can be quite profitable however, depending on where you stand, which is why we have returned to speak with you this day,” the diplomat continued.
Although Vyse nodded in agreement, he concealed a smile which could have broken the borders of his face.
“Malquia is a fruitful land of much plenty. We have studied it from afar for quite some time. We are impressed by the yield of its bounty and its ability to provide and replenish year after year. Aside from its more common resources, we have noticed that you have become acquainted with mursame in its many forms,” the Vandarian spoke as he raised his hands to the shining ornamentation around the room, sparkling even in the dim candlelight.
Too accustomed to his own vanity, Vyse raised a brow.
“Mursame, you say? I am unfamiliar with the term,” Vyse replied as he glanced around the room without aim.
The diplomat went into the wide sleeves of his robe again, pulled out a stone carving, and then placed it upon the table. With a round base, slender stem, and shoulders increasing in width, the small statue seemed to depict a set of symmetrical mountains with a shining sun overhead. With the delicate nature that the diplomat held the object and the smoothness and polish of its texture, Vyse concluded that it was some sort of religious icon and was also made entirely of sunsteel.
