Lost & Found, Pt. 5

Jesson ran one of its tendrils over its hairless head, a nervous gesture it had picked up from prolonged human contact. Air whistled out of its spiracles in a frustrated sigh. "This has to be the stupidest thing you've ever done."

Trevor held his knife between his teeth and used both hands to keep the wriggling baby in place. The naked baby lay, giggling, on one of Trevor's old shirts. "I couldn't just leave her there." He hewed at the fabric, cutting excess pieces away.

"You don't know where that baby has been. You don't know who it belongs to or--"

"I know exactly where the baby was. I found her on that altar."

"In a temple, in a swamp, belonging to thrice-cursed Cs'e'erah! What if she was left there for a reason, huh? What if she was a sacrifice made to appease the Dread Sister?"

"Cs'e'erah should have been quicker to pick her up then, wouldn't you say?" Trevor tied the shirt's remnants into a rudimentary diaper. He cut away the tassels dangling from the preponderance of knots he had tied. The baby stretched out a hand to the flashing metal and cooed.

Jesson wrapped a tentacle around the child's wrist and jerked one of its eyestalks away when the baby stretched out to grab it with the other hand. Its other eye glared at Trevor, who had a satisfied look on his face. "Why did I agree to this madness, again?"

"Fame and wealth. Mostly the fame, I'd hope. I also think the compulsion may also have played a small role." The Bibliomancer stepped back lightly and dipped his head in a curt nod. "Let's name her Fortuna. That seems appropriate, given how lucky she was that we came through when we did."

"You are not serious. This child will just get in the way!" Jesson's voice had grown higher and shriller than usual, and magenta blooms were spreading over the Grinn's pale flesh.

"I'll keep her quiet, promise. The Borenan rebels will be able to take her off our hands once we meet with them. Or would you rather that Cs'e'erah receive this girl's energies?"

Jesson flailed two tentacles around, swatting at the drooping branches of a tree that had been unfortunate enough to grow in the wastes near Staxal. It could not win an argument with the human, not when he had his mind made up already. "If the child makes undue noise, I swear upon Maurcke that I will strangle the life from her myself!"

"Fair deal." Trevor lifted the baby and squinted skywards. "The day's getting on. We have some miles we can cover before it gets dark." He began walking to the northeast, feet squelching and sinking into the moist soil. He mumbled nonsense words to the baby as he went.

Jesson piped its frustrations to the uncaring wilderness and followed.

---

Sprusba squatted and rested his elbows atop his knees. His broad fingertips brushed the ground, gouging small furrows into the dirt and detritus. "Lady Lucinda, I found a thing."

Lucinda pushed past Kravin. "What is it?" she asked. She was tired of her journey, disgusted by her surroundings. Her hair, dirty and listless, twitched from the power she discharged in her ire.

The Chubs pinched a scrap of cloth between his thumb and forefinger. It hung listlessly, discolored and half-rotted by the time it had spent in the swamp. "Clothing fabric." He pointed at other pieces which lay on the ground. "More there and there."

Kravin rubbed at one dirty cheek with an equally dirty hand and asked the question before Lucinda. "Does it belong to him?"

Sprusba grunted. "Could be, could not." He tossed aside the cloth and regarded Lucinda with his deep-set eyes. "If he went that way, would be in the way of East Borena. Could be he went there. Easy to get lost in a big city."

"Easy to be found, too," Kravin said. The Mageslayer dropped his pack into the muck with a sodden plop and dug out a strip of dried fruit. "And Cs'e'erah would gain little by extending protection over a known fugitive, not with things standing as they do."

Lucinda shook her head. "He is craftier than that."

Sprusba chuckled. "He is crafty enough to know that you know he is craftier than that." The Chubs got to his feet with a quiet grunt. "It is my thought that we go along this trail."

Kravin remained unconvinced. "Why cut strips away like that? Was he wounded? They certainly were not torn loose. The edges are too straight." The Mageslayer chewed and swallowed a piece of the fruit. "I think it's a distraction. It seems to contrived and convenient."

Lucinda closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I agree. If we follow the wrong trail, we fall behind and it will be even harder to backtrack. That is something he would have done."

Sprusba nodded, though reluctantly. "Understood. We keep walking that way, then." The Chubs pointed out through the mossy canopy, at the mountain. It was not a good mountain, and Sprusba had aired his misgivings numerous times as they marched closer and closer to its base. Lucinda trusted in his judgment. After all, Chubs resided in the Rocky Succor, the long mountain range that stretched from near Nostrum, in Cahllyn's realm, through the Freelance regions, and into Greatah's domain before terminating to the west of Vijo Geme.

But she had a quarry to retrieve, and she would do this regardless of whether she had to climb to Staxal's peak or descend into the darkest bowels beneath the mountain.

Lucinda shifted her rod from one hand to the other. "Let us continue. We have a number of miles we can cover yet before night falls." She continued walking to the southeast, carefully feeling out the driest possible path with the butt of her staff. Kravin hurried to catch up, gingerly stepping around Sprusba.

Sprusba took a final look at the mysterious pieces of fabric strewn along the trail. A nervous rumble echoed through his stout chest as he followed.

Lost & Found, Pt. 4

Lucinda cupped her hands, closed her eyes, and splashed her face with water from the basin. She blindly reached for a nearby towel to wipe herself dry when she heard the knock at the door.

Sprusba's gravelly voice carried through the wood. "Lady, there is a Mock here who wants to see you."

Lucinda calmly continued patting her face as she stared into the brass basin. Her reflection looked back at her, blue-eyed and blond-haired. She looked haggard, and she saw more worry lines etched into her features now compared to the last time she had looked, in Admae. That had been a week ago, but it felt like months. She was tired, having slept poorly the night before. The bed had been comfortable enough, she grudgingly admitted, but Marone was not friendly territory.

"Lady? You alright?" Sprusba pounded on the door again.

"I am fine," she said at last. She tossed her damp hair over one shoulder and shrugged out of the brown-itchy robe the inn's proprietor had gladly furnished while her other clothing was laundered. She left it in a crumpled heap on the floor. The man pretended he provided this service out of the goodness of his heart and that it was a courtesy afforded to all esteemed travelers, but Lucinda knew that the Freelance city of Marone remained Freelance only in name. It lay too close to Cs'e'erah's borders to not favor that Sister, and it catered to followers of the two Brothers only so that the illusion could be maintained, and that its inhabitants might play the factions against one another.

She smiled grimly at the thought of encountering a band of Maurcke's followers. The bloody debacle which occurred at Erron still haunted her dreams. Once she finished this mission, she would resume balancing the scales by slaying the members of Maurcke's hordes, one creature at a time.

Lucinda quickly dressed in her Elementalist's attire and draped her amulet around her neck. The weight of the blunt crescent that marked her as a Chosen of Cahllyn reassured her, and she felt the conduits linking her to her patron open. She flicked her fingers one at a time and tiny sparkles of energy flitted from their tips.

She crossed the room and opened the stout door. The Chubs stood before her, hands curled into great bony fists. Sprusba peered up at her with deep-set eyes and a rumbling growl echoed out of his broad chest.

"There is a Mock here," Sprusba repeated. "Will I remove it?" He sounded unsure of himself, and Lucinda could hear him grinding his teeth.

Lucinda pressed her lips together. "What does it want?"

"It says it has information you would find interesting. It would not tell me what."

"I have no time for a Mock's foolishness. Are we ready to move onward?"

Sprusba jerked his head downward in a quick nod. "Kravin got supplies like you said. He waits outside with our things."

"Then let us go. Our quarry's trail grows colder with every moment we dawdle." Lucinda strode past the Chubs, down the short hallway that led to the inn's taproom. She heard Sprusba's heavy footfalls on the plank floor behind her as he followed.

The inn had been functional. Not good by any stretch of the imagination, but far preferable to a night spent eating a meal of trail rations and sleeping on cold dirt. She saw the table the three of them used the night before, off in a corner away from the ebb and flow of the place's usual customers. They had received some strange looks--Cahllesque travelers did not normally come out this way--but no one had bothered them. That suited Lucinda perfectly. The fewer who knew about their reason for being here, the better.

She saw the innkeep, a human, behind the counter, counting money. He shoved the coins aside when Lucinda entered the room and his face assumed a fawning expression. "Ah, Judicator, you have awakened. I have taken the liberty of seeing the objects we had laundered delivered to your Soulweaver, for your convenience. He awaits you outside."

Lucinda nodded at the innkeep. The sooner she was finished with Marone's facile kindness, the better. The traitor could not be much farther off, and when he was captured, in spirit or in flesh, she could return to Imfera, to civilization, to a place where she need not worry about a Freelance Stalker who craved the prestige of killing one or more of Cahllyn's Chosen, or where Maurckian assassins could wait around every corner.

Lucinda stepped outdoors and squinted as her eyes adjusted to the bright morning sun. Kravin stood next to their packs, the palm of his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Marone's townsfolk passed by on the street, ordinary men and women going about their daily labors. They slowed to ogle the group of three only so long as it took for Kravin's or Sprusba's gaze to fall upon them.

The slender man inclined his head at Lucinda. He said, "We are ready to depart, soon as you give the word, Judicator," his voice a low murmur.

Lucinda raised a hand. "A moment, Kravin. Sprusba tells me a Mock was just here?"

The Mageslayer nodded and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I saw the beast skulk away in that direction. It looked as though it was up to no good."

"Mocks never are," Sprusba grated. The Chubs Corsair snorted and picked up his heavy warhammer from where it leaned against his pack. "They receive their name for good reason. It is good it was not here when you came here, or we would not be rid of it, unless it was in a way that would upset the people here."

Lucinda gathered her own gear. She felt a familiar tingle of crackling energies as her hand closed around her staff, a five-foot length of blue-tinged metal topped with a square-cut piece of amber. She felt the power pulse in her chest, amplified by the magical rod. She did not fear the physical presence of one of the cat-beasts, but she did fear the attention their incessant yammering could bring.

Lucinda pointed at the black smudge which peeked over the horizon. Staxal, the cursed mountain, an unmistakable marker of the boundary where the ostensible neutrality of the Freeland gave way to the tainted realm of Cs'e'erah.

Anxiety filled her, and she resisted the urge to release it. Imfera was far, too far, away. "We continue to the southeast."

Kravin rubbed at his freshly shaved chin. "If he has crossed over into Cs'e'erahn land, what then?"

Lucinda's eyes were hard. "Then we follow. We shall catch him and deliver him, dead or alive."

Lucinda did not look back once they were on their way.

Lost and Found, Pt. 3

Kathan stood before Im-Slatner when the Minion opened his front door. The feline creature, who was covered in short blue-gray fur except for the brilliant white-blond ruff about his shoulders, glanced askance at Im-Slatner. Before the Minion could ask what the Mock was doing here, it had writhed between Im-Slatner's legs and the door frame and into Im-Slatner's home.

"It's abuzz, all of it!" Kathan purred in delight. "Oh, things will happen soon!"

"What things? What is happening?" Im-Slatner shut his door and glared at the Mock with his slender hands curled into fists.

"The Cahllesque group! Ke-he-he, not just a group passing through, no, but one here, led by the Lady Lucinda!"

Im-Slatner stiffened. "What could she want here?" he asked, keeping his tone as conversational as possible. He prayed the Mock could not detect the apprehension that tugged at his body, the chilling tingle centered at the base of his spine.

"She's chasing an outcast of some sort. I guess an ex-Corsair, one that swore off Cahllyn. Usually they can't be bothered with that, right, but this one has apparently done something that met with great disapproval." Kathan chortled and swished his tail back and forth.

Im-Slatner could not keep fear from creeping into his voice. "Was his name mentioned? Did you manage to get a name?"

The Mock's eyelids lowered and his mouth curved into a sly smirk. "Worried, are we? Does the Cs'e'erahn fear that he unconsciously brought the ire of one of Cahllyn's finest Judicators upon his head in the regular course of business?"

Im-Slatner had no time for Kathan's games. The Minion snapped out a long-fingered hand and released his breath in a low hiss. A green haze spread from his lips and twisted around the Mock, who had fallen back in a servile cringe.

Kathan mewled pitifully for a moment before breaking into a fit of hacking and coughing. His forelimbs pawed at his head in desperation, trying to push away the foul miasma Im-Slatner had invoked. "M-ahl-Morris! Maurice! Ghak! Some-hek-thing!"

Im-Slatner cut the invisible bonds of power linking him to the Dread Sister and his incantation faded moments later. Not the Corsair Lars, then. Well, likely not. The Mock would not have lied. The craven species blustered and reveled when they held positions of power or possessed some sort of leverage, but quickly turned to fawning when exposed to any real threat. Though Kathan was an infamous purveyor of rumors around Marone, even he could be wrong.

"How would you like to earn some coin?"

Kathan's ears perked up. Mocks were greedy, too. "Will I have to something dangerous?"

"Perhaps. You are to deliver a message on my behalf."

"To the Cahllesque woman." Kathan sat up, straightening his back and puffing out his mane.

Im-Slatner pressed his lips together. Mocks were selfish cowards, but they were not stupid. "Yes."

"This message will be a deceit."

Im-Slatner goggled at Kathan, who gave a high-pitched giggle. "Your skill lies in Cs'e'rahn magics, Bonedaddy. Mine is in this thing which you ask me to do."

"It will not be a complete lie."

"No?"

"Inform Judicator Lucinda that Sister Ophelia was just sighted in Marone."

Kathan's lips drew back from his pointed teeth in a feral grin. "The devastation holds the potential to be phenomenal."

"Indeed it does." Im-Slatner reached into the pocket of his robe and and retrieved a pouch. He tied a long leather thong around its neck and held it out for the Mock. Kathan crept forward, eyes wary, and snatched the bag to inspect its contents. They apparently met his satisfaction, as he purred in contentment. Im-Slatner pulled open his front door so the Mock could leave.

"I was under the impression that Cs'e'erah stood neutral in the war between Cahllyn and Maurcke," Kathan said as he stepped outside.

I'm-Slatner said, "The Dread Sister loves her two Brothers equally. She simply loves herself far more."

Lost and Found Pt. 2

Im-Slatner reached among the strings of pouches hanging from the ceiling above his sleep-space, grabbing the cloth or leather bags and twisting them around to read their contents. Some contained gemstones, metal filings, or rare sands; others had the dessicated body parts of various creatures; still more were filled with pungent herbs. He wrapped the sack of fellweed he'd received from the Corsair in among the herbs, then snatched two bags of powdered iron on impulse.

"Slatner, I know you're in here!" The voice coming from the other room was vibrant and haughty. The Minion heard clopping footsteps on the stone floor as his visitor paced.

Im-Slatner shoved the pouches of iron into his pockets and straightened out his robes. He took a deep breath through his nostrils, swept aside the thick curtain dividing his workspace from his living space, and strode out to meet his guest.

"It's about time." Ophelia looked much as Im-Slatner remembered: tall and slender, beautiful in a distant, chiseled way. No hint of compassion touched her eyes. Her lips were curled up in a small smile, but the Minion knew this was caused by pride and gleeful superiority rather than joy. The woman extended a pale hand in his direction, fingers extended and palm down. A golden charm resembling a pair of inverted, nestled Vs glimmered on her wrist. "You may greet me."

"Welcome, Sister Ophelia," Im-Slatner said in his precise monotone. He did not react to her gesture. "To what do I owe this visit?"

The woman turned on her heel and the green hem of her dress flared out around her ankles. "I was passing through and noticed one of Cahllyn's ilk exiting your...quaint hovel," she said, inflecting contempt into her words. "Since when have you begun consorting with the enemy, Minion?"

Im-Slatner shook his head. "The Dread Sister remains neutral in the affairs between the Dark and Lucid Brothers. As I am bound to her, so am I bound to her decisions."

Ophelia snorted and strode towards the middle of the room, where the candles from Im-Slatner's earlier ritual still burned. She extended a hand and the bobbing flames licked upward eagerly, winding around one another. The fiery thread's tip followed her hand as she moved it slowly from side to side. "You are already once a traitor to Maurcke's vision of Etossa, so why not again? Cahllyn deigns to allow treasonous Minions to serve his will. Rhys," she spat, snatching the candle flames out of the air in her fist. The fires struggled in her grasp like tortured serpents for a moment before winking out of existence.

Im-Slatner exhaled slowly and laced his fingers together before him, close to the pockets in his robe. "If you have no business here, Elementalist, then I must ask that you depart. Marone remains a Freelance city."

"Of course it does." Ophelia's face curled into a sneer. "You realize that I will hunt down that Corsair and his slut as soon as they leave the city. They will burn for me. Living flesh does nicely, but that of the Realive...ah, that is a pyre of beauty beyond words."

Ophelia turned towards the door but stopped when her hand touched the handle. "Ah, yes. I ought to remind you that your precious neutrality will be violated if you should find it in your craven heart to warn the Cahllesque. Perhaps they shall escape me, for a time." She turned and looked at Im-Slatner over her shoulder, her green eyes flaring with excitement. "But you, you are right here and so immediately accessible. Whistle up whatever abominations you like in the name of Cs'e'erah, but they will only serve as additional fuel at your own cremation. The fires will burn all the hotter." Sister Ophelia chortled and stepped outside, leaving Im-Slatner in the cool darkness of his abode.

Once she had gone, the Minion hustled into his bedroom and loaded his belongings into the worn gunny-sack crammed under the small pallet which served as his bed. Tomes detailing Cs'e'erahn rituals and magic went into the bottom, carefully wrapped in a woolen blanket. What spare clothing he had went atop that, then the strings of reagents hanging over his bed. He retained some of the more valuable of his possessions, such as the small pouch of fellweed, on his person.

It was time to relocate to another Freelance city, perhaps Navat or Rebesway, something closer to East Borena and the Cs'e'erahn sphere of influence. He had grown complacent at the living he had chiseled out in Marone and it had led to trouble. He feared Ophelia. She was not only a skilled Flame Elementalist, but she stood high in the Maurckian heirarchy. She had more important things to do than check up on a single Minion who had turned his back on the Dark Brother. The sooner he could call upon his patroness's protection, the better.

He had just finished cinching the top of his gunny sack shut when he heard scrabbling at his front door. "Im-Slatner, it's Kathan. Let me in!"

The Minion snorted his ire. Just as he thought his day could not grow worse. What could the Mock Stalker want now?

Lost and Found

She grasped his hand in the dark. "Do you love me?" she whispered.

"Of course I do."

"More than anything?"

"Yes." They kissed.

"Do you promise to always stay with me?"

"I swear it."

Im-Slatner squinted at Lars as the incense-traced image and echoes out of time faded. The Minion's face, goggle-eyed, shimmered with moisture in the seance chamber's cloying heat. He knelt between two candles, the only sources of illumination in the room now that the incense sticks had burned away to ash. "You realize what it is that you ask," he said, enunciating the sentence with care.

"I swore to her, by her. I will not taint what we shared by breaking that vow." Lars loomed over the froglike Minion and tightened one hand into a fist. "I will do it."

Im-Slatner ponderously regained his feet, his taupe robes falling into smooth sheets of fabric around his hunched body. The Minion looked askance at the man and nodded. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small pouch which clattered softly as he kneaded it. "Promises made, promises kept, honor before all else, mmm." Im-Slatner looked up at the man. "Were I as you are, Corsair, it would not be me to whom you speak at this moment or place. But that is why you have come, is it not? I am one who will do that which you will not permit of yourself."

"I have given you what you asked. Do as I request." Lars dreaded the Bonedaddy's request at first, but it was not murder the Minion sought, merely a satchel of fellweed.

"As you wish." Im-Slatner clasped his hands within his robe's voluminous sleeves. "A third time I say: is this what you wish to be? It shall not be as things once were."

"My ardor remains. The time which has passed is of no issue. Do it, Minion."

Im-Slatner upended the bag in his hand, spilling yellowed bones, fingers and toes and teeth and claws, onto the floor between the two candles. Rattling filled the room as the bones shuddered to a halt. Im-Slatner made a pensive sound as he regarded them.

The taint of Cs'e'erahn magics pushed against Lars's senses, overwhelming his mind with morbid sensations. "What do they say?" he asked, impatient and disgusted.

"Silence, Corsair. I commune with the Dread Sister." Im-Slatner's voice now had a lilting, singsong quality to it, a vibrancy that contrasted with the oppressive atmosphere. The volume of the Minion's voice dropped and his speech's cadence grew measured. Lars knew enough about the workings of magic that the Bonedaddy had begun his enchantment.

The two were alone in the room at one moment, and in the next a third person stood above the bones scattered between them. She opened her eyes and regarded Lars, whose knees buckled.

"Esther," he gasped in a thick voice.

The woman, pale and naked and beautiful, turned from the Corsair to face Im-Slatner. "You keep me, parter of the shroud?"

The Minion shook his head side to side. "This man is the reason for your return. I am merely the tool."

She immediately disregarded Im-Slatner. "Then I shall do as you bid," she said to Lars.

Lars extended a trembling hand and brushed the woman's calf, expecting the flesh beneath to be sodden and pallid. Instead it was warm, firm, healthy. "Let us leave this place. Let us resume our life together." He stood and swept his Corsair's cloak from his shoulders to cover Esther's naked body. He cleared his throat. "I do not give oaths lightly, Bonedaddy, but you have my gratitude. If ever you require one to defend you, or to speak on your behalf if you should ever turn to Cahllyn, I will do so."

The Minion waved a hand in dismissal. "The Lucid Brother offers nothing my patroness cannot. But your strong arm, yes, I may well find a use for. I accept your oath and gladly."

Lars nodded and, holding Esther tight against his body, left.

Im-Slatner cleaned the floor, picking up each bone and carefully wiping off any dust or ash before replacing it in his bag. He had just finished and retired to his adjacent bedchamber when he heard the door open. "I am not providing services at this time," he said without looking. "You may instead try--"

The Minion's teeth clacked together once he attuned to his visitor's aura. "I will be right with you." The Bonedaddy took a moment to rearrange his robes before striding out to meet his guest.