Chapter Two - Death Walks
"To make a living from death does not make one, by nature, an evil person. The balance must be maintained." - Mephisto of Nightfire, journals, 1294 A.C.
.
"How much longer is this grass going to last?" Lily asked, trying not to sound whiny. All she'd seen so far on her adventure was grass, of varying lengths and colors. Two days ago it had been waist-high, light green, and was somewhat of a novelty. Yesterday it was shorter and of a more golden-brown color, and full of bugs and small animals. And according to Sebastien they should be coming upon Novallar another day, but honestly she couldn't see how a town of any sort could be located in all this grass!
Sebastien stopped, looking around. "Another candlenotch or so. We should reach a major crossroads around noon, and after that it'll be mostly farmland."
"I've been wondering about that, too. Why aren't there any villages or anything on this road? We've only seen a handful of other people so far."
"Most people take the great roads during the summer. This is a lesser road, mostly used by mercenaries - such as yours truly." He pointed a thumb at his chest with a smile. "At this time of the year, there's fairs everywhere you turn on the great roads. And lots of fairs mean lots of bandits. It's not that I don't think I could handle it, but I'd just as soon avoid trouble than attract it."
Lily nodded gravely. That made sense, and unless they wanted the bandits torn to shreds by her summon-beasts, she would be well-nigh useless in hand-to-hand combat against seasoned fighters. "So there aren't too many mercenaries traveling during the summer?"
Sebastien shrugged. "Depends. If the market's good - if there are plenty of jobs - then usually not. If there aren't any jobs up north, where the cities are pretty spread out, you'll see a lot of mercs traveling south."
"There's lots of cities down south?"
He looked at her oddly. "You've really never been outside of your village, have you? Yeah, the cities down there are all close together. Novallar's one of the smaller ones, actually." He paused, then stepped closer to her and looked boldly into her eyes. "Why do you want to go to Novallar?"
She stumbled back a little, only retaining her balance because Sebastien reached out to grab one of her arms. "I-"
"You don't know, do you?" A smile crossed his face. "You realize that you could be getting in over your head."
"I have to start somewhere!" she snapped, flushed and upset. She tried to wrench her arm from his grip but he held fast, the smile growing.
"What are you expecting to find in Novallar?"
"I-I don't know! What would you have me do?"
He suddenly released her arm and looked away, staring into the distance. "Probably exactly what you're doing. I still don't know why you left your village - and don't tell me it's just because you felt the sudden desire to go on the road, because I won't buy it - but…" he shrugged. "You have to start somewhere, and Novallar is as good as any. C'mon, kid, we've got a lot of ground to cover."
She watched his retreating back, confused beyond belief. What did he mean when he said that she was 'getting in over her head'? She hiked up her skirts and ran to catch up with him, asking in a forcedly-cheerful voice, "So what's in Novallar, anyway?"
"Necromancers and scholars," he replied shortly. "Some shops, mostly magical. A few temples, a few inns. Not a place that a mercenary generally goes."
"There was a girl, in Kolee… she told me that her cousins run a shop there."
He glanced sidelong at her. "What was her name?"
"Um… Brielle. She didn't say her family name."
Sebastien thought for a few seconds. "I think I know the shop you're talking about, the one in Kolee. Lots of herbs and potions?" At her nod, he said, "Then it's the Lilne family she's talking about, that she's related to. They run a store of magical artifacts. In a mage-infested city like Novallar, they make pretty good money, I guess."
Lily tilted her head at him curiously. "Do you have any magic, Sebastien?"
He laughed self-deprecatingly and shook his head. "Not an ounce. The Sight runs in my family - you know, seeing the future - but I didn't get it. My mother's a Seer, though, down south in Ergard."
"Oh? How far away is Ergard?" She was enjoying talking to him like this. It was fascinating to learn more about the world, and also to learn more about Sebastien.
"Two or three weeks from Novallar. Less by horseback, of course. It's in the country of Turenn'in, not far from the capital city." Seeing that Lily's interest had not waned, he continued. "The capital's a beautiful place. I was there a few times when I was younger. The palace is made all of black and gray stone, with polished metal rooftops, and it's surrounded by water… under a full moon, it looks like something out of a legend." A wistful tone had entered his voice, and Lily knew he was seeing the place as he remembered it.
"Could we go there someday?" she asked. "I think I'd like to see that."
He smiled. "After we go to Novallar."
She nodded decisively. "After we go to Novallar." What was that ahead of them? Lily squinted and realized that it was…
"The crossroads!" she and Sebastien exclaimed simultaneously. And beyond that, Lily finally saw the end of the endless grass fields, as they entered a road surrounded by…
"Endless corn fields," she sighed.
Sebastien patted her shoulder. "Buck up, kid. Only another few notches to go. We'll be in Novallar by nightfall."
.
Actually, they reached Novallar several notches before nightfall, something that clearly surprised Sebastien. "I didn't think we were walking that fast," he remarked, before shrugging the thought off and proceeding to show his charge around the city. It was laid out as most cities were: shops and inns lining the main street, with alleys and homes (or more shops) behind them. Temples were dotted intermittently, most of them neat and well-kept. For a city of necromancers, Lily thought that this one looked pretty normal, if Kolee was any indication.
Although Lily was eager to meet the shopkeeper Brielle's family, she finally gave in and agreed that they would go in the morning. Sebastien seemed to want nothing more than a bath and a good bed, and she decided that didn't sound like such a bad idea after all.
As they made their way to an inn that Sebastien reassured her was clean, well-kept, and not overly expensive, Lily took the opportunity to look around and examine the other people in the city. There were several people outside of a temple wearing blue and black outfits similar to the one that the Kolee necromancer had been wearing - Lily guessed that it was a uniform. Somehow, a black shirt and leggings and a knee-length midnight blue tunic didn't strike her as the height of fashion, and why would people want to dress /exactly/ alike unless it was a uniform of some kind?
She also saw plenty of people, both men and women, in breeches and heavy overrobes - scholars or mages, Sebastien informed her when she asked. Lily brushed her own wool skirt and once again considered what Sebastien had told her when they first started out, that there were plenty of women that wore what she referred to as "men's gear." Nobody seemed to think it was strange here.
Sebastien was looking at her with something like mild concern. "Aren't you happy to be here?" he asked finally.
She blinked, startled. "Of course I am; it's just a little… overwhelming. So many different people."
They had reached the Inn of Seven Arms (complete with a sign depicting a strange-looking man that had - sure enough - seven arms protruding from his body). Lily wasn't sure about the name, but Sebastien bustled her inside anyway. It was larger inside than Kurin's Well, and considerably better-lit. Sebastien told her that it was popular with scholars, who needed strong lighting to read.
As they stood near the door, the innkeeper made his way over to them, wiping his hands on his apron. "Good day, sir, lady. May we be helping you tonight?"
Sebastien nodded briskly. "Two rooms, if you have them."
The innkeeper looked from Sebastien to Lily and appeared somewhat surprised that they wouldn't be sharing a room but didn't comment. "Aye, we've two rooms next to each other; will that suit? Fifteen coppers for room, supper, and breakfast."
"That'll suit very well." Sebastien said with a pleased smile.
"Ladies' baths are through that door," the innkeeper told them, pointing to a door near the back of the common room that was marked with a red circle, "and downstairs. Men's is the same but through that door." He indicated another door, this time marked with a white circle. "It's another five for use of the baths, with towels and soap."
Money was exchanged, and up the stairs Sebastien and Lily went, to see about their rooming arrangements. Although small, Lily was happy to note that they did not appear to be infested with bugs (or worse), and the walls had been recently whitewashed. The comforter on the bed looked a little sketchy, however, but she supposed she wouldn't really need it anyway - summer on this continent meant that nights were cool and breezy, assuming that one left the windows open. Lily hastened to do just that.
"Make sure to latch them tonight." Sebastien's voice warned her. She jumped; she hadn't realized he was in the room. "You don't want anyone crawling in during the middle of the night."
Lily nodded but said nothing. There was no way she was going to sleep in this tiny room with the windows closed, not in the middle of summer! And she'd be able to hear if someone was trying to get in the window, surely. What kind of thief would climb up the side of a building?
"I'm on my way to the baths now," her guardian continued, not noticing her odd silence. "You might want to do that too."
.
Sebastien sighed, relaxing back into the blissfully hot, soapy water. So far, other than those strange wolf-things they'd run into on the Highroad, this job had been about the easiest one he'd ever had. How difficult was it to babysit a seventeen-year-old girl? Although he was curious as to just what had prompted her to leave her village, all she seemed to want to do now was travel.
But as long as she kept paying as well as she was, that was fine with him.
That was another unanswered question. Where did a girl like her get all that money? Unless she was some sort of noble, which didn't seem too likely… although he guessed that anything was possible. Was she fleeing an unwanted marriage, or an abusive family?
He discarded the latter, but the former… oh, yes, that was possible. She was of a marrying age, and perhaps she'd stolen her potential husband's fortune, or her own family's?
Then he snorted. Right. Lily, who practically sparkled with innocence and naivety, stealing anything from anyone? Not likely.
.
Lily, on the other hand, was enjoying her own bath thoroughly. The small things, like being able to wash her long hair and scrub off what felt like a half-inch of road dirt, truly felt like blessings from the gods. Now she could see why Sebastien had been so eager to find an inn, rather than searching for the shop tonight.
A shop of magical artifacts… how lucky could she be? It was exactly what she was looking for. She'd expected to have to search for at least several days, rather than having it handed to her on a silver platter! Not for the first time, she silently thanked Brielle, the Kolee shopkeeper, for pointing her in the right direction.
Sighing happily, she submerged her head to wash out the last of the soap and reached blindly for a towel. Lily was hoping that Sebastien wouldn't want to move on right away. She wanted a little time to explore this city, even though she was eager to visit the places he'd described.
Clean, dry, and back in her room, Lily knelt on the floor, leaning on the windowsill to watch the people outside. The last few day-workers and scholars were heading home, as the sun slowly set over Novallar. Sometimes it was hard to believe that she was actually /here/, far away from the village and doing something important for her people, with only Sebastien as guardian and guide. Her life now was so different from what it had been merely weeks ago that it was almost overwhelming.
Sunset turned the rooftops of the city to a blazing red, and tinged the sky with radiance somewhere between blue and soft pink. Overhead, the first stars were just starting to peek out, and Lily smiled with a sudden memory.
She'd sat in her room like this, not more than three weeks ago, and had gazed up at the same sky with longing. "There's got to be a world outside of the village," she told herself. "I want to travel… I want to see it."
And it seemed like it had all been handed to her on a platter. She had enough money to keep her going for another several weeks, she had her own special abilities, and she had Sebastien, who had promised to follow her wherever she would go.
Granted, it was not all a pleasure-trip. Her thoughts turned dark as she remembered those magic-driven wolves that Trebuchet had dispatched on the Highroad. A mage wouldn't send them to attack just anyone who happened to pass by on the road - that would take far too much power. She hadn't shared that thought with Sebastien, but she had the feeling that someone, or something, was after them.
Who and why, however, were still two unanswered questions nagging in her mind.
.
Night, and Liliandry slept. She slept so deeply, in fact, that she didn't wake up at the slight scraping sound outside of her open window. She stirred slightly when a shadow passed over her face, someone standing between the moon outside and her sleeping form…
Hands grabbed her, covering her mouth before she could cry out. She bit at her assailant and tasted leather - they were wearing gloves. Someone wrenched her arms behind her back; another person whispered a few words and waved a hand over her eyes, and she had enough time for a brief, fiery moment of anger before she was forced into sleep again and carried from her room.
A dark-clad figure that had been watching unseen from farther down the road moved quickly to follow them.
.
Sebastien knocked three times on Lily's door, surprised that she wasn't up and clamoring to go to that shop yet. He tried the door; it was unlocked. Shaking his head - hadn't he told Lily to make sure to lock the door when she went to sleep for the night? - he entered the room. Yet another example of her small-village breeding… he'd have to get on her case about that.
Except that she wasn't in the room. All of her belongings were still there, and the window was wide open to the cheerful morning sun. Her bedsheets were rumpled and strewn about, evidence of a struggle. Quickly he searched the rest of the room, looking for any sort of clue, and not surprisingly, found none. Sebastien stood for another moment in the room, feeling helpless. Where to even begin? Gods, why had she left the window open after he'd expressly told her to keep it shut at night?
Maybe someone in the inn or outside had seen what had happened. It was a long shot, but it was all he had to go on. Sebastien returned to his room just long enough to grab his sword before heading for the inn's common room. He was about to walk up to the nearest person he saw and demand information in a very forceful manner when the innkeeper came up to him, looking nervous and holding out a folded piece of parchment.
"Excuse me, sir, but someone left this for you last night. Said it was important."
Hardly seeing the man, Sebastien took the paper and opened it with fingers suddenly gone clumsy. It was short and simple:
*****
I know who took her. You will find them in a building behind the Brekewater Inn, just off Crescent Alley. Go before noon or she will be dead.
*****
.
The sacrifice was prepared. The ceremony had taken the better part of three candlenotches to perform, but finally, finally they were ready. This girl showed plenty of promise; she was full of power, mostly untapped, and what was better, still a virgin. The high priest stepped forward, a violet silk noose in one hand, a bejeweled dagger in the other. Her death would be long and not at all painless… it was from her pain that they would draw their power.
Behind the priest, seven others stood in a rough semicircle, watching with hungry gazes. The girl didn't even struggle, thanks to the sleep-spell one of them had cast. Of course, once the high priest started cutting, she'd wake up in a hurry, and it was then that they'd be able to drain the power from her.
The priest raised the knife. It was almost time… the sun was nearly at its zenith, the only time that this particular ritual could be performed. He drew in a deep breath, an anxious burning in his chest. She was so young, and so innocent… so perfect for the god of death. He lowered the knife to her soft, pale cheek and began to cut.
A high scream, not the girl's, broke his concentration. He whirled around just in time to see one of the followers cut down beneath a whirling broadsword, blood splashing onto the rough packed-earth floor. The high priest quickly drew all the power he could from that violent death and tried to get a closer glimpse of the unknown invader.
A tall man, blonde and armored, swung the sword with expert grace, cutting down another fanatic. Two others followed. The three remaining were not so stupid; they hung back, keeping well out of the way of that blade, and drew daggers or swords of their own.
The high priest, smugly satisfied that those three would keep the swordsman busy long enough for him to finish the sacrifice, turned back to the unconscious girl. The noose went around her neck, and although he didn't have time to draw all the power he could from her pain-sacrifice, he could still collect the energy of her departing spirit. He raised the dagger high, intent only on her.
Sebastien looked up at just that moment and knew he'd never be in time. The three fanatics were closing in on him-he wouldn't be able to save her-
The priest erupted in brilliant black-purple fire that left afterspots on Sebastien's vision. He had time for one thought - /what?!/ - before his attention refocused on the trio of opponents in front of him. One, the man armed with only two daggers, went down easily. Daggers were no match for a broadsword in the hands of an experienced fighter. Another exploded in those strange black flames, and Sebastien found himself half-blind facing his last opponent, a burly man armed with two swords that were like extensions of his body.
The man attacked him with a complex flurry of blades that Sebastien only narrowly managed to parry; he returned the attack in earnest, managing to knock one of the swords away. Sebastien drew the long dagger from his belt and blocked the sword of his opponent, trapping it between broadsword and dagger. He faced the fanatic, only inches away from those mad dark eyes…
His opponent faltered for only a second, which was plenty of time for Sebastien to disarm him and hit him on the back of the head with the pommel of his dagger. He wanted a chance to question this man, once he made sure that Lily-
"Lily!" he exclaimed, all else forgotten. If she was harmed-if she wasn't alright-
She was laying motionless on the altar, dressed only in the robe she'd worn back from the baths last night. A violet silk cord was wrapped around her neck; Sebastien quickly removed it. Her cheek was bleeding a little from the first cut that the high priest had made. "Lily, come on, wake up," he urged her, wiping the blood away with hands that shook slightly. "Come on, you're alright, wake up."
"She's under a sleep-glamour," a soft, husky female voice said, somewhere off to his right. "She'll be out for another hour at least, unless you want to cause enough pain to her to make her wake up right now?"
"Who's there? Who are you?" he snapped, raising his sword again.
From the shadows stepped a figure clad in blue and black. Her short dark hair was tousled; darker eyes gazed at him unnervingly. Sebastien instantly recognized her outfit as that of a necromancer, something not comforting in the least.
"You're one of them!" he accused.
She raised her hands to show that they were empty. "Stop it, will you? I'm not going to hurt her." A thoughtful pause. "Or you, for that matter." She smiled a little oddly and turned one of her hands palm-up. A ball of that same black-violet fire blazed to life, revealing her as the source (and, Sebastien had to admit, Lily's savior), before she extinguished it and bowed mockingly. "Azazel of Darkstar, and you are?"
Sebastien stood shocked. Little snippets of stories he'd heard about the mysterious necromancers were coming back. How the better ones of their lot were devotees of the death-god Valan, and were honor-bound to not take life needlessly, but to put the souls of the dead to rest whenever they could. And they always took a craft-name that described them somehow - this woman Azazel's, for example, was Darkstar, which could aptly describe her magical gift.
He sheathed his sword and dagger. "Sebastien Ja'an, and this is Lily - Liliandry, really - Eiblhlin." Feeling that they were out of danger (for the moment, at least), he scooped up Lily's sleeping form easily and turned to the necromancer. "Will you accompany us back to our inn? I feel like I should thank you somehow, and the only way I know how is to buy you lunch."
"Mercenary?" Azazel guessed correctly, with an ironic quirk of one eyebrow. "I should've known. If your lot saved the world, you'd ask to be paid in food!"
.
Over lunch (a simple affair consisting of beef stew in a thick gravy and coarse, thick slices of bread and butter), Sebastien related the short tale of how he and Lily had come to travel together, neglecting to mention Lily's heritage as a summoner. Let Azazel think that he'd taken care of all the creatures that had attacked them on the road. When he was finished with the story, she nodded briskly.
"I've heard stories," she told him. "Odd things on the roads, attacking travelers. Strange that they'd be on the Highroad at this time of year, though, when the only people traveling it are mercenaries. Everyone knows that your kind has nothing much to steal."
"That's the price of our life, lady." His mind wandered to Lily, sleeping off the last of that sleep-spell in her room. He'd made sure to lock both the window and the door - no one was getting in there again. "Freedom and the open road at the cost of… well, pretty much everything save the clothes on our backs."
"True enough," she murmured with a wry smile.
Sebastien took a long pull of his drink. "So what were you doing in that building? And," he asked, with a sudden flash of intuition, "were you the one who sent me that note?"
"That was me. I thought you might need a push in the right direction. And as for them… I was watching last night, when they kidnapped the girl - Lily, wasn't it? I followed them to where they took her. Then I just waited for you to get there before I moved in."
"Yes, but who were they?" he persisted.
She leaned back against the wall, arms folded over her chest. "The ones that my people don't like to talk about. Necromancers who want all the power without any of the work. Yes, you can get a lot of energy from killing someone, especially if it's in a particularly painful and horrendous way - probably what they intended to do to your Lily, in fact. Those of us who actually follow the Writ, though, don't do that. When we take our vows, we swear by Valan - the god of death - that we'll use our powers to lay the dead to rest, and not kill solely for want of power. Of course," she mused, "if we do happen to kill someone, we /can/ draw out the energy that's released and use that.
"I've been tracking their group for the last few weeks. I'm surprised I caught them last night; generally they're a lot more careful with their victims. But… it's close to midsummer, I guess, and I imagine that they were hungry for a sacrifice. And your girl was just irresistible to them. Young, female, pretty, a virgin, and full of power for the taking…"
"Power…?" Sebastien murmured.
She looked at him with those oddly piercing dark eyes. "Didn't you know? She's full of it. She's a mage, isn't she? Or a healer?"
He stammered for a few moments, remembering his promise to Lily. "Yeah," he finished lamely. "She's a mage."
Azazel didn't look convinced, but she wisely opted to not press the matter. Instead, she pushed her bowl away and stood. "Don't you suppose we should check on our lovely, sweet, and innocent lady mage, then? She should be waking up in a few minutes, if I'm any judge of such things."
.
Lily was still sleeping deeply when the two entered her room. The room was packed with just the three of them in there, so Azazel stood by the door while Sebastien knelt by the bedside. The wound that the high priest had made stood out starkly against her skin. Sebastien looked at it warily; it was slightly purple around the edges, and gave him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"She's okay, isn't she?" he asked the necromancer.
Azazel casually flicked one finger toward Lily, sending a tiny ball of black fire floating right over the girl's forehead. After a moment she made a small dismissive motion and nodded decisively. "She's fine, just rather traumatized."
He seemed slightly relieved. "Why were you chasing after those fanatics?"
"Fanatics?" Azazel thought for a moment. "That's a fitting enough way to describe them. A lot of would-be necromancers don't like to go through all the training that we do; they want all the power with none of the work. So they branch off and start cults, generally using blood-sacrifices in the name of Valan. When we take our journeyman's oath, we are required to wander for two years and rout out as many of those cults as we can."
"So you're a journeyman?"
She snorted derisively. "Not bloody likely. I'm a master. I just get rid of cults for fun. Anyway, I'm off. Your lady will be waking up within the next candlemark or so, and she should be feeling just fine." She paused, running a hand through her already mussed hair. "Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime, Valan willing."
And before Sebastien could say otherwise, she turned and left in a flourish of blue and black. For a moment, he debated on going after her, but decided it wasn't worth the risk of her turning him into a toad (or worse).
So Azazel was a master. That was only somewhat surprising; she had the unconscious arrogance of someone who commanded great power and knew it. He'd assumed that the silver trim on her tunic was some kind of mark of rank, and he now figured that it must be a symbol of mastery. Wasn't there a higher rank than master, though? Most other disciplines, such as healers, had four levels - apprentice (sometimes called novice), journeyman, master, and Adept. He wondered why Azazel hadn't gone for her Adepthood yet; she was in her mid-twenties, which seemed certainly old enough to try.
On the bed, Lily stirred slightly, catching his attention. She blinked a few times, slowly, and arched her back in a luxurious stretch.
Sebastien's mouth suddenly felt very dry.
She fluttered long, dark lashes at him and smiled a little. "Hello, Sebastien," she purred. There was really no other word for it; the sound sent shivers up his spine. He forced himself to mentally recall all twenty-five verses of "The Ballad of Greyson" in a vain attempt at distraction, as Lily took it upon herself to personally smooth out all the wrinkles, real or imagined, in his tunic.
"Um-er… I mean… that is-that's really not necessary… there's… um… Lily…what the hell? Oh, man, I think I'm in trouble."
"To make a living from death does not make one, by nature, an evil person. The balance must be maintained." - Mephisto of Nightfire, journals, 1294 A.C.
.
"How much longer is this grass going to last?" Lily asked, trying not to sound whiny. All she'd seen so far on her adventure was grass, of varying lengths and colors. Two days ago it had been waist-high, light green, and was somewhat of a novelty. Yesterday it was shorter and of a more golden-brown color, and full of bugs and small animals. And according to Sebastien they should be coming upon Novallar another day, but honestly she couldn't see how a town of any sort could be located in all this grass!
Sebastien stopped, looking around. "Another candlenotch or so. We should reach a major crossroads around noon, and after that it'll be mostly farmland."
"I've been wondering about that, too. Why aren't there any villages or anything on this road? We've only seen a handful of other people so far."
"Most people take the great roads during the summer. This is a lesser road, mostly used by mercenaries - such as yours truly." He pointed a thumb at his chest with a smile. "At this time of the year, there's fairs everywhere you turn on the great roads. And lots of fairs mean lots of bandits. It's not that I don't think I could handle it, but I'd just as soon avoid trouble than attract it."
Lily nodded gravely. That made sense, and unless they wanted the bandits torn to shreds by her summon-beasts, she would be well-nigh useless in hand-to-hand combat against seasoned fighters. "So there aren't too many mercenaries traveling during the summer?"
Sebastien shrugged. "Depends. If the market's good - if there are plenty of jobs - then usually not. If there aren't any jobs up north, where the cities are pretty spread out, you'll see a lot of mercs traveling south."
"There's lots of cities down south?"
He looked at her oddly. "You've really never been outside of your village, have you? Yeah, the cities down there are all close together. Novallar's one of the smaller ones, actually." He paused, then stepped closer to her and looked boldly into her eyes. "Why do you want to go to Novallar?"
She stumbled back a little, only retaining her balance because Sebastien reached out to grab one of her arms. "I-"
"You don't know, do you?" A smile crossed his face. "You realize that you could be getting in over your head."
"I have to start somewhere!" she snapped, flushed and upset. She tried to wrench her arm from his grip but he held fast, the smile growing.
"What are you expecting to find in Novallar?"
"I-I don't know! What would you have me do?"
He suddenly released her arm and looked away, staring into the distance. "Probably exactly what you're doing. I still don't know why you left your village - and don't tell me it's just because you felt the sudden desire to go on the road, because I won't buy it - but…" he shrugged. "You have to start somewhere, and Novallar is as good as any. C'mon, kid, we've got a lot of ground to cover."
She watched his retreating back, confused beyond belief. What did he mean when he said that she was 'getting in over her head'? She hiked up her skirts and ran to catch up with him, asking in a forcedly-cheerful voice, "So what's in Novallar, anyway?"
"Necromancers and scholars," he replied shortly. "Some shops, mostly magical. A few temples, a few inns. Not a place that a mercenary generally goes."
"There was a girl, in Kolee… she told me that her cousins run a shop there."
He glanced sidelong at her. "What was her name?"
"Um… Brielle. She didn't say her family name."
Sebastien thought for a few seconds. "I think I know the shop you're talking about, the one in Kolee. Lots of herbs and potions?" At her nod, he said, "Then it's the Lilne family she's talking about, that she's related to. They run a store of magical artifacts. In a mage-infested city like Novallar, they make pretty good money, I guess."
Lily tilted her head at him curiously. "Do you have any magic, Sebastien?"
He laughed self-deprecatingly and shook his head. "Not an ounce. The Sight runs in my family - you know, seeing the future - but I didn't get it. My mother's a Seer, though, down south in Ergard."
"Oh? How far away is Ergard?" She was enjoying talking to him like this. It was fascinating to learn more about the world, and also to learn more about Sebastien.
"Two or three weeks from Novallar. Less by horseback, of course. It's in the country of Turenn'in, not far from the capital city." Seeing that Lily's interest had not waned, he continued. "The capital's a beautiful place. I was there a few times when I was younger. The palace is made all of black and gray stone, with polished metal rooftops, and it's surrounded by water… under a full moon, it looks like something out of a legend." A wistful tone had entered his voice, and Lily knew he was seeing the place as he remembered it.
"Could we go there someday?" she asked. "I think I'd like to see that."
He smiled. "After we go to Novallar."
She nodded decisively. "After we go to Novallar." What was that ahead of them? Lily squinted and realized that it was…
"The crossroads!" she and Sebastien exclaimed simultaneously. And beyond that, Lily finally saw the end of the endless grass fields, as they entered a road surrounded by…
"Endless corn fields," she sighed.
Sebastien patted her shoulder. "Buck up, kid. Only another few notches to go. We'll be in Novallar by nightfall."
.
Actually, they reached Novallar several notches before nightfall, something that clearly surprised Sebastien. "I didn't think we were walking that fast," he remarked, before shrugging the thought off and proceeding to show his charge around the city. It was laid out as most cities were: shops and inns lining the main street, with alleys and homes (or more shops) behind them. Temples were dotted intermittently, most of them neat and well-kept. For a city of necromancers, Lily thought that this one looked pretty normal, if Kolee was any indication.
Although Lily was eager to meet the shopkeeper Brielle's family, she finally gave in and agreed that they would go in the morning. Sebastien seemed to want nothing more than a bath and a good bed, and she decided that didn't sound like such a bad idea after all.
As they made their way to an inn that Sebastien reassured her was clean, well-kept, and not overly expensive, Lily took the opportunity to look around and examine the other people in the city. There were several people outside of a temple wearing blue and black outfits similar to the one that the Kolee necromancer had been wearing - Lily guessed that it was a uniform. Somehow, a black shirt and leggings and a knee-length midnight blue tunic didn't strike her as the height of fashion, and why would people want to dress /exactly/ alike unless it was a uniform of some kind?
She also saw plenty of people, both men and women, in breeches and heavy overrobes - scholars or mages, Sebastien informed her when she asked. Lily brushed her own wool skirt and once again considered what Sebastien had told her when they first started out, that there were plenty of women that wore what she referred to as "men's gear." Nobody seemed to think it was strange here.
Sebastien was looking at her with something like mild concern. "Aren't you happy to be here?" he asked finally.
She blinked, startled. "Of course I am; it's just a little… overwhelming. So many different people."
They had reached the Inn of Seven Arms (complete with a sign depicting a strange-looking man that had - sure enough - seven arms protruding from his body). Lily wasn't sure about the name, but Sebastien bustled her inside anyway. It was larger inside than Kurin's Well, and considerably better-lit. Sebastien told her that it was popular with scholars, who needed strong lighting to read.
As they stood near the door, the innkeeper made his way over to them, wiping his hands on his apron. "Good day, sir, lady. May we be helping you tonight?"
Sebastien nodded briskly. "Two rooms, if you have them."
The innkeeper looked from Sebastien to Lily and appeared somewhat surprised that they wouldn't be sharing a room but didn't comment. "Aye, we've two rooms next to each other; will that suit? Fifteen coppers for room, supper, and breakfast."
"That'll suit very well." Sebastien said with a pleased smile.
"Ladies' baths are through that door," the innkeeper told them, pointing to a door near the back of the common room that was marked with a red circle, "and downstairs. Men's is the same but through that door." He indicated another door, this time marked with a white circle. "It's another five for use of the baths, with towels and soap."
Money was exchanged, and up the stairs Sebastien and Lily went, to see about their rooming arrangements. Although small, Lily was happy to note that they did not appear to be infested with bugs (or worse), and the walls had been recently whitewashed. The comforter on the bed looked a little sketchy, however, but she supposed she wouldn't really need it anyway - summer on this continent meant that nights were cool and breezy, assuming that one left the windows open. Lily hastened to do just that.
"Make sure to latch them tonight." Sebastien's voice warned her. She jumped; she hadn't realized he was in the room. "You don't want anyone crawling in during the middle of the night."
Lily nodded but said nothing. There was no way she was going to sleep in this tiny room with the windows closed, not in the middle of summer! And she'd be able to hear if someone was trying to get in the window, surely. What kind of thief would climb up the side of a building?
"I'm on my way to the baths now," her guardian continued, not noticing her odd silence. "You might want to do that too."
.
Sebastien sighed, relaxing back into the blissfully hot, soapy water. So far, other than those strange wolf-things they'd run into on the Highroad, this job had been about the easiest one he'd ever had. How difficult was it to babysit a seventeen-year-old girl? Although he was curious as to just what had prompted her to leave her village, all she seemed to want to do now was travel.
But as long as she kept paying as well as she was, that was fine with him.
That was another unanswered question. Where did a girl like her get all that money? Unless she was some sort of noble, which didn't seem too likely… although he guessed that anything was possible. Was she fleeing an unwanted marriage, or an abusive family?
He discarded the latter, but the former… oh, yes, that was possible. She was of a marrying age, and perhaps she'd stolen her potential husband's fortune, or her own family's?
Then he snorted. Right. Lily, who practically sparkled with innocence and naivety, stealing anything from anyone? Not likely.
.
Lily, on the other hand, was enjoying her own bath thoroughly. The small things, like being able to wash her long hair and scrub off what felt like a half-inch of road dirt, truly felt like blessings from the gods. Now she could see why Sebastien had been so eager to find an inn, rather than searching for the shop tonight.
A shop of magical artifacts… how lucky could she be? It was exactly what she was looking for. She'd expected to have to search for at least several days, rather than having it handed to her on a silver platter! Not for the first time, she silently thanked Brielle, the Kolee shopkeeper, for pointing her in the right direction.
Sighing happily, she submerged her head to wash out the last of the soap and reached blindly for a towel. Lily was hoping that Sebastien wouldn't want to move on right away. She wanted a little time to explore this city, even though she was eager to visit the places he'd described.
Clean, dry, and back in her room, Lily knelt on the floor, leaning on the windowsill to watch the people outside. The last few day-workers and scholars were heading home, as the sun slowly set over Novallar. Sometimes it was hard to believe that she was actually /here/, far away from the village and doing something important for her people, with only Sebastien as guardian and guide. Her life now was so different from what it had been merely weeks ago that it was almost overwhelming.
Sunset turned the rooftops of the city to a blazing red, and tinged the sky with radiance somewhere between blue and soft pink. Overhead, the first stars were just starting to peek out, and Lily smiled with a sudden memory.
She'd sat in her room like this, not more than three weeks ago, and had gazed up at the same sky with longing. "There's got to be a world outside of the village," she told herself. "I want to travel… I want to see it."
And it seemed like it had all been handed to her on a platter. She had enough money to keep her going for another several weeks, she had her own special abilities, and she had Sebastien, who had promised to follow her wherever she would go.
Granted, it was not all a pleasure-trip. Her thoughts turned dark as she remembered those magic-driven wolves that Trebuchet had dispatched on the Highroad. A mage wouldn't send them to attack just anyone who happened to pass by on the road - that would take far too much power. She hadn't shared that thought with Sebastien, but she had the feeling that someone, or something, was after them.
Who and why, however, were still two unanswered questions nagging in her mind.
.
Night, and Liliandry slept. She slept so deeply, in fact, that she didn't wake up at the slight scraping sound outside of her open window. She stirred slightly when a shadow passed over her face, someone standing between the moon outside and her sleeping form…
Hands grabbed her, covering her mouth before she could cry out. She bit at her assailant and tasted leather - they were wearing gloves. Someone wrenched her arms behind her back; another person whispered a few words and waved a hand over her eyes, and she had enough time for a brief, fiery moment of anger before she was forced into sleep again and carried from her room.
A dark-clad figure that had been watching unseen from farther down the road moved quickly to follow them.
.
Sebastien knocked three times on Lily's door, surprised that she wasn't up and clamoring to go to that shop yet. He tried the door; it was unlocked. Shaking his head - hadn't he told Lily to make sure to lock the door when she went to sleep for the night? - he entered the room. Yet another example of her small-village breeding… he'd have to get on her case about that.
Except that she wasn't in the room. All of her belongings were still there, and the window was wide open to the cheerful morning sun. Her bedsheets were rumpled and strewn about, evidence of a struggle. Quickly he searched the rest of the room, looking for any sort of clue, and not surprisingly, found none. Sebastien stood for another moment in the room, feeling helpless. Where to even begin? Gods, why had she left the window open after he'd expressly told her to keep it shut at night?
Maybe someone in the inn or outside had seen what had happened. It was a long shot, but it was all he had to go on. Sebastien returned to his room just long enough to grab his sword before heading for the inn's common room. He was about to walk up to the nearest person he saw and demand information in a very forceful manner when the innkeeper came up to him, looking nervous and holding out a folded piece of parchment.
"Excuse me, sir, but someone left this for you last night. Said it was important."
Hardly seeing the man, Sebastien took the paper and opened it with fingers suddenly gone clumsy. It was short and simple:
*****
I know who took her. You will find them in a building behind the Brekewater Inn, just off Crescent Alley. Go before noon or she will be dead.
*****
.
The sacrifice was prepared. The ceremony had taken the better part of three candlenotches to perform, but finally, finally they were ready. This girl showed plenty of promise; she was full of power, mostly untapped, and what was better, still a virgin. The high priest stepped forward, a violet silk noose in one hand, a bejeweled dagger in the other. Her death would be long and not at all painless… it was from her pain that they would draw their power.
Behind the priest, seven others stood in a rough semicircle, watching with hungry gazes. The girl didn't even struggle, thanks to the sleep-spell one of them had cast. Of course, once the high priest started cutting, she'd wake up in a hurry, and it was then that they'd be able to drain the power from her.
The priest raised the knife. It was almost time… the sun was nearly at its zenith, the only time that this particular ritual could be performed. He drew in a deep breath, an anxious burning in his chest. She was so young, and so innocent… so perfect for the god of death. He lowered the knife to her soft, pale cheek and began to cut.
A high scream, not the girl's, broke his concentration. He whirled around just in time to see one of the followers cut down beneath a whirling broadsword, blood splashing onto the rough packed-earth floor. The high priest quickly drew all the power he could from that violent death and tried to get a closer glimpse of the unknown invader.
A tall man, blonde and armored, swung the sword with expert grace, cutting down another fanatic. Two others followed. The three remaining were not so stupid; they hung back, keeping well out of the way of that blade, and drew daggers or swords of their own.
The high priest, smugly satisfied that those three would keep the swordsman busy long enough for him to finish the sacrifice, turned back to the unconscious girl. The noose went around her neck, and although he didn't have time to draw all the power he could from her pain-sacrifice, he could still collect the energy of her departing spirit. He raised the dagger high, intent only on her.
Sebastien looked up at just that moment and knew he'd never be in time. The three fanatics were closing in on him-he wouldn't be able to save her-
The priest erupted in brilliant black-purple fire that left afterspots on Sebastien's vision. He had time for one thought - /what?!/ - before his attention refocused on the trio of opponents in front of him. One, the man armed with only two daggers, went down easily. Daggers were no match for a broadsword in the hands of an experienced fighter. Another exploded in those strange black flames, and Sebastien found himself half-blind facing his last opponent, a burly man armed with two swords that were like extensions of his body.
The man attacked him with a complex flurry of blades that Sebastien only narrowly managed to parry; he returned the attack in earnest, managing to knock one of the swords away. Sebastien drew the long dagger from his belt and blocked the sword of his opponent, trapping it between broadsword and dagger. He faced the fanatic, only inches away from those mad dark eyes…
His opponent faltered for only a second, which was plenty of time for Sebastien to disarm him and hit him on the back of the head with the pommel of his dagger. He wanted a chance to question this man, once he made sure that Lily-
"Lily!" he exclaimed, all else forgotten. If she was harmed-if she wasn't alright-
She was laying motionless on the altar, dressed only in the robe she'd worn back from the baths last night. A violet silk cord was wrapped around her neck; Sebastien quickly removed it. Her cheek was bleeding a little from the first cut that the high priest had made. "Lily, come on, wake up," he urged her, wiping the blood away with hands that shook slightly. "Come on, you're alright, wake up."
"She's under a sleep-glamour," a soft, husky female voice said, somewhere off to his right. "She'll be out for another hour at least, unless you want to cause enough pain to her to make her wake up right now?"
"Who's there? Who are you?" he snapped, raising his sword again.
From the shadows stepped a figure clad in blue and black. Her short dark hair was tousled; darker eyes gazed at him unnervingly. Sebastien instantly recognized her outfit as that of a necromancer, something not comforting in the least.
"You're one of them!" he accused.
She raised her hands to show that they were empty. "Stop it, will you? I'm not going to hurt her." A thoughtful pause. "Or you, for that matter." She smiled a little oddly and turned one of her hands palm-up. A ball of that same black-violet fire blazed to life, revealing her as the source (and, Sebastien had to admit, Lily's savior), before she extinguished it and bowed mockingly. "Azazel of Darkstar, and you are?"
Sebastien stood shocked. Little snippets of stories he'd heard about the mysterious necromancers were coming back. How the better ones of their lot were devotees of the death-god Valan, and were honor-bound to not take life needlessly, but to put the souls of the dead to rest whenever they could. And they always took a craft-name that described them somehow - this woman Azazel's, for example, was Darkstar, which could aptly describe her magical gift.
He sheathed his sword and dagger. "Sebastien Ja'an, and this is Lily - Liliandry, really - Eiblhlin." Feeling that they were out of danger (for the moment, at least), he scooped up Lily's sleeping form easily and turned to the necromancer. "Will you accompany us back to our inn? I feel like I should thank you somehow, and the only way I know how is to buy you lunch."
"Mercenary?" Azazel guessed correctly, with an ironic quirk of one eyebrow. "I should've known. If your lot saved the world, you'd ask to be paid in food!"
.
Over lunch (a simple affair consisting of beef stew in a thick gravy and coarse, thick slices of bread and butter), Sebastien related the short tale of how he and Lily had come to travel together, neglecting to mention Lily's heritage as a summoner. Let Azazel think that he'd taken care of all the creatures that had attacked them on the road. When he was finished with the story, she nodded briskly.
"I've heard stories," she told him. "Odd things on the roads, attacking travelers. Strange that they'd be on the Highroad at this time of year, though, when the only people traveling it are mercenaries. Everyone knows that your kind has nothing much to steal."
"That's the price of our life, lady." His mind wandered to Lily, sleeping off the last of that sleep-spell in her room. He'd made sure to lock both the window and the door - no one was getting in there again. "Freedom and the open road at the cost of… well, pretty much everything save the clothes on our backs."
"True enough," she murmured with a wry smile.
Sebastien took a long pull of his drink. "So what were you doing in that building? And," he asked, with a sudden flash of intuition, "were you the one who sent me that note?"
"That was me. I thought you might need a push in the right direction. And as for them… I was watching last night, when they kidnapped the girl - Lily, wasn't it? I followed them to where they took her. Then I just waited for you to get there before I moved in."
"Yes, but who were they?" he persisted.
She leaned back against the wall, arms folded over her chest. "The ones that my people don't like to talk about. Necromancers who want all the power without any of the work. Yes, you can get a lot of energy from killing someone, especially if it's in a particularly painful and horrendous way - probably what they intended to do to your Lily, in fact. Those of us who actually follow the Writ, though, don't do that. When we take our vows, we swear by Valan - the god of death - that we'll use our powers to lay the dead to rest, and not kill solely for want of power. Of course," she mused, "if we do happen to kill someone, we /can/ draw out the energy that's released and use that.
"I've been tracking their group for the last few weeks. I'm surprised I caught them last night; generally they're a lot more careful with their victims. But… it's close to midsummer, I guess, and I imagine that they were hungry for a sacrifice. And your girl was just irresistible to them. Young, female, pretty, a virgin, and full of power for the taking…"
"Power…?" Sebastien murmured.
She looked at him with those oddly piercing dark eyes. "Didn't you know? She's full of it. She's a mage, isn't she? Or a healer?"
He stammered for a few moments, remembering his promise to Lily. "Yeah," he finished lamely. "She's a mage."
Azazel didn't look convinced, but she wisely opted to not press the matter. Instead, she pushed her bowl away and stood. "Don't you suppose we should check on our lovely, sweet, and innocent lady mage, then? She should be waking up in a few minutes, if I'm any judge of such things."
.
Lily was still sleeping deeply when the two entered her room. The room was packed with just the three of them in there, so Azazel stood by the door while Sebastien knelt by the bedside. The wound that the high priest had made stood out starkly against her skin. Sebastien looked at it warily; it was slightly purple around the edges, and gave him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"She's okay, isn't she?" he asked the necromancer.
Azazel casually flicked one finger toward Lily, sending a tiny ball of black fire floating right over the girl's forehead. After a moment she made a small dismissive motion and nodded decisively. "She's fine, just rather traumatized."
He seemed slightly relieved. "Why were you chasing after those fanatics?"
"Fanatics?" Azazel thought for a moment. "That's a fitting enough way to describe them. A lot of would-be necromancers don't like to go through all the training that we do; they want all the power with none of the work. So they branch off and start cults, generally using blood-sacrifices in the name of Valan. When we take our journeyman's oath, we are required to wander for two years and rout out as many of those cults as we can."
"So you're a journeyman?"
She snorted derisively. "Not bloody likely. I'm a master. I just get rid of cults for fun. Anyway, I'm off. Your lady will be waking up within the next candlemark or so, and she should be feeling just fine." She paused, running a hand through her already mussed hair. "Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime, Valan willing."
And before Sebastien could say otherwise, she turned and left in a flourish of blue and black. For a moment, he debated on going after her, but decided it wasn't worth the risk of her turning him into a toad (or worse).
So Azazel was a master. That was only somewhat surprising; she had the unconscious arrogance of someone who commanded great power and knew it. He'd assumed that the silver trim on her tunic was some kind of mark of rank, and he now figured that it must be a symbol of mastery. Wasn't there a higher rank than master, though? Most other disciplines, such as healers, had four levels - apprentice (sometimes called novice), journeyman, master, and Adept. He wondered why Azazel hadn't gone for her Adepthood yet; she was in her mid-twenties, which seemed certainly old enough to try.
On the bed, Lily stirred slightly, catching his attention. She blinked a few times, slowly, and arched her back in a luxurious stretch.
Sebastien's mouth suddenly felt very dry.
She fluttered long, dark lashes at him and smiled a little. "Hello, Sebastien," she purred. There was really no other word for it; the sound sent shivers up his spine. He forced himself to mentally recall all twenty-five verses of "The Ballad of Greyson" in a vain attempt at distraction, as Lily took it upon herself to personally smooth out all the wrinkles, real or imagined, in his tunic.
"Um-er… I mean… that is-that's really not necessary… there's… um… Lily…what the hell? Oh, man, I think I'm in trouble."