by Marin Landis
He lived on the periphery; watching his people live and taking no part in their lives. He had everything he needed and he had what he wanted; a purpose. The grand and vast paradigm that was Talvar society had become his business, his only real concern. There was little room for failure in that machine and when a cog became a risk, it was his job to remove that cog for the good of the whole.
There were whispers of religion, the most dangerous risk of all. His people were intellectual and logical above all else and superstition was something to be laughed at. Those who believed in ideas and beings that could not be explained and recreated at will, were ridiculed and there had been no open worship of any deity since the Sundering. The Talvar lived apart, mostly hidden but some contact with the wider world was necessary. The taint of other races, other beliefs, was monitored very carefully and there had been few dissidents over the years, so strong was the disdain in which non-Talvar beliefs and opinions were held.
He himself had started to spend time in non-Talvar settlements, cleverly disguised as a beggar woman. There was no danger in his exposure to foreign ideas. While he was no fanatic, he understood the value of the work his people did and the risks around polluting it with religion and laxity.
He’d heard of a strange and unexplainable phenomenon in the lands known as the Three Kingdoms. Hook Arbor, his birthplace, fell within the demesne of the King of those lands and while he didn't recognize his sovereignty, he understood the need to strictly rule and direct the flighty human folk. Every few decades for the last two and a half centuries there had been an invasion of Rumin, the once dead. This would have been a strange rumor but he had heard it from many folk and seen the destruction they had caused. Many years ago he would have demanded proof of such an occurrence, but now he understood that if enough people believed it to be true, for all intents and purposes it was true.
While a thousand Rumin rising and slaying all about them mattered not to him, the consequent impact on surrounding belief systems did. Many otherwise disinterested humans started worshiping Mithras out of fear or Ain-Ordra out of excitement and malice. The death goddess was once a primary deity in Talvar society, alongside Noor, the goddess who ruled over magic and the mystical arts. When they turned their faces from the Gods, those two were the last to fall from their racial consciousness.
This was his foremost concern; that Talvar, seeing the hand of Ain-Ordra abroad in human lands, would start paying her heed once more. If that happened en masse it would endanger their plans. Should the Shrike no longer be relevant, Sjarcu knew that they would disband and disperse, the work of generations put to naught.
Thus he sat, cross legged, surrounded by trees, watching through the gaps in the foliage, the work being done in Summershade. The strongly built humans, in their simple robes, with their humble haircuts, clearing and hammering and building. This was his third day. During the daylight hours he learned little apart from refining his knowledge of these people. The robed men were from a religious order, a martial order too if their size and physical abilities were anything to go by and they were hoping to rebuild this village that had been destroyed by the Rumin. They were making short work of it and buildings were taking shape rapidly from the shells and ruins of the earlier settlement.
Sura had sent him here on the orders of Sjahothe. He’d never met the legendary leader, nor did he have any evidence that he indeed existed outside of Surakoita’s claims. Her words though had become enough for him. The information she imparted, on Sjahothe’s behalf was always accurate so there was no need for further doubt. Some strand of the Aur, the Light of the Gods, could still be felt here and strands of it visible from the subtle body one inhabited during induced K’sha.
He saw monks start work on what looked to be an important building in the village. A large single storied, square temple. Dedicated to Sehar, the Handmaiden of Mithras. Part of his education, his new education, was an in depth study of religion and how the Gods impacted the lives of mortals. He knew Sehar was a minor figure in the human pantheon but She commanded a fervent following. He investigated the building as soon as he saw an opportunity. It was the early hours and he was astounded to find out that the temple had a glass roof, a giant skylight. He was impressed for the first time by anything created by these lumbering sorts, although he knew that the sum of human achievement was incredible. A force for progress and weal as often as they brought mindless destruction to other peoples.
Even more astounded was Sjarcu when, the next morning, two Talvar, dressed in dark hooded robes, arrived at the worksite. He even knew of them. Luchis and Lissa, a married couple, well respected in their home, Llanifre. They were artisans, skilled in working all sorts of materials, from stone to metal to glass. Presumably, they were here to assist with the rebuilding of this place, it being reasonable to assume that specialists were needed in the restoration of the glass ceiling of the temple. This made Sjarcu very nervous.
While Talvar were not forbidden from associating with other races, it wasn't encouraged. Humans were inferior in every way and had a habit of infesting their betters with their atrocious ideas. Even the do-good Aelvar secretly detested them. Certainly no good had ever come from any Talvar/Human collaboration. This partnership had the added risk of religion added into the mix.
His options were clear to him. Sura had trained him well. The mission changed from monitoring Summershade to monitoring Luchis and Lissa. Llanifre wasn't far from here, but too far to travel to and from daily. Probably their work here would take more than one day, so they would be staying somewhere close, quite possibly in the worker’s camp.
They did little that day but look around and take measurements. He was correct and patted himself mentally on the back. They were here for the skylight. It was a remarkable achievement and probably beyond the ken of these oafs to fix. He was sure his kin would be able to do what needed to be done. Once they had called off work for the day, the Talvar couple did indeed follow the workers away. He couldn't follow for fear of discovery, an old lady would be notably out of place here, so waited until all the workers had left the site and made his way to their camp.
It was a short walk there and impossible to miss. The smell was abominable. A dozen tents and two latrines sat in the middle of a field about three hundred yards from a cottage, in which the foreman slept. He made the guess that the married couple would have demanded the hut, claiming privacy but it would have been due to reasons of hygiene. Talvar weren’t overly concerned about privacy and had no prudishness, though he couldn't imagine them mating in a tent. They were however notoriously prissy about cleanliness and bad smells.
He watched the site for half an hour until he was proven correct. The workers started drinking ale, tapped from a large barrel near the center of the camp. A young boy started handing out plates of food and there was a discussion in which some pointing in the direction of the cottage was carried out. The boy took two plates to the door of the small building and knocked. He left without the food being taken, but not before Sjarcu got a view of the person at the door. Luchis.
Dusk had come and gone and the noise from the camp became more raucous and there was a visible light from the window of the cottage. It was little more than a shack and he only saw the front of it from his vantage point. Giving the edges of the camp a wide berth he skirted round to check out the back. No back door, but there was a window and it was open. That made sense, it was a warm night.
He crept close to the window and pressed himself to the wall. He heard talking but it was quite soft. He could risk opening the window a touch more or getting closer to the opening, but if he was revealed the entire operation would be forfeit.
His training as a Shrike was extensive. Subterfuge, spycraft, combat, medicine and anything that might benefit a person in the field. His disguise was a persona built up over years of assuming it and people who knew the old crone would be absolutely stunned to realize that it was a young man beneath the wrinkled face and ragged garments. Instead of socializing
or studying his youth away, he learned how to kill a man a thousand ways. He could walk a wire the width of a child’s finger. He could move without a making a sound and climb the sheerest rock face.
As far as the Shrike went, he was a competent man, but for one aspect. Tumar. In this he was considered a prodigy. The art of manipulating darkness, Noctimancy as it was sometimes called. No great feats were possible. In the real world, that is. Rumors abounded about grand Sorcerers being able to summon flocks of ravens and fly, control the weather and cause blood to fall from the sky, but with a touch of his former cynicism, he didn't believe it. What he did believe is what he was able to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears.
Extending his index finger, he made a circular motion and concentrated all of his considerable focus on entering the Kehan. So practiced was he in doing so that he was able to fall into the trance state almost at will and at the same time retain a certain amount of consciousness. The finger movements were a trigger to facilitate the entrancement. Almost in the way a talented musician will play using two hands independently, Sjarcu’s mind and focus was split into two, while still sharper and more observant than any untrained person. Even the two in the hut.
He summoned forth the Tumar, the darkness that existed before all else. Before light and vision were even concepts. For an untrained eye to behold this darkness would have been a shock of catastrophic consequences, the reasonable mind would revolt and atavistic fears long since buried by past generations would resurface. Sjarcu on the other hand, felt comforted by such total blackness as if he were once again in the womb. An utter absence of light, to him, meant a distraction free opportunity to experience existence free from the shackles of expectation and false sensations.
As he brought the Tumar down upon himself he felt completely empty. His senses were magnified tenfold. He could hear the wind rustling through the grass, the skittering of a spider upon the dirt and the heartbeats of the two people in the tiny shack. He extended the darkness beyond himself, into the building itself.
Once the darkness had permeated the wall of the hut, unnoticeable to all but him, he was able to see and hear as though there was no barrier present. He saw Luchis standing, finger raised and Lissa sitting taking dictation. Luchis, now and then, paced back and forth, clasping his hands behind his back. The self-importance virtually oozed from him.
Sjarcu was not a judgmental person. He, himself, had many vices, most of which he didn't indulge through sheer necessity. Removed from the confines of an incredibly strict, conservative society of scholars and academics, he had learned the pleasures of food and alcohol, both of which he would enjoy to excess when reasonable. Of course, the barest amount of food and no alcohol would pass his lips whilst he had duties to perform.
While he was fully aware that Sura indulged in further pleasures of the flesh, he did not. He had the lusts of any eighteen year old and the mental acuity and physical ability to seduce and satisfy a woman, he had none of the experience that a normal teenager would have spent his or her time accruing. For now he would channel that particular energy into honing his craft.
So, while he was far from perfect, he considered the likes of Luchis even more flawed. As he listened to the words of the Talvar artisan his contempt grew. He was dictating some sort of communique, to whom Sjarcu could not determine, but the content of it was disturbing.
"As suspected, the Brotherhood are not violent brutes, but artisans and poets. Their main driver is to venerate their God however they can. In this instance is is by rebuilding a ruined village and revitalize the temple previously dedicated to a consort of their diety, Mithras. While I wouldn't recommend attending the site in a large group, it would be of interest to you and the other Reliquarians; both the site and the Monastery of the Brotherhood of the Hammer."
"Sign it 'Sparrow'" he said after a brief pause. "They'll know who it is."
"What's the secrecy for? We can be interested in any matter of things we so desire?" Lissa said, with scorn in her voice. She was not an attractive woman. Her nose too bulbous and cheeks too round. Sleek and angular was the norm of beauty for Talvar women and Lissa was at the very limits of this description, heading towards rounded and coarse.
Sura was about as angular as one could get. Her muscles were cords of steel and even the bravest ounce of fat would have feared for its existence on her body.
"On the surface maybe, but do you think the Sagacity would continue to fund us if they knew what we were truly studying here?"
"They would not!" Lissa laughed. Again, Sjarcu felt, rather scornfully.
The arrogance, he thought, becoming angrier. Or was his shock at their discussion merely turning into anger. It didn't matter, what mattered was assessing the threat.
Who were the Reliquarians and what was their purpose. He had never heard of such a group and it was his duty to know of such things. He wasn't too surprised though, Llanifre was a place, like Hook Arbor, of dozens of people, all of whom would have dozens of interests and hobbies. There was no such thing as downtime in Talvar society. That would translate as wasted time. Forming groups and groups within groups was not unusual. Societies, secret or otherwise, would spring up almost daily and often disband as often. Calling your group the Reliquarians though seemed to be openly admitting what the group was all about. They would never share that name outside the group presumably.
That letter mustn't reach its destination nor should this group be allowed to continue to exist. That much was plain to him. What also was plain was that this should occur as quietly as possible.
There was little else of note in their discussions in the next score of minutes so he ensured that no person could see him or was nearing his location. Once convinced of his own safety, he sucked the Tumar back into himself, which process left him disoriented even after so many times of experiencing it. Suddenly having the senses of a normal Talvar left him feeling numb and half-asleep. Sjarcu stumbled off to the cover of the forest like a drunk looking for a place to be sick.
He left an alarum token near the door of the hut to alert him when anyone passed by and hauled him self into a tree, and fell into the light sleep of the ever wary.
It was Luchis who, the next morning, handed the letter over to a young boy, along with half a dozen copper coins. Sjarcu was unable to get close enough to hear the instructions which was a terrific shame. He didn't want to slay a twelve year old child unnecessarily but then deduced that there would be no direct exchange between this young courier and any Reliquarian, assuming the group was of Talvar origin. If that was not the case he would adapt, so for now, follow the boy and see what he does with the letter.
The child set off down the road, heading east, away from Summershade, in the direction one would go were one returning to Llanifre.
Sjarcu pulled from a pouch at his belt a small scrap of waxed paper. He unrolled it extremely carefully, sitting as he was in the Y of a tree, twenty feet above the ground. Secreted within the paper was a needle, a tiny needle, as long as a cultured lady's pinkie fingernail and thinner than any blade of grass. He replaced the paper in his pouch and dropped to the ground, the needle secure between thumb and forefinger.
He checked his hair, it was loose of the clasp that would keep it from his eyes and it was full of knots and tatted by a total lack of care. The juice of the lemon and crushed shells of caba nuts had conspired to add a white tinge to his long hair. His rags and practiced demeanor further marked him as an old, human woman, capable of hobbling and cursing but little else.
He was in honesty, utterly tired of this disguise but found it quite efficacious. Nobody cared about old women and nobody wanted anything to do with them. Particularly if they were smelly and insane.
He hobbled out the forest, picking flowers as he went until he had a handful of posies, nettles and heather, heading directly towards the cabin. A camp guard approached him as he approached the periphery of site. The guard was a young man with a kindly face and he had an indulgent smile that made h
im look gormless.
"Old mother, what is your business here?" He asked in a soft voice.
"Sell flowers. You buy for your lady, no?" Sjarcu screeched in an approximation of a cackling old woman bereft of sense. Many here would have seen her in the woods or in the village ruins, thinking that she was a mad hermit. All contrived.
He laughed, a good-natured laugh. "Will you trade a flower for a hunk of bread, that is all I have."
"Yip, cos ye're a bonny lad," she giggled.
He handed her a lump of bread that Sjarcu wouldn't ever eat and she thrust it into a pocket with a "thank ee," and set off again towards the hut. The guard rolled his eyes and figured he had better things to do. She hadn't even given him a flower, but he left in the sort of good spirits a person gets after doing something kind. It wouldn't occur to anyone that the old woman had been unnaturally persuasive or that he forgot about her so quickly. Such secrets of voice and word had Sjarcu studied and developed. None would know that they were being manipulated or led, so small were the events to which they were covertly directed.
He rapped hard on the door of the hut, hearing immediately a movement within. He knew that should he meet the gaze of either Lissa or Luchis, the game would be up, so he kept his head down.
It was her who opened the door and he silently cursed her. She was vile. He'd already decided that if one of them was to die, it would be her, despite the fact that he drove the apostasy the hardest.
"Flowers for the lady," he screeched in a manner designed to annoy.
"What? Why have you been allowed to disturb me?" She raised her voice, "One of you over there, remove this woman. She will delay our work."
Sjarcu heard mumblings. The workers didn't like being spoken to like that and were bound to ignore her.
"Stuck up bitch!" shrieked old woman-Sjarcu flinging the handful of flowers into the air. When the blossoms and thorny nettles reached their apex, he looked up through the curtain of straggly dyed hair and saw Lissa's attention on the flowers, face contorted in rage and concern for pollen and thorns, such a prissy lot the Talvar were. Quick as a flash, he blew, sharp and hard, the tiny poisonous needle at Lissa and unerringly it struck her neck near the grand vein therein.
