by Heath Pfaff
Her chest was rising and falling in a steady way. Her sleep looked more restful now, less troubled by her injuries. I felt a bit relieved at that, but the glowing red light had left me anxious. Someone had been outside, and they’d taken extra time to look in the window, or to stand near it and shine their light in. It felt like a warning or a threat. Someone or something was letting us know that it was aware of where we were.
I fought with an impulse to open the shutter and look outside, to see if I could find the source of the disturbance, but sense won out over curiosity and I decided to leave the window closed for the time being. I went back to my slow patrol of the home, walking from room to room and circling the main area where we were resting.
12.3
It was impossible to be certain how much time passed. There was no light to indicate a shift in time, but eventually Arthos rose from his sleep. He got up, stretching and coming to his feet quickly. I told him about the red light I’d seen, but there hadn't been anything else to report for the rest of the time he’d been out. He seemed a bit concerned about the light, but let it pass for the moment.
“It should be day by now.” He said, looking at the wooden slats covering the only views the house had of the world beyond, through which no extra light was coming.
“I don’t think it’s ever day here.” I told him, and I could tell by his expression that he agreed with my statement, but still wasn’t happy to see the truth of it before him.
Dreea stirred then. She came awake quickly, sitting up fast and giving a little hiss as pain reminded her why she was currently where she was. My cloak slid down her body as she sat up, and she flicked her ears a bit and grabbed it, pulling it back up over her breasts in a modest way that seemed strange given how she’d been when we’d first met her.
Something about the gesture struck me as endearing, sweet in a way, and I smiled at her. “How are you feeling?” I asked, crouching down near her.
“Sore, lots of pain, but I think I’ll be alright.” She got to her feet and grabbed her pack. “I will get dressed. Sorry I slowed us down.”
“Dreea, you saved my life. You don’t have to be sorry for anything.” I told her sincerely, reaching out to gently squeeze her shoulder. She was taller than me, and it was somewhat strange to reach up for the gesture. I’d had trouble identifying expressions on her face for a time, but I recognized her smile now.
“Glad I could do something. It was scary, but you are important to me. To us.” She flicked her ears again a few times, which I thought might indicate embarrassment, but I wasn’t sure. “You came for Dreea too. Brave.”
I smiled and shrugged. “It hardly felt brave at the time, just necessary. The washroom is through that door.” I told her, pointing to the doorway on the far side of the main room. Dreea turned and walked into the next room, her tail swishing as it followed after her. The door shut and I was still smiling after her. I was happy we’d brought her along. She’d saved my life already, and she had a way of making things feel less dire.
“Be careful about your attachments, Lil.” Arthos said, and I turned back to him.
“Attachments? She is my friend, Arthos. You are my friend as well, though at times you can be a bit of a prick.” I told him, and I wasn’t even that angry just then. I was frustrated with him, but this was just what he’d been taught to be. Certainly we were taught to work together as Wardens, but even more we were taught to be independent. In the early days of training we dragged our group along with us, even if they fell, but by the end we were fighting for ourselves, leaving anyone too slow behind to fight for their own survival.
In a way the training made it clear which way was easier to survive. Just looking out for yourself was easier. That stuck in the mind. It was as though that was the real lesson to be taken from all of our work. Working together is great when it helps, but in the end you had to do what was best for you. I didn’t like that line of thinking, but Arthos was fully engrained in the Warden dogma. He’d been doing it so long that it was just a part of the way he thought of things now.
Arthos chuckled, taking it all in stride. “You’ll figure it out in time. I think you have the potential to be an excellent Warden. You just need to work through some misconceptions That will come with time.”
I wasn’t as certain that I would “figure it out” given any amount of time, but I let the subject drop as Dreea exited the washroom, dressed in another of her dresses, looking much like she always did, surprisingly well put together for someone who was from a species of people who lived in caves.
“We should get moving again.” I said, reaching into my pocket and taking out my scrying stone. I set it to working and felt the draw of it again. “There was something here last night, hanging around the house. It seemed to know, or at least suspect, that we were in here. We should be cautious.”
“You should have wakened me.” Arthos reprimanded me, though there wasn’t much sting to it.
“Because I saw a strange light coming in through a window?” I countered. “You needed to rest. We all need rest. This place is trying. It gets to you. If we don’t be careful we’ll be worn down before we can find our way out. Let’s go.” I didn’t feel like arguing over something that was done. I’d made the call not to wake him, and I still felt it was the right one.
Arthos didn’t reply, but we all moved to the door. He pushed it open and we stepped out of the house. Nothing was the same as it had been the night before. The house, which had been on a small, narrow street surrounded by other houses on all sides, was now at the edge of a market square. There were vendor stalls set up all through the area, most run down with rotting vegetables or meat on them, or some other form of goods that had set for too long and were decaying. Tattered clothes and fabrics, rusted knives and tools, everything sitting as though it had set that way for decades, corrupted by the sea air.
I was frozen in place as I took it all in. It was impossible for all of this to be there. I could tell that Arthos was struggling with it as well. Even if we were in the space created by one of the Warden’s doors, things couldn’t be changed while we were inside. Dreea, who didn’t remember having arrived, looked confused at our hesitation.
“We should go.” She said.
“This isn’t where we were when we first came here.” Arthos said. “The streets moved while we slept.”
“Moved?” Dreea asked.
“Everything is different than when we entered the house.” I tried to explain to her. “The paths shifted while we were asleep.” Except we hadn’t been asleep the entire time. Someone had always been awake.
Movement caught my eye and I jumped a bit as I noticed that there were others with us in this “market.” Arthos had noticed as well. His eyes were following one of the people as well. They were all dressed in black robes, hoods pulled low over their faces, and sleeves covering their hands. They stood at some of the stalls, and others moved between the rows of vendors, as though shopping in the eerie silence of the scene before us. My eyes wanted to travel to the stalls
“We need to get out of here.” Arthos looked at me as he spoke. “Lead us to the door.” He said, but he’d drawn his weapons. I did the same with one hand, separating the top half of my staff, but I needed the other for scrying. I took the stone and set it to directing us forward again. It gave a tug in the direction it had been leading us consistently. Whatever else had changed, the direction to the door seemed fixed.
The hooded figures moved silently through the square, apparently not urgent about their business, or interested in anything else happening. At times, though, I felt like there were eyes on my back, but when I looked up, I couldn’t see any of them actively looking after us. It was eerie. Watching them gave me the distinct impression that these things weren’t human. They moved about in a human shape, their edges covered by their black robes, but their locomotion was wrong. It was too stiff in places, and flowed too well in others, as though beneath the hoods they had no semblance of real human structure
. Their steps were ungainly, but their shoulders moved smoothly as though detached from their legs and hovering above the ground. It gave the impression of something monstrous hiding inside of something vaguely human shaped.
I expected an attack constantly, but one never came. We passed through them and back onto the streets, an unsettling experience but one punctuated by a lack of aggression. The nagging strangeness of it all was punctuated by the strange desire I felt to look at the goods kept in the stalls, an impulse I resisted. I let out a sigh of relief as the streets grew quiet once more. It was strange to feel relief to be back on the dark and twisted roadways of Prosper again.
“Are we getting close?” Arthos asked.
I took another scrying, gauging the sharp tug of the stone in my hand. It was much sharper than it had been previously. I thought that meant we were probably getting closer to our target, but I couldn’t be sure how close that meant we were. “We’re making progress.” I answered. “I’ve never used this before so I can’t really say exactly how close we are, but the pull is much stronger than it was when we first started.”
“I half expected to end up moving away from the door.” Arthos said with a dark chuckle. “This place is getting to me a little. I had strange dreams while I slept, and then . . . “ He shook his head. There was more, I could tell, but he didn’t want to talk about it.
“We talked of mine a bit last night. It seems night’s here are destined to be strange. What was yours?” I felt like it was important to know. Mine had given me some kind of incite. Had Arthos’ been the same way?
Arthos shook his head, his expression going grim. “I won’t talk about all of it. Those things in the market back there, though, they were in the dream. I’m just glad we didn’t have to get closer to them.”
I wanted to press him for more, but then I hadn’t been willing to share everything about my dream either, or about the importance behind the dream, the things I knew that I shouldn’t know. I couldn’t expect to get secrets from someone else when I wasn’t willing to share my own. I turned my attention to Dreea.
“Did you dream?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Healing sleep is dark, no dreams, body focused on getting better.” The easy way she said this led me to believe she was telling the truth. Besides, I didn’t think she’d lie about things. Dreea had been honest with us in everything so far. I was sure she could lie if she wanted to, but it just seemed unlikely. Besides, she didn’t seem as troubled as we’d been since waking up.
We lapsed back into an uneasy silence for a time as I tried to keep us moving in the correct direction. The streets made this difficult. They twisted and turned, sometimes going back on themselves, and sometimes just randomly ending, often in ways that made it seem they hadn’t always ended in such a way. Some buildings just stopped halfway through their length, the ends torn off, jagged and broken, but directly against another row of buildings as though the street had been ripped from its roots and tossed in the bath of another.
We slipped down a narrow alleyway and drew to halt just as we exited it and came face to face with a large iron fence. It was immediately apparent that there was something different about this place. It seemed shrouded in a dim glow, like a fog made of light. There were artifacts mounted on the stone corners of the gate, and the glow seemed to come from them and spread across the walls and the air around them. The structure was built directly in our path.
“The most direct route is through this place, but we could go around it. If we followed this wall back it would lead us the way we’d come a bit, but then we could cut behind this and get back on track.” I noted, looking down the fence as far as I could. It went on for a long time. It wasn’t a terrible inconvenience to go around, but it was annoying. Was this another trap for us? It seemed to have been intentionally placed in front of us.
“Nothing is stopping us from going around.” Arthos noted, looking the same way I had. “We aren’t being forced through this location, but we have been presented with it.” A bit more quietly, almost to himself, he added, “What does that mean?”
“Last time we decided to go around what was being put in front of us we were met with a dangerous show of force. It’s possible the illusion of choice is being given so that we’ll second guess going around instead of through.” I said after thinking about it for a short while. “Given an option with no clear sign of coercion, perhaps whatever is directing us believes we’ll take the easier appearing path.”
“Smells cleaner here.” Dreea said, approaching the gate. “Not like the rest of the city. Light is different, safer.” She gestured for me to come closer to the fence.
I hesitated a moment, but then shrugged and walked forward into the dim light that seemed to radiate from the place. As I got closer I felt as though the weight of darkness was lifted from my shoulders. The oppressive air of the place seemed to lighten. “She’s right, Arthos.” I said, taking a deep breath and being assailed by foul smells despite the fact that it felt like the air should be clearer. We were still in the middle of this terrible city. “Something about the light here feels safer.”
Arthos eased forward as well, stepping into the glow of the gate with the rest of us. In my eyes he seemed to stand a bit straighter as he entered it, as though there actually had been a physical weight pressing down on him. Had we all looked like that? I’d certainly been feeling a fatigue. It had been a mental exhaustion as well as a physical one. Being in this haze of light made a noticeable difference.
“This might still be a trap.” Arthos sounded skeptical, but I could see him looking at the house beyond the gate. “But I’m willing to test that at this point. We’ll find the main gate and cut through this place. Perhaps there will be someone inside we can talk to.” He gestured up at the building. There were lights in many of the windows, though from our distance I couldn’t exactly make out anyone moving about inside.
With our course agreed upon we began to circle the gate, looking for the entrance. As we moved I kept my eyes on the strange aura of light that came from the wall itself. It had something to do with the artifacts mounted along the surface of the wall. They were roughly affixed to the stones pillars, each made of some strange green material that I couldn’t identify. It might have been stone, or some ancient metal, but they looked old. The light originated from them, and crept out over the wall from those points.
When we reached the front gate there were two more of these artifacts affixed firmly to the cast iron double doors there, and just beyond them stood two men in armor, swords at their hips. Their eyes fell on us as we came into line of sight and they both drew weapons.
“Who approaches the Manor of Lord Atreus?” One asked.
Arthos stepped forward. “I am Arthos, Warden of the Iron Will, and these are my companions, Warden Lillin and Dreea. We wish to gather information, and if possible, find passage through your Lord’s lands.”
“Come forward and each of you place your hands upon the gate.” The other guardsman said. “No creature of the darkness may enter these lands. Prove yourself pure, and be welcomed.” He looked at Dreea. “The feralling too. I’ve never seen one in this city, but if it can prove itself untainted we will let it in.”
My nerves bristled at them calling Dreea “it,” but I forced myself calm, stepping in her direction so she knew I was supportive.
Arthos stepped forward first, reaching out and placing his hands on the fence, though I could tell that doing so made him nervous. By all indicators we shouldn’t have been in any danger, but a small amount of doubt flickered in my mind. What did those artifacts do, exactly? They produced that light, but what other function might they serve? Arthos took a risk by doing this, and I was actually surprised by how quickly he decided to do what he’d been told. Nothing happened as he touched the metal bars.
I came forward next, looking at Arthos, whose face was blank, and then at the men on the other side of the fence. I put away the second half of my weapon as I came forward, though
it made me nervous to do so. It seemed best not to pose an immediate threat to those beyond the wall. I touched the fence, grasping its bars easily. I felt nothing at all, not a buzz, not a surge of power, just the cold chill of iron beneath my fingers.
Dreea approached last. I could see she was scared. Perhaps she was wondering if her people had some darkness in them, or if the fence might call her out because she wasn’t like the rest of us. She moved slowly, but I could see resolve building in her. She stood up straight and then reached out and took the bars in hand.
I hadn’t realized I was holding a breath in until I let it out in a sigh of relief as nothing at all happened at her touch. The gate and the artifacts attached to it had apparently judged us not a threat. The men on the other side of the gate nodded to one another.
“Please step back from the gate and we’ll open up. Enter quickly and stand just inside. We’ll shut the doors and call an escort down from the house. I’m afraid no one is allowed free roam in these troubled times.” The first guard who’d spoken said.
“Fair enough.” Arthos answered as we stepped back so the gates could swing open, though they were only allowed just far enough apart for us to slide inside before the guard managing the pulley system drew them closed again. I felt a vague unease as they closed behind us.
