Antic Round -- Chapter 2 -- Reacquaintance

written by Ashley @ casualvillain.com


        After an hour more, the rain subsided, fading away into a fog that tickled the Graylands like fingers. It caressed the buildings and combed through the alleys, thick as mud, a living thing that seemed to possess the people in the streets when they breathed it in. The poison muted their actions and turned them sluggish so that Ashley had no problem moving past them unseen. Dawn was pink on the horizon, a beautiful promise that he embraced, he had little love of the night and all the dark nuances it carried with it. A grimace of unease twisted his lips and the former Riskbreaker crept through the fogs as swiftly as he could, moving closer to Bardorba's manor, as close as he dared with the guards roving like bees about their hive. It had been nearly two hours since Sydney had left him, that sad, sad look in his eyes. He'd insisted he was going off to do what had to be done though it had looked like he had no desire to do it. Ashley thought he'd understood that sadness. Sydney truly cared for his father, he'd already sacrificed nearly everything he'd ever had for him. To kill him now...

        It made little sense, really. Bardorba had only days left to him at best. The sickness eating away at his flesh had reached the bones and soon would move into his lungs. He was dead already really. What a horrible thing that had to be to lay in a bed and wait for your own death, helplessly watching yourself crumble, particularly during a time when everything you've ever struggled for hangs in the balance. Yet the balance had been restored last week, it had even been tipped in Parliament's favour a touch.

        So why had Sydney gone to kill his father tonight?

        Ashley had asked and been given no answer. Only that smile. That bewitching smile that seemed to hold the promise of a perfect world. He'd been able to ask no further questions of it, the smile had been like a sort of answer in itself.

        These streets were too quiet. The fog tasted bad though when Ashley licked his lips, he tasted nothing. Maybe it was a smell... no... there was just something wrong about the air. It stuck in his throat, made it a little hard to breathe and his fingers and toes tingled. Soon the discomfort moved to his head and he reeled on his feet, every nerve on edge because he knew how suddenly vulnerable he'd become. This strange sickness came and went without warning. It took the smallest things to trigger it. Quiet as a shadow, the former Riskbreaker stretched his hearing to its limits, checking for sounds of guards and then, reasonably certain it was safe to do so, he moved out of the shelter of the awning he'd stood crouched beneath and crossed the street, whispering words as he did. The words were Sydney's, or Müllenkamp's... someone's... Sydney had taught them to him that week and they called the Dark's attention, requesting aid. Queer, how these magicks worked. It took only the power of will and the proper words to gain control, at least in a limited way, over the Dark. Simply because Ashley now asked it to, speaking in Kildean, a language well-known to the dark gods, the power that coursed through him would speed his steps and turn him insubstantial enough that he could move past the air rather than through it, granting him inhuman speed and startling agility.

        "Monstrous," he thought again.

        The power he controlled was not from WITHIN. That was not what this was. He was simply a conduit, a body that the Dark could flow through to manifest. A man could not wield a power like that, putting it in his pocket to use at his convenience. He could only hope to become acceptable and attuned to the power, then influence that power's actions when it passed through him. Yet with that passing, it took a little something of Ashley with it and that was the horrible feeling he experienced when he conjured. Sydney had called it wonderful. He liked it. He compared it to sex.

        He would.

        Ashley thought it was like being utterly naked. Nothing could protect him from the Dark. His limbs were chained and he was helpless like a babe, used at random by the thing that had claimed him. True, he could use it himself, as he now was to sneak past the very whiskers of the fool guards, but even this sorcery felt as though he were being... humoured. If it wanted, the Dark would run through him like water and he'd have very little ability to curb its desires. This was where the danger of his situation came in, Sydney had said. Ashley had to learn to tame his susceptibility to it.

        He was regarded as little more than a gentle breeze when he moved away from the guards. There were three of them, each brandishing a pike, each looking uneasy and unsure of themselves. It was the fog, it had to be. It made everything hard to see and understand and from far enough away, a simple man looked like a demon enshrouded in these mists. The guards themselves looked sinister wrapped in its folds, and avoiding them certainly seemed a wise choice. Dizzy but ever cautious, Ashley crept by them, only a hair's breadth from the captain, so close he could have laid a hand on the man's shoulder if he'd dared. Unseen, hidden by the Dark, he found himself suddenly whole and perfect in the shadows of a two story cottage, only a block away from Duke Bardorba's lofty home, the Watch nearby but around the corner, completely eluded.

        "This be madness..." he whispered and he could hear that wretched woman in his head, laughing. Utter madness.

        Near enough now to catch sight of it again, the ducal residence seemed quiet. It was approaching half past six in the morning and still the torches were dark and there was no movement about the grounds. Strange... the Duke was an early riser and during the autumn season Parliament convened in the wee hours, no later than eight. If Bardorba had passed in the night, it would explain the sombre air about his manor now yet if that death were suspected to have been bloody murder... where were the Templar? The investigators of the VKP?

        No, this was wrong. Something terrible had happened with Sydney's mission. There wasn't any other possibility.

        Suddenly the ill thoughts were shoved aside and Ashley muttered a silent oath, swinging himself back into the darkness of the alley and out of view of the manor. The Dark screamed through him, making rational thought nearly impossible. He had to fight past this, concentrating on his own mind, just as he'd been told to do. He couldn't lose himself in the voices, the urges, or the screams that it seemed only he could hear. He had to remember his own identity in the sea of other identities. Why was the Dark so ill at ease? Was it because of these happenings or was it because of Ashley's own anxiety?

        Most likely it was a mixture of both. The Dark flowed through him and so if he was uneasy in his role as weaver of the Divine, the Divinity itself would buck and kick and tear at his soul in frustration. Ach, this was so complex and delicate, he hated it. Give him the firm grip of a sword in his hand, the beautiful zip of a crossbow bolt, or the sound of clashing steel that always seemed to clear his mind when it rang out; any of those things, any sort of action or definite form of offence... anything... this magick was vague and difficult. He was weary from trying to learn its teasing ways.

        Frustrated, completely ignorant as to whatever it was happening inside, Ashley crouched just short of the street leading to Bardorba's mansion and lingered in the shadows, waiting for some bit of peace to seek him out. He was tired of the Dark's prodding and pushing, just a moment of silence, he'd trade anything for it.

        The guards were jabbering from the next street over; their words slithered through the fog and to his ears like worms through sand. Beyond them, the city noises were soothing. It was a strange time of day, that uncertain ragged edge between morning and night where light bled into dark and the sky lauded the colours. The rain had fled for the most part yet it left the world glistening. The remains of the starlight caught the puddles in the streets and they seemed as though paved in silver, girded in cool blue steel. Everything stood shining beneath a sheen of water. The colours and textures swirled before Ashley's eyes. After staring long enough, Bardorba's manse itself began teeming with the spectacles of the rain's effects. The brown stone manor veritably danced upon the lawn, moving along with the melody of the remains of the rain. It had collected in the eaves and ran dripping into the stormdrains, had the rain. Fat heavy drops overlaid a louder rush of running water from the gutters and there was still the delicate sprinkling of the last of the storm behind both. Far-away, horse hooves clattered against the cobblestones and mens' shouts from the quay rang out like birds' cries.

        It was all a beautiful song, really.

        Ashley found his head laid back against a wall of the alley, his cloak fallen away from his face. The fog embraced him from all sides, still bringing a frightening, mysterious dizziness with it but if he just stood still, the dizziness itself passed through him without disturbing his thoughts.

        The song of Leá Monde was nothing at all like this, he mused silently, eyelids growing quite heavy as the rain hummed, The city did not sing, it only moaned.

        Leá Monde had haunted Ashley's dreams ever since returning from its borders. The dreams filled him with an overwhelming sense of loneliness upon awakening and occasionally, on a perfectly clear, beautiful afternoon, the dreams would come again, mocking him with the smells, sounds, and the very sight of the Death that he thought he'd left behind. The city was haunting him. Those countless souls... they would not leave him be. Was it not punishment enough that he'd left that dark place with this curse on his soul and the burden of Müllenkamp's successorship? Must he also be plagued by the wails of those he hadn't been able to save?

        But he'd saved no one. No one but he himself and the one man he needed in order to go on living his life. All of those Knights had died and even now their souls lay sealed behind the Paling; screaming, pleading, or not caring at all. Ashley thought suddenly upon Grissom and wondered if the misguided cleric still stumbled through the underground; had Lady Samantha gone to hell with her Romeo or was she simply another shade wand'ring the streets and hungry for the life she'd had snatched from her? What of the others? What even of Rosencrantz, that manipulating and self-serving little scoundrel? Ashley had seen him die; cut in two by that statue and yet in all actuality, that grisly death had meant little. His black soul most likely had been caught up in the whirlwind of souls that blew through Leá Monde's walls. Despite death, his ambitions still ran high and he'd probably turned to his fellow dead and started swindling them. Ashley almost smiled at that thought but it was still a little too morbid to find humour in.

        All those souls, a tapestry of the weeping dead stranded forever in a purgatory that bordered on hell. Sydney had been the cause of the demons and dragons infesting Leá Monde last week and his defeat along with Guildenstern's had done nothing but cleanse the city of the summoned evil, sending the Dark back into more acceptable levels. The dead still walked, surely. The corpses were still powered by either the wand'ring ghosts who found themselves strong enough still to move them or by the mindless evil of the Dark, thirsting forever for the deaths of others. They'd walk the blue-tinted streets of the undercity for a long time now and find no life there. What a fruitless, lonely existence. And yet Ashley wondered if it still was better than complete death. Even those souls didn't know what there was beyond their realm. Perhaps their tenacity stemmed from the fear that there WAS nothing else. One might as well hold onto something tangible rather than reach for something that mightn't be there at all.

        ~There is nothing else there, Ashley.~

        Müllenkamp. Ashley knew her face and voice now quite well. She'd shown up in his thoughts for the first time as he and Sydney had been fleeing crumbling Leá Monde. She was absolutely the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen. More gorgeous even than Tia on their wedding night and as strange as it seemed, Ashley knew no guilt when he thought this. It was just plain honest truth.

        As elusive as the raindrops, she appeared now, fading forward from the darkness to stand before his eyes. All the rest of the alley he'd hid in and the Graylands themselves were submerged in the fog and only she burned bright to him, coming closer until the top of her head lay just below his chin. She leaned forward, both hands on his chest, and laid her ear against his steady heartbeat. "How now, Lady?" he whispered, astounded even then at how real she seemed. Here was a spectre who'd truly cheated death. To her servants she could appear in flesh as true as theirs, warm and inviting to view and to touch. Every detail about her was perfect and alive here; the golden circlet with the bright red beads that stood out like a living thing against the warm olive skin of her brow; each tiny detail of the elaborate serape that enveloped her legs and hung teasingly from her hips, coins twinkling against the revealing gauzy fabric. Her hair was alive as well; it took its own breaths when she moved her head, whispering over her shoulders and nearly approaching the black of her eyes which were so dark they swallowed the light and were the only imperfect part of her illusory life. No living woman had eyes so dark that they wouldn't accept highlights. Müllenkamp's eyes were too perfect. The dark lashes fringing them were too dark and too even. The knowledge they held was too hard-earned for there not to be at least the beginnings of wrinkles or lines about them. Frozen for an eternity in youth and beauty, but visible only to those who took her blood, the priestess seemed too alive to bear. Ashley lowered his head a touch, smelling her hair and marvelling at how real she seemed. But nay, nay, it was not seemed. She was real. Yet Sydney had warned him of becoming too enraptured with her. She'd been known to enslave her chosen "sons".

        ~You are uneasy, Riskbreaker. What ails thee?~

        Like fine netting, the fog drew a little closer around the pair and beyond the mists was nothing. Distantly, Ashley knew he was dreaming, contact like this was only possible when his consciousness was eased, yet knowing how vulnerable he'd become was hardly as disarming now as it might normally be. He only marvelled at the woman's beauty and answered her questions, hoping it would make her happy.

        "The Watch is thick on the streets tonight," he whispered, "But I cannot flee them before Sydney has come out from his Father's home. I won't abandon him."

        Müllenkamp smiled, nuzzling her face further into the soft folds of his cloak. ~Sydney Bardorba is no longer any man's concern. He has already abandoned you, my love. You are alone.~

        Ashley shook his head and spoke softly as though to a child. "No, Milady. He's only gone to do away with his Father. 'Tis some pact that binds him to the deed, horrid though it be. He will return. Then we fly to Dursbury, twenty leagues to the south. I cannot stay in the Graylands, my face is too well known here and the VKP will hunt me out."

        ~You're a traitor and a murderer to them. Aye, they WILL hunt you out but they shall hunt as though after a bear and cut off your head for a trophy. You'd do best to run now.~

        "I will," he answered patiently, "As soon as Sydney comes."

        She scratched her fingernails playfully over his shirtfront, eager for the skin underneath. The woman cooed her words. ~My poor, poor babe. What a naive child you are. Perhaps that naiveté is your strongest charm. I'm sure it is. 'Tis a dangerous trinket to wear. Please, Riskbreaker, be wise and be cautious.~

        Ashley chuckled, cupping the back of her head in a callused right hand. "I've never been a cautious one," he murmured, "None of your acolytes have ever been. But you love the danger, don't you, Milady? The danger makes you feel alive again."
        Wordlessly, the priestess evaporated from his very arms, the sensation of her retreating warmth almost as painful as a blow to him. There was a noise then from the ever-moving Dark, a screaming laughter, and Ashley shivered, straightening, despising how the power could move through him like this, chilling his soul and leaving him breathless. He was like a meeting point, something the Dark used to experience sensation and Life, something--

        It occurred to him at that moment that in a way, he served such a purpose to Müllenkamp as well. She was like some succubus and he was but the living flesh she feasted upon in the night. There was more to it of course, there had to be, yet Ashley wasn't quite certain that the priestess didn't see their situation in exactly that manner. And what of Sydney? Had there not always been the fond smiles, the nostalgic eyes, whenever he spoke of the namesake of his cult? There was love there... acceptance if not love but more likely it was love. Yes. Sydney loved his God.

        Commotion suddenly, loud and jarring as a thunderclap and Ashley shook his head, trying to awaken from whatever state it was the rain had reduced him too. The fog was still everywhere, one of those mud-thick fogs that Valendia was famous for and the city itself had gone. He took a few steps blindly forward. The alley wall at his back had vanished too and the street before the manor was air only. The manor..? Where had Bardorba's manor disappeared to? Everything had been reduced to this fog. After a moment of confusion, Ashley's instincts kicked in and he realised this was no more fog than he was a four-horned dragon. This was the Dark... it was everywhere and only he saw it. What a privilege.

        The mists were full of screams and sobs. In fact he wasn't sure if this was some condensation from the fog now wetting his skin or if it were the tears of the souls caught up in the Dark. He felt them all suddenly, souls and souls and souls no longer with identities, only pain. It meshed into a general despair that made his heart ache to hear. But that died out soon enough and then there was only the Dark; screaming and angry, ready to destroy. It raced through him in a marathon of mad power--

        Then he heard Sydney's voice among the racket as though his own cry were mixed up in the cries of the others. Sydney!! What reason would he have to be entangled in this web of souls? Ashley looked about, right to left, to his feet and up into a sky hidden by the very presence of the Dark and he saw nothing save the fog and after that first brief moment he did not hear his friend again. But perhaps he'd never heard him at all. He was still new to this nonsense, what made him think he actually had the power or skill to distinguish one soul from another?

        The commotion from before came again and it was just as loud only somewhat more distinguishable now. Ashley concentrated on it as hard as he could, sensing it was real as opposed to the ethereality of the Dark. The commotion began to form into definable sounds instead of random noise; gates and windows being thrown open; the crackle and snapping of fire licking up a torch and the roar as that fire was passed onto another and soon every torch in the city was lit and still Ashley could see nothing save the fog. With the sounds as a medium, a picture was veritably painted in his mind of how the streets must now seem: full of light, sound, agitation. But why light the streets mere minutes before dawn? Men's voices... GUARDS' voices broke through the more eloquent sounds of the torches. They grew louder as more of the phantom windows were pushed open and then there was a great metallic clang backed by a more solid wooden thud and Ashley could place the noises exactly. The huge double bolted gates of Bardorba's estate had just been thrown open. They hadn't been opened in months, not during all the time that the Duke's sickness had kept him away from Parliament and in a Doctor's care. Servants and visitors entered through the less elaborate side doors but always was the main gate reserved for the Lord Duke himself.

        Ashley ran forward through the fog, the voices of the dead wailing in his ears. They had no quarrel with him but he was Living and one of the few who could listen to their pleas. The former Riskbreaker snarled at the lot of them, shoving the Dark aside to make a path back to sanity.

        He woke up on his knees in a puddle, soaking wet with condensation from a fog that had vanished just as suddenly as a candle in the breeze. The wailing voices had been quieted too but replaced by others. The guards from before, and servants from the manse.

        "Foul murder! Duke Bardorba's been murdered!!"

        The cry cut through the morning like a blade, echoing through alleys and streets from the manse itself. Ashley turned his head sharply as though to see the words in the air.
        "Murder, I say! Seek it out! 'Tis a servant of the Demon who's committed this crime!"

        "Shit..." Ashley quickly stood, unsure how he'd come to be in the very middle of the cobblestone street before the manse. He saw everything how he'd pictured it would look: the alleyways about the ducal home glowed with strong yellow torchlight and the manse itself had every window flung open, every door gaping wide as light broke the night from inside. The huge front gate was a glowing mouth through the gloom, suddenly broken by the silhouettes of a dozen city guardsmen who poured from the interior in a wave of aggression, bristling with pikes and swords.

        Shit. Shit shit shit. It would seem that Sydney was in trouble.

        Slicing a gloved hand back through his damp hair, Ashley flung wet away and moved as quickly as he could back into the safety of Valendia's alleys. He had to get out of there, alone or no.

        Wet, dark, and on edge, the seasoned warrior moved with the stealth of a cat through the back corridors of the city. In his wake he could hear the Watch captains barking orders and the crash of iron against stone as the men moved to follow them. There were too many. Ashley could pick out at least two score just from the sound of their footsteps. Probably more would come from the city gatehouse and the guard towers around the Commons buildings. They'd be there in mere moments too, the militia were blasted quick little buggers.

        Ashley ran like the quarry of a fox-hunt, paying little heed to where his feet led him. After a while, the racket of the guards' footsteps grew muddled. There were too many of them and the constant clink and shudder of their armour only helped to cloak their numbers; the high walls of the Graylands' alleys caught the noises and turned the echoes of footsteps into twisted, barking laughter, somewhat like the Dark's, or Müllenkamp's. Gritting his teeth, Ashley shook his head in confusion. Perhaps it was the Dark laughing and not footsteps. It was not laughing... not laughing at him, only laughing in gaiety at the chaos of all this. Or the footsteps could be real and the Dark simply enjoyed the sound and the similarity to laughter; sensed it; tasted it; heard it; and now mocked it like a parrot mocks his master's voice-- squawking, laughing, teasing, and always screaming-- Ashley had no idea. Reality and the dreams of the Dark swirled into an existence he didn't understand. He felt the dizzy helplessness returning and knew instantly that he was lost in the maze of alleys. Yet he knew this place!!

        All the same, he realised he was utterly turned around. The meagre light of dawn was lost to these dark back streets and every passage looked like the next. Brick melted into brick and became the cobbled stones of the road, clotheslines stretched from above, criss-crossing the copper-coloured sky as each black window was like a wound in the buildings' sides, unrelenting in their anonymity. Ashley raced past them, sure he'd be overtaken by the guards. The echoes of their steps flew forward over his head to ambush him, despite their phantom owners still struggling to catch up. He couldn't place the source... Above or behind or before him. He heard their cries and the clink of their weapons, close as though just over his shoulder. He thought he smelled their sour breath blowing in his nostrils. The echoes were everywhere.

        Ashley broke from the alley's shadows and into the street, plowing directly into a crowd of half a dozen city guards. They hadn't been giving chase. He'd been the one chasing them.

        "Blast..."

        He pulled up short, nearly knocking head first into a seven foot titan with a sword as tall as he was. Ashley took a wary step backward. A cold breeze came to dry the sweat on his brow. His hair stuck uncomfortably to the back of his neck.

        "'Ere now, who are you?" the man queried, pushing the helmet on his head back a bit away from his eyes. His five comrades came to an abrupt halt in their march and suddenly every face was turned to the black-clad sorcerer with the warrior's build. Ashley straightened and scowled.
        "I'm a--"

        "You're Riot, ain't ya!? The VKP scoundrel!! Careful, men!"

        In the blink of an eye, Ashley found himself surrounded in a sea of angry faces and particularly sharp swords. The alley's exit was behind him and a solid wall loomed before him. One of the Graylands' innumerable thoroughfares stretched away to either side and the sky above was exploding with orange and sapphire as the sun renewed its place in the heavens for another day. A hesitant moment passed on the guards' parts, no one man eager to make the first move. The Riskbreaker seemed unarmed but he could easily be hiding a weapon beneath his cloak.

        "I've done nothing..." he said, his voice cool despite the unease in his eyes, "What is the meaning of this?"

        "Lying scoundrel..." the guard captain spat, "Don't worry about bringing 'im in alive, boys. We can take 'is head to LeSait and he'll hang it from the gatepost like a lady's earring."

        The captain laughed lowly, then decided to take matters into his own gauntlets. With a great roar, he launched himself forward, sword clenched in two blocky fists and positioned to take its target's head off. The guards scattered a bit and Ashley barely had time to whisper a word or two and teleport himself to the captain's other side. An icy wind through his soul, a touch of dizziness, and with less than the time it took to take a breath, he was behind his foe.

        "Trickery!!"

        "Diablerie!!"

        The guards backed off a fraction, more wary of their prey now that they'd seen his true colours. The captain whipped around furiously, his sword scraping the ground in a shower of sparks. "He uses the Demon's magick. He's a demon himself, straight from hell!" Forgetting to hesitate, he threw himself forward again and Ashley cried out to feel the cold steel of his sword slice through his right side. Warm blood spilled out onto his fingers and he growled at the pain, more angry than anything else. Thinking fast, he called upon some of the strongest magicks he knew and growled the words more like curses than ancient spells. The Dark was pliable in his hands and bent to his will, hurling the confused guards up into the air like playthings and sending them smashing into the walls. Three of them fell to the roadside and did not move, one with his neck bent so far back he could not possibly still be breathing. Two others staggered to their feet and began to run. Their captain, far enough behind the sorcerer not to be affected at all, fell back a step and stared.

        "Be this what they teach a man at the Academy?" he whispered, "Or are you not human at all? Some spirit, perhaps, in the guise of flesh?"

        "Quit your simpering," Ashley muttered, turning on the captain and grimacing to hear the thunder of more guards from down the road. Why did it seem the whole city was after him?! He had to find Sydney. He only hoped these guards hadn't found him first.

        "I've not lost me a battle in nearly seven years as leader of this city's forces," the captain began lowly and the sound of his sword scraping the street screeched through the air, "I'll be damned if a murderous runt like you'se going to slip outta me hands."

        The Dark screamed for this man's blood, screamed for Ashley's attention like a child eager to play. The former Riskbreaker shook his head, ill at ease. "Sheathe your sword, "he warned the guard captain, "You know not who you deal with."

        The bigger man sneered and charged, coming at the sorcerer from the right. Ashley slid to the left, little realising his foe's true ability. Sweat shining on his brow, the captain adjusted quickly, his initial attack but a distraction, then brought his blade sweeping from below in a brilliant arch of silver that momentarily blinded its target. Ashley had no time to dodge and no time to run, the sword connecting just below his rib cage and sweeping up with such strength it sliced halfway into his chest and severed a few ribs. He fell backwards in a rush of pain, knowing that the wound was a fatal one yet another part of his brain reminded him that didn't matter anymore.

        It would slow him down though.

        "You'll regret that," he snarled, wrapping an arm around his chest to slow the loss of blood.

        "Regret it? Die for it mayhaps, but I'd never regret cutting the likes o' you!" A charging boar, the captain lunged again but the pain and danger helped Ashley focus this time around and he was ready. He let the larger man come within an arm's breadth of him and then he harnessed the Dark and moved through the air, coming back into visibility nearly three metres down the roadway, bleeding into the dusty cobblestones. The guards he'd heard before appeared over the dip in the streets and were silhouetted black suddenly against the dawn skies. Eight of them. A whole bloody platoon.

        Beginning to feel the true brunt of his wound, Ashley took off down the street, searching desperately for some bit of shadow he could use as concealment. Already his heart was roaring and his head was spinning like a weathervane in the wind. The Dark screamed through him faster than he could keep track and again he thought he heard Sydney's voice in the tumult. That was a distraction he didn't need. He couldn't build up the concentration or willpower to discipline the churning Dark and it reigned over him, preoccupied with keeping his injuries from overwhelming him, his weariness from consuming him like a smouldering fire. The guard captain gave chase and Ashley found himself running pell-mell into the group of approaching reinforcements. He'd be amidst them in seconds and he hadn't the power left at the moment to do anything about it.

        Thinking quick amidst his own exhaustion, Ashley shoved away the Dark's nearly palpable mirth over the chaos of the entire situation, and forced it into an ethereal shape, a spear of mist not unlike what had consumed the streets mere moments before. He bid it plunge into the midst of the approaching platoon and grinned in a bit of satisfaction to see them flattened beneath it, plastered to the very stone. The attack was weak in essence though, dissipating as soon as the targets fell. Ashley was moving too fast to stop himself though. He plunged into the group of guards, hoping he'd stunned them enough that he could dash past unimpeded but no such luck.

        Something struck him hard in the back, directly between his shoulder blades. He felt the pressure more than the actual sting of it but knew nonetheless that he'd been pinned dead on with a crossbow. Every movement of his neck or arms was absolute torture and he dropped forward like a stone, plowing chinfirst into the street. The guards were on him in an instant, violent arms grappling at his own and heels shod with iron digging into his ribs and sides. The slash in his chest was ground into the dirt and the arrow in his back galled him like a hot iron poker. The guards cried words to halt his struggles and words to eachother to yet beware the bucking monster in their grasp yet all Ashley heard were the cries of the Dark and Müllenkamp's never-ending tirade of laughter. Was that her laughter? Sometimes he wasn't sure where she began and the Dark ended, as though they were one entity really, bound through a pact that might outlast eternity.

        Why were these brutes after him? Had LeSait summoned every man with a sword in the Graylands to bring in their renegade Riskbreaker? They should have thought him dead upon his failure to return from Leá Monde!! He'd been counting on that assumption...

        Ashley let them drag him to his feet, hanging his head as though he'd already given himself up. He stared at the ground, flinching once the massive booted feet of the guard captain come into view. Really, it wasn't entirely an act that he let his head droop. He'd lost too much blood through his chest and he thought the crossbow bolt wedged in his back might have grazed his heart. It was a struggle to breathe and yet he kept his knees locked, refusing to collapse.
        "We've caught ourselves a little fox," the soldier sneered, leaning on his sword and grabbing Ashley by the hair, turning his face up to the light and staring disdainfully at the ragged features there. His arrogance turned to hatred suddenly and he punched his hostage roughly across the jaw, eliciting a split lip that only doubled his pleasure. "Traitorous dog. You'll burn in hell for yer crimes and you'll burn here too. You've damned the cult you've sided wit'. They'll roast you in the square and ferret out the rest o' you Müllenkamp scum. Now they have proof how dangerous you lot are. You'll all burn!" Another blow, this one to the side of his head, and Ashley wasn't sure if the dizziness came from that or the Dark. He was awash in confusion. Why did they hate him so? What had he done? Had they caught Sydney and milked information from him?

        Fear for Sydney, quick and sudden, darted through Ashley's heart. "...you've... you've not captured Losstarot, have you...?" he muttered, forcing the blood up from his throat so he could speak. The guard captain ignored him. With a snort of disgust, he stalked away, ordering the prisoner be led to the guardhouse. Such an arrogant swine. Ashley wanted to see his head speared on a pike.

        Two men on his either side dragged him roughly by the arms after the captain but the former Riskbreaker had different ideas. He slipped from their fingers like silk and used the few brief moments of invisibility to begin a spell. No time. The captain was on him again before he'd even reappeared, sweeping about to discern the slight rippling of the air, knowing it to be his prey. The sword again, everywhere at once, and Ashley called on the Dark to aid his speed, dashing into the crowd of guards and throwing up an illusion so that'd he appear in uniform and armour, just like one of them. The captain seemed uncertain suddenly and the men in the crowd looked to eachother in confusion. Ashley moved casually towards their fringe and that casualness gave him away. A red-bearded guard with eyes like bits of green bottle glass brought a rapier slicing towards him, nearly scooping out his throat. The Riskbreaker avoided it, his illusion shattering with the lapse of concentration. He looked desperately for some escape but the men were packed around him and the swords were dancing. He leapt backwards and slammed into a wall, hitting so hard he snapped the arrow from his back in two, sending the blood fairly gushing and a cry from his lips.

        All right.

        No more of this sorcery shit.

        "What in the bloody hell did I do with my sword...?!"

        The guards were thrown backwards as though by sheer force of will but it was really nothing more than Ashley Riot losing his patience. He ripped his cloak off so it wouldn't hamper his movements then drew a long curved sabre from a sheathe at his back, slicing a Z into the air before him. It felt good to cut loose. Probably a little too good. The group of guards flew apart like a dandelion head, backing off until the captain roared at them for their cowardice.

        "He's just a man!! Just kill him as you'd kill any evil man! Send his soul to hell!!"
        His wounds were throbbing and his head was spinning yet with the sword in his hand it seemed Ashley regained some bit of his stamina and self-discipline. The gashes were hardly important now. He found he could straighten entirely, hardly heedful of his cuts nor the bolt in his back. He couldn't reach around to pluck it out but he barely felt it. Just a sharp pressure that kept him from extending his arms entirely.

        A man to his right, a squat little fellow with bright pink cheeks almost entirely hidden by a scratched wooden helmet, fell backwards with Ashley's sword through his neck. He struggled on the ground for only moments before death silenced him. Riot moved on.

        The guards were in complete disarray now, not knowing where to turn, whether to flee or whether to fight as their captain now insisted they do. The captain himself came forward, huge sword singing, only to be shoved back by parries from the Riskbreaker that were almost inhumanly fast and accurate. He seemed to be reading his mind, sensing where the strikes would come from before they were even considered. The air whistled with the sound of Ashley's blade. It sliced so swiftly that the naked eye couldn't follow it, cleaving the unfortunate guards into horsemeat. The air was a crimson jumble of blood and dying shouts. Ashley moved through it unaffected. Or uncaring. He sent man after man to a quick death, imagining he was once again in the confines of Leá Monde and fighting Knights of the Cross for his very life. He WAS fighting for his life, the gash through his ribs was testament to these bastards' sincerity.

        The green-eyed, red-bearded guard from before fell away, his sword clattering to the ground when Ashley sliced his right arm off then went for his head, nearly taking the top of it off like a bottle cork. Gore splattered the street in a streak of thick red, spotting Ashley's forearms. He smeared it away on his pantsleg and went for the next unfortunate, sending him after his comrade.

        The massacre was fast, loud, and messy. It wasn't long until his sword was little more than a dripping wet bit of Damascus hanging from his limp right arm. The remains of the platoon lay fallen at his feet like woodchips around a carpenter's bench, not one life spared and no one man even moaning for he'd silenced them all.

        But there were more coming.

        He could hear their voices on the wind.

        "...what are you?"

        The guard captain. Ashley turned to face him, chest heaving with his exertions. What a pathetic, reduced specimen of man. He stood with his back pressed almost convulsively into the wall of a cottage, his face slimy with sweat and his shining huge sword gone from his hands and fallen at his feet. He seemed ready to drop to his knees and start pleading for his life. But then, sudden and unexplained, the fear departed from his features. Perhaps he remembered his position as a city guardsmen and that brought with it a certain honour he knew he must maintain. The sword on the ground wasn't an option, he'd be dead before he could pick it up, but his wild eyes watched the blade and Ashley read the intentions in them plain as script.

        The Dark had quieted a touch.

        The presence was there, there could be no doubt, but the voices of the distant coming guards rose above it. On a better day, with less matters pressing, the former Riskbreaker might have let the guard captain pick up his sword, they would duel, and the man could die an honourable death. Riot would be the honourable killer.

        But at the moment, he was too injured and weary. The possibility that the captain would overpower him, mayhaps even kill him, was too real in his mind. Ashley frowned grimly and raised his deadly sword over the man, noting absently how the dawn sun cast the shadow of his sword-arm over the guard's pale throat; an omen, a bit of poetry perhaps. But he had no time for pretty poetry, aptness, or magick, barely time to breathe.

        ...you killed me...
        Murderer.

        "What?"

        The sudden voices were mere whispers; lyrics in a quiet song. They tickled Ashley's ears like the finest feathers and sent chills up his spine so that his sword-arm faltered and he nearly lost grip of the hilt. Forgetting his would-be victim, he spun around on the heels of his feet, searching out the source.

        ... my children... what will become of them now?

        What demon are you? What sort of man are you?

        Knave, knave, slaughtered by a knave. 'Tis agony to bear.

        There was nothing to see but a road full of corpses and they would not walk here, despite Ashley's sudden fear they might. Yet there were these voices echoing in the walls of his skull. He couldn't hold his sword. He couldn't think.

        I curse you to misery... a pox upon you and your kin... you've murdered me... murdered me!

        ...my children shall starve if I'm not there for them!

        Knave!! Villian!!

        "The dead may not speak."

        And yet to him they did, as loud as they wished.

        Ashley felt ill. Another garrison of guards was nearly upon him; he could feel the very street trembling beneath their feet. Yet there was another trembling, a trembling of his soul almost. His limbs were as sure and confident as he'd ever trained them to be yet inside he trembled like a water droplet, the Dark spearing his heart, flavoured with the foulness of recent death. The voices died away as suddenly as they'd come and then he knew the souls were gone. Dead.

        Unnerved into inaction, the guard captain was still flattened against the cottage wall. He stared. "You're as batty as me mother-in-law," he said simply, sounding almost fascinated, "Who you talkin' to?"

        A good question that. Ashley wasn't sure of the answer. It seemed that wherever there was misery or evil, there was the Dark, approaching on great thundering hooves like a stampede of wild horses. But the souls were gone... it could not feed here... the men he'd just killed were dead and dead they would remain.
        With a sweep of his already too-bloodied sword, Ashley added to their numbers. The guard captain reached for his weapon, sensing opportunity, and the Riskbreaker abruptly turned and sliced him across the chest, cleaving him open like a butchered heifer. Silently, he watched him die, eyeing the blood and fluids that oozed from his stomach as the man slumped down to his knees and finally onto his side, gurgling a prayer that ended in a spray of red from his mouth. He waited, watching, impatiently tapping his booted feet.
        But nothing happened. The guard captain simply went limp, his chest quit its ragged breaths and in moments he was dead, just a motionless sack of flesh dirtying the roadside with his blood. There was no soul to see, no magnificent light or reassuring trumpet blasts. The body died and the soul was gone.

        Yet that was immediately proven false. The Dark whistled in his ears and with it came the voice. It was soft, faded, astonished.

        Cold blood... rogue, you kill in cold blood with a heart of ice! You killed me...

        "Aye, I killed you!" Ashley shouted into the empty air, his sword raised and ready to be used again, "Any man who draws a sword against me had best be prepared to die by my hands! I feel nothing for you!"

        That was false too. The voice called again, fleeting and angry, and then it was gone, disappeared just as the others had. All that remained was a feeling of regret in the man it left behind. Trembling, more shaken than he'd ever like to admit, Ashley knelt quickly and cleaned his blade on one of the dead guard's tunics. He sheathed his weapon then backed away from the massed corpses, looking right and left, tense as a bowstring. He found an alleyway, comforting shadows, then plunged himself into it just as the second garrison of guards thundered upon the scene. He could hear their curses, their disbelief, as they came across their slain comrades. The sounds didn't last long though, for Ashley ran and ran until they died away.

        "Am I to be haunted by the spirit of every man I slay?" he whispered, ignoring the chill of his soul, the Dark's tormenting, "Is this some curse that the power brings with it? Were those voices real or were they products of the Dark as it plays with my thoughts? No... no, I won't believe this. I've simply become a coward. I run from death like a little boy from his chores."

        Yet even as he ran, the memories of the voices remained, woven into the Dark and thusly into his soul. He still had so much to learn from Sydney. He had to find him, there wasn't any way he could keep this up alone.


        The morning was ageing quickly, an angry white sun grown higher and higher in the sky. The heavens had become a bright, livid shade of azure, clear of clouds save for a soupy greenish mist on the horizon. The Governmental District of the Graylands was small and squat beneath it, a simple scattering of brown stone buildings that seemed quite tame in the harsh light. The workings of the entire city and even much of the country itself, spun on behind their walls and though the streets around them were empty, all knew that inside was a teeming stew of activity.

        From the outside though, the only bit that most citizens ever were allowed to see, all was quiet. There was an aura of repressed excitement about the grounds but that aura was hardly a visible one. There'd been goings-on as of late, everyone knew it, only none save the most elite or the most unlucky were privy to the details. Parliament was in a near state of panic. Though the Parliamentary Headquarters itself lay nearly seven leagues away in Valnain, both senior members and younger had been constantly flocking back and forth between it and the Graylands during the past fortnight. There were at least a dozen rumours and theories circulating to explain the commotion, ranging from invasion to renewed civil struggles to the death of the King. Something terrible had happened or was in the stages of happening and impending disaster seemed obvious. The people of the Graylands were anxious. Most had been that way ever since the night the Duke's home had been raided and burned to the ground. Constant movement and agitation amongst their Parliamentary representatives was not helping to ease that worry.

        Callo Merlose found herself too busy to be worried anymore.

        She was one of many junior employees of Parliament being shuffled about from territory to territory like a borrowed book. Ever since returning from Leá Monde, alone save for Bardorba's little boy, they'd not given her a moment's peace. Everything was in question. Her skills, her loyalty, her honesty. No one believed a word she said except perhaps for GrandMaster LeSait and he wouldn't admit to it, finding suspicion and scepticism to be a fine cloak to clad himself in against Parliament's scrutiny. Careers and power were hanging in the balance over the entire Leá Monde incident. LeSait himself was in danger of losing a position he'd held for over twenty years, losing contact entirely with the very Riskbreakers he'd created. Parliament flayed him for his rash judgement and called him a senile old man, too old to continue his command. Merlose thought that was a ridiculous accusation. She thought it was all ridiculous. There was one man to blame for everything that had happened in that city last week: Cardinal Batistum. It had been his knights who'd caused the chaos with the Gran Grimoire and his very own Commander Guildenstern who'd nearly succeeded in crumbling the city's Paling and throwing the balance of Dark out of alignment for... well, forever, as far as Merlose' knowledge went. Which was admittedly not very far. It had all been an act of unpious selfishness and scheming on the Cardinal's part. He'd not sent his men to capture Müllenkamp, denouncing the cultists because of what they'd done to Bardorba. No, he'd sent them to procure immortality, something that had turned out to be no more procurable than a mountain, as the Grimoire containing the power and the spell had been Leá Monde herself. And it had been Batistum, conniving, evil Batistum, who'd began the wellspring in the first place. Who'd damned those countless souls for twenty-five years and more.

        Some Holy man.

        Merlose knew all about him and it was a horrible thing not to have a single soul take her word as truth. No one would outright call her a liar, her reputation gilded her in honesty, yet the only response she'd gotten from Parliament after the three hour long debriefing they'd had upon her return, were lowered eyes. No one there, not a single representative, had dared look her in her eyes--

        Because they'd known she was telling the truth of course. She could have been lying through her teeth though and it would have made no difference. Truth or lies, there wasn't a single blasted thing anyone could do about it. All there had been too proud to admit to their helplessness.
        Merlose was too proud as well. And every bit as helpless.

        She was also at an impasse. There was so little she could do about all that she'd seen in Leá Monde. Yes, she knew it all to be true, she had no petty thoughts that it might all have been illusions or clever lies. She'd seen Guildenstern's intentions. She'd heard his damned maniacal ranting. She saw him kill John Hardin in cold blood. The images were crystal clear in her memory, there in all their horrible splendour. She couldn't just make herself forget them. She had a duty, did she not, to see that Batistum paid for his crimes? God only knew what he'd do next. It was entirely possible that he'd send others to Leá Monde, dig out Guildenstern's corpse if there was aught left of him, snatch the key, and try the rites again.

        These thoughts sent shivers through her.

        Yet perhaps such a thing was not even feasible. Perhaps any power Leá Monde ever possessed had been sealed with Guildenstern's death. It was entirely possible, just impossible for her to know. She'd had idle thoughts of returning for herself and making her way back to the Cathedral, perhaps setting fire to it all. Yet she wasn't ignorant. Destroying the structure wouldn't destroy the power it held. It would most likely only get her killed.

        Weighed down by frustration and dark thoughts, Merlose walked the cool morning streets of the Graylands' Governmental District, her boots clacking forlornly against the colourless pavement. She'd been in this accursed city for three days, stationed here on LeSait's orders. She missed Valnain and hated the Graylands. This place wasn't exactly a nameless bumpkin village but the citizens here were unfriendly. It was too closely associated with Leá Monde and many of the people held personal memories of the city and the Inquisition that had swept through it like a plague. They scorned the Church's heavy-handed rule in all matters of religion and since the King and Parliament were connected with the Iocus Church in many ways, both direct and abstract, contempt blossomed for Valendia itself, a country that the Graylands had never asked to be a part of. The rebellious attitude manifested itself in many ways and hidden cults were one of them. Müllenkamp had been but a single example of a dozen religious factions that called the city home. The Graylands were a sort of refuge for the wayward. All knew how lenient Duke Bardorba was in such matters, a former heretic himself. Meetings were held here, the Church's law was bent if not broken, and Parliament's interference was far from welcome. Merlose felt somewhat threatened.

        Still, as much as the citizens of the Graylands shied from admitting it, Parliamentary presence at this time WAS a comfort. Everyone was in a constant state of fear since the reports of the disturbances at Leá Monde had come back and no one knew what the Müllenkamp cult's intentions were. It seemed they'd been thwarted for now yet since the true threat of them had been revealed, everyone feared their next move.

        As well they should have, Merlose thought darkly.

        The junior VKP Inquisitor had just returned from the Bardorba estate. She'd been summoned from her bed to examine the scene of a crime. And the body of the slain.

        The Duke was dead.

        Everyone insisted it was Ashley Riot who had done the deed.

        The story had gone something like this: At nearly midnight, Agent Ashley Riot of the VKP had appeared on the Manor's doorstep demanding an audience with their Lord Duke Bardorba. The servants had been ready to send him on his way, the Duke was ill and in no condition to receive visitors. Yet Riot had, according to witnesses, insisted that Bardorba would see him if they'd only tell him his name and to everyone's surprise, when disturbed, he'd agreed. He pleaded only for an hour or two to arrange a bit of paperwork beforehand. Riot had been permitted entrance into the manor and waited in the passageway, quiet as a mouse and quite ordinary in all ways. The servants had been itching to speak with him, he'd been missing for over a week, yet none had dared approach save to tell him when he could speak with their Master.

        Then the tale grew a bit fuzzy. The door to Bardorba's room had been closed for confidence's sake and had remained thus for hours. When next opened by a concerned manservant, Bardorba had been discovered in his bed with a dagger through his heart. Riot was long gone.

        Or so they had all assumed.

        Only minutes after discovery of the crime, a foul air had blown through the room and all present swore to having felt some presence, angry towards them. That very magick moved from the chambers and into the passageway, shattering a window and letting in the noise of the storm outside. Then it had vanished.

        Of course the most obvious scenario to be drawn from all of it was that Riot had sided with Müllenkamp and Sydney, aiding the lot of them in the assassination of Bardorba who, so speculation went, had withdrawn his aid and money from the cult's hands. Riot, the most adept Riskbreaker there'd even been in the VKP, had changed sides. It was a sobering notion. Sobering to Merlose, absolutely panic-inducing to the Graylands.

        They'd rang the church bells and made the announcement in the square. The search was on for Riot. Everyone in the city was out for his blood.

        And then the reports of the massacred guards had came in. Fishermen on their way to the bay had found the corpses in the road, left there to be discovered like little gifts. Merlose had examined them too and knew without a doubt that they'd been killed by Ashley's hand.

        None of it made sense.

        Or actually, it all made too much sense but it was a sort of sense that Merlose didn't even want to begin to contemplate. She'd known Riot only throughout that one day and night in the city yet she'd come to know him then in a way that made her believe he was the most just man she'd ever met. Would he have sided with Sydney now in such an underhanded manner? Killing one of their own superiors, Bardorba himself? A man who was more or less leader of Parliament and head of the country? It was treason and betrayal of a most disgusting manner. Merlose wasn't sure he was capable of it and yet she'd seen with her own eyes what the promise of power, even immortality, had done to twist Guildenstern's intentions in Leá Monde. He'd gone there to retrieve the power for his Cardinal but had taken it for himself when he realised it was possible. Perhaps Sydney had bought Ashley's loyalty in exchange for the power of Leá Monde? Or perhaps he'd simply done to him as Merlose had watched Sydney do to his own followers: warping his mind to fit his own needs.

        No, Ashley was much too strong for that nonsense.

        Merlose sighed and turned down an avenue towards her rooms in the District. She'd been in the city for days and had yet to really be given any orders from Headquarters. She had a strong feeling that she was only in the Graylands at all because LeSait feared for her safety. Her "truths" had caught the Church's eye. The Church had a habit of silencing preachers whose dogma they did not care for. Lady Neesa of the Crimson Blades had returned only a day after she, storming into Cardinal Batistum's estate and demanding an audience. Many had seen her enter Valnain and the looming archway of the Cardinal's home yet not a soul had seen her leave. She hadn't been heard from since.

        Merlose had little fear of the Church but anyone with half a brain knew enough to fear the Cardinal. Neesa should have dropped her loyalty like a filth-ridden handbag and gone to Parliament with her story. Perhaps with two witnesses, people might have listened.

        Her quarters here were small but clean enough. Sweeping her full blackish-brown hair back behind her shoulders, Merlose pushed open a heavy wooden door and entered from the streets, her mind still cloudy with thoughts. She was sharing the building with two dozen VKP cadets, every one male, every one of them like a blasted dog in heat. She was positive they'd drilled a hole through the wall and into her room to watch her undress but she couldn't find it. How she hated this place and missed her quarters in Valnain. There wasn't a decent bakery in this city. And the water was strange, it soured the wine! At least to her tongue.

        "Callo! Mon amour! You are so soon returned from Bardorba's?"

        Merlose sighed quietly but didn't turn to see the source of the voice at her back. It was one of the little worms who had been molesting her in this place ever since her arrival. "You'll watch your tongue with me, Hadley. I'm in no mood for it today. Should you not be spit-shining your Headmaster's boots? Perhaps scrubbing the floors or peeling potatoes? Be gone."

        The front door of their dormitories opened up into a main hallway with rooms branching off through either wall. Hadley, a nineteen year old buffoon who needed a good whipping in Merlose' humble opinion, seemed to lay in wait for her at all moments, eyes on the door, tongue at the ready. The cadets lodged here were all still in training, naught more than unruly students. Merlose had become something like a housemother to them all.

        "You break my heart," he cooed and though she wouldn't turn, she could hear his treads falling in step behind hers as she made for her room at the far end of the hall, "I'm only curious as to what the situation was at Bardorba's. Rumour says he's dead. Truth or falsehood?"

        "Sadly true... " Merlose answered, the venom fading from her voice.

        "And Ashley Riot was the culprit?"

        The venom returned. "I am not at liberty to discuss the details of my findings with a subordinate. Be gone from me, boy." Were lodgings in this God-forsaken city so hard to come by that they'd had to room her with fools like this? Ach, but Merlose was too keenly aware of the reasons for her presence there. This was a convenient way for the VKP to keep track of her actions. These boys were as much her prison guards as her roommates. Utter foolishness, to be sure.

        "Again, my heart splits in twain at your cold, cold words. It beats like a drum for you, fair lady, why can you not return my passion?"

        Merlose was ready to bite his head off. She spared him a single glance over her shoulder and nearly turned around to give him the beating he deserved. Hadley was a decent enough looking boy; dark hair, dark eyes, dark complexioned and somewhat handsome in a conventional way. But he was also an unruly little brat who seemed to think he was still playing in his mother's front lawn when he was supposed to be learning to act with the decorum of a Parliamentary Inquisitor. He held his hand over his heart now and his eyes were wide and imploring. "You're everything and more I've ever wanted in a woman. Your ravishing good looks, your skills of deduction and research, the way you wear that leather..." He made a noise like a cat and Merlose finally turned and smashed a fist into his jaw. Oh, that felt good.

        Hadley yelped and fell backwards and Merlose giggled and fell inwards, pushing her bedroom door open. When she saw that her drawers had been raided and her undergarments scattered haphazardly onto her bed and floor, she turned around to really give the little brat the beating he deserved.

        But of course, he'd fled by then. He and a few of the others could be heard laughing from down the hall.

        Merlose sighed.

        "It would seem... you've really made an impression upon them."

        With a clipped cry of surprise, the young Inquisitor jerked about to a dark corner of her bedroom. At first she thought the brats of the dormitory had moved her mirror and put it out of place. She saw herself staring back from the shadows, a perfect copy of her every feature, right down to the clothes she'd put on that morning. But then Merlose saw the figure moved on its own.

        "What is this...?" she whispered, taking a step backwards. Her twin took a step towards her. The bedroom door was caught in unseen hands and shut itself softly, leaving her trapped. "What sorcery is this..?"

        The strange figure twitched as though suddenly made aware of itself, then shook its head and stumbled to one side. For a moment it seemed it might topple completely but then it shot a hand out towards Merlose's chest of drawers, grabbing the edge for support. "My apologies. I forgot myself."

        There was a slight... moving of the air about the twin and suddenly it was no longer like looking at her reflection in a mirror. Riot stood there, bleeding from several different wounds. He fell forward onto his knees and panted. "'Twas all I could think of... to get in here without sticking my sword in someone else. Again, my apologies. I can barely stand, as you can see, and cannot keep up an illusion for more than minutes." To prove his words, the image of herself came again for a moment, washing over his form in a wave of transparency. It flickered and he grimaced, a fine sheen of sweat apparent on his brow. "I'm hurt and defeated. I need refuge for a while until I'm healed enough to be on the move again. I will not stay long, you have my word."

        "N-nay, 'tis fine. You needn't prove your weakness to me," Merlose whispered, coming to her senses. Ashley raised his head a fraction and glared at her.

        "Not weakness. I've just been wounded."

        Before she could answer, the danger of this sudden situation struck the woman and she turned back towards the door. Riot thought she'd try to throw it open and flee, bracing himself to hold it shut with a spell. Yet all Merlose did was to lay her ear against the wood and be sure that none of the cadets were around. She rose from her crouch after a moment, a strange expression on her face: relief and fear and worry.

        "Come, sit here," she insisted, moving closer to her former comrade and helping him back to his feet. Ashley rose slowly, his every movement agony, though already that agony was lessening and he could feel his strength returning. It flowed from the very Dark that flowed through him and for the first time, Riot was somewhat grateful for his gifts. Merlose sat him in a simple wooden chair beside her bed, trying to forget about the underwear and other rather personal items that the brats of the dormitories had left scattered about. If Ashley noticed them, he was kind enough to pretend he didn't. "I assume these are from your skirmishes with the guardsmen?" Merlose ran her fingers delicately over some of the slashes in his chest and shoulders, skirting away from the huge diagonal cut across his torso that was still oozing blood in alarming amounts. He nodded.

        "I ran across a brute who might have better served the VKP than the Graylands' city guards. You must have LeSait send recruiters this way." Ashley grimaced, inspecting his chest. It was the bolt in his back that was still truly galling though. "Have you blacksmith's tongs? Or... perhaps just strong hands?" Merlose nearly crawled from her skin to see the length of wood jutting from between his shoulder blades. Without a word she pushed his shoulder to turn him a bit, then drew a pair of pliers from a drawer at the foot of the bed, lowering the soft fabric of his robe away from the bolt.

        "This is going to hurt."

        "I assumed so."

        And it did. Merlose braced herself with a hand against his shoulder and used her other to hold the pliers and extract the bolt, trying to be gentle but that was nearly impossible, the muscles had already pushed themselves around the arrow, sealing it in. Deciding not to comment on the sizeable tattoo embracing his back and shoulders, she slid the bolt free and Ashley stifled a cry, biting down on his tongue to keep control of himself. Blood ran warm down his back and he shivered, coughing up a fistful of the stuff and taking the towel Merlose handed him gratefully. "Thank you." He waited for her questions. They came. And were less specific than he'd anticipated.

        "What's happened?"

        "I'd rather ask you that first, Agent Merlose. I've become a pariah in this city. People seem to think I'm the one who's slain Bardorba."

        "You mean you weren't?"

        Ashley wiped his mouth on the towel then slid it gently down his chest, mopping up a bit of the blood. The smaller of the wounds were already gone and the gash that would have killed any other man was starting to heal a bit around the edges. He sighed wearily and sat back in his chair, shutting his eyes a moment.

        "I would have no reason to do such a thing. And if I had, I'd have done it so that I was not seen."

        Merlose shook her head, looking away. "But the servants said they saw you. Ten different people say they watched you standing in the hall before hand and two more actually saw you enter his chambers."

        "Hm." Ashley looked around Merlose' tiny room, tired brown eyes surveying the little lantern, the bed, and the simple wooden furniture. It was almost soothing to be in here. "Why don't you tell me what you see?"

        With a frown, Merlose sat down on the edge of her bed, the stiff strawtick sinking beneath her weight. The sights she'd seen only half an hour before were still strong with her: Bardorba in his bed, silenced, peaceful, but with an aura of strength that hadn't left him even in death. The dagger had been bright and shining in his chest and it too had seemed untouched by the events. It had been but a dagger, quite beautiful, sunk half-way to the hilt through the man's heart. No sign of struggle anywhere in the room, even the bedclothes had been un-ruffled. What had seemed strangest to Merlose was the other dagger laying on the carpet at the side of the bed. It had been bloodied too yet there had been no other wound on the Duke save for the lethal one.

        If Merlose hadn't known better, she would have claimed Bardorba had slain himself.

        Yet the other bloodied dagger denied that theory and the presence of someone who'd fled so suddenly and without a word, Riot, seemed to fairly scream foul play. Yet... yet both weapons had belonged to the Duke.

        It was quite puzzling to say the least.

        "What do I see..." Merlose mused to herself, sitting back a touch and running her eyes over Ashley's form. Her lips puckered suddenly as though she'd tasted something sour. "I see that already your wounds close. I see things upon you that should have killed you, Agent Riot. You have the same sorts of powers as Sydney. Have you changed camps then?"

        Ashley laughed softly, his voice a little ragged. "You do think I killed him. Marvellous."

        "How could I think otherwise?" Merlose replied quickly, defensive. She rose from her bed. "What has happened since I saw you last? What is the brand on your back?"

        The former Riskbreaker stiffened noticeably. Ofttimes he forgot the tattoo. Frowning grimly he pulled his tattered cloak back up about his shoulders, easing his arms through the material and raising the collar. He couldn't be like Sydney. He couldn't flaunt this shame to the world. "It's not important," he answered after a moment, "All that matters is I make my escape from this blasted city."

        "And away from authority, correct?" Merlose shook her head, angry to a degree but a grief underlaid that. She could not believe any of this. "What's happened to you? Guildenstern's dead, isn't he?"

        "Of course. There's nothing more to fear from Leá Monde."

        "Leá Monde is not where my fears lie. I fear you, Riot, and what's become of you. Why kill Bardorba?"

        Ashley made to get up from his seat but the sword wound caused him to flinch back, rippling through his chest with white-hot fire. "I told you already. I did not kill him! Why do people believe that I have?!"

        "Because they saw you commit the crime. I've spoken with a dozen witnesses all convinced you are his murderer." Merlose turned away, clasping her elbows, forearms laid over her breasts in a helpless gesture. "I did not want to believe them. Bardorba was a great man, one of the last men in Parliament who still spoke against the Church's tyranny. I fear for Valendia's future with him gone. I did not believe one of our own agents, you especially, could ever do anything so foolish, so base. Yet to see you with Müllenkamp's mark now... to see you wield enough power to let you live through those wounds... I wonder if you are Ashley Riot at all any longer. Do you work with the cult? Have you found a new cause?"

        "I have no cause," Ashley answered lowly, "And perhaps that is where the problem lies. I have no where to go and no one to turn to. Sydney has abandoned me. I fear he has betrayed me. Sydney killed the Duke, Agent Merlose, not I."

        "Sydney?"

        "Aye. His intentions are unknown to me. Bardorba was on his death bed, why kill him?"

        "But... but he was his father..."

        The man sighed, lowering his head. "Aye. I know nothing beyond that lone fact. He was his father."

        "Madness..."

        "A very suitable word, yes. I've been calling upon it all night."

        Ashley smirked bitterly and turned back to tending his wounds. A sense of foreboding filled him suddenly and he wondered if he should be entrusting Merlose with this information at all. She was still with the VKP. She was not to be allowed into such confidences. Yet he needed to tell these things to someone, if only to straighten them in his own mind. Wandering the Graylands for hours, bleeding onto the cobblestones, had convinced him of that. "What have you told LeSait?" he asked shortly.

        "Everything," the Inquisitor answered, almost daring his scorn, "My duty is to Valendia, not to the dead ideals of Müllenkamp, the Dark, or the heretics who follow it. But I harbour nothing ill towards you, Riot, nor towards your new Master. I owe you much. I fear where we all would be now if not for your bravery in Leá Monde."

        "Save it," Ashley said, "I did what I did to find my own answers. And to aid Sydney."

        Merlose watched him, fascinated at the ire behind his words. She found him utterly fascinating. Not only his appearance had changed since last they'd met but his voice and bearing as well. There was also a hunted look in his eyes. She'd never seen him appear thus and hadn't thought it possible. "You said that he's abandoned you..."

        "I know not where he's gone. He wouldn't tell me." Something broke suddenly in the man, a dam of control perhaps, letting his frustration spill free. He glared at her. "I don't understand his silence! Did he not trust me? He told me so much, the darkest secrets in the world, yet he would not tell me to where it was he was planning to flee! He wouldn't betray me, he wouldn't! Other than myself only Sydney has the power to mask his form... perhaps I should think he has betrayed me by implicating me in his father's murder... yet... yet I know he'd never do that to me..."

        Merlose coolly met his eyes, trying to keep her own frustration at bay. "Sydney uses people without regard," she reminded, "He manipulates. He did it to everyone in Leá Monde and he used you before, Riot. Why wouldn't he do it again?"

        "Silence! I know him. I trust him like I trust no other and yet I've known him no more than a week's time."

        "Perhaps that trust comes from nothing more than Sydney's manipulation of your mind and thoughts."

        "He has no power over me," Ashley said, regaining a dram of his composure, "With what I've taken with me from Leá Monde no one can ever hurt me like that again..."

        "And why do you say that? Because Sydney told you it was so?" Merlose shook her head, amazed at the depths that Sydney's manipulation could achieve. "Riot, the cultist has played you for a fool. You became a way for him to safely kill his own father. Do not continue with these delusions. They do not become you."

        She expected his anger to renew itself like a smouldering branch touched by flame and yet Ashley's heat suddenly cooled and he looked upon her, smiling. Merlose saw something wise in his eyes that she didn't understand and had never looked upon before. "I wonder if you've ever given your soul to anyone," he said thoughtfully. Merlose feigned scorn and he continued. "I realised a lot of things in Leá Monde. I realised that I'd been hoarding my soul out of habit and that I truly had no more use for it. Some men might term that as rationalising death but I wouldn't. I had a soul and it was a good soul. I had strength, a little too much determination for my own good. I had gifts, Agent Merlose, I make no attempts to deny that. But they meant little to me anymore." Ashley sighed, leaning back in the chair again and staring vacantly through the air. He waved his hand. "I gave them all away. The gifts were accepted gladly, I found. Gifts were given back to me. And Sydney was the bearer."

        "What are you saying?"

        "I'm saying that I know him better than any one knows him. I trust him and I smile to hear you try to shake that trust because I realise how impossible a task it is now. I trust him. He holds my soul. He helped me as no one has ever been able to help me. I trust him."

        "Spoken like a true zealot..." Merlose sighed, "I never would have imagined you'd be caught up in his web. Though.... though I DID watch him... he is hard to resist, I'm sure."

        Ah, she was so ignorant Ashley almost wanted to laugh. He held it back. "I've been trying to keep up with your activities this past week, " he began, sensing a topic change would be wise. It could be another half hour or so before he regained the ability to walk without staggering to his knees. May as well make the wait with her an amiable one. "I wasn't surprised to learn you'd been sent here. Batistum is like a cougar in a corner. He'll snap off your hands for his safety."

        Merlose chuckled pleasantly, letting some of the tension in the air fall away. "Do I hold so much power?"

        "Power enough," he replied lowly, "The Graylands are the safest place for you right now. I wonder over the fate of those few Knights who managed to escape the city alive. There were not many but there were a few."

        "Aye, and no one's heard a peep from them since their initial arrival. I wonder if that cornered cougar hasn't already began biting."

        "Parliament's hands are tied..." It was more a statement than a question. Merlose nodded her head, turning to fetch him a clean towel.

        "As they've always been when it comes to the Church. They're simply too powerful. They hold the support of ninety percent of the representatives and the nobility all bow down to Batistum as though he were the Martyr Himself. There is defiance of course... there has always been defiance... yet our numbers are weak and our words are drowned by Batistum's sermons. There are spies as well. No one in the VKP is to be trusted. Rosencrantz had protege you know."

        "More like precedents. I've met worse than he in my days."

        Merlose approached him from behind and moved a damp cloth over his back. The cloak was torn enough that she needn't remove it to see the tattoo he seemed so eager to hide. Ashley flinched at the ministrations yet was grateful. There wasn't any way he could reach his arms back behind himself to clean the blood. "Everything is different since Leá Monde," she said softly, working at his wound with the towel, "I have dreams I never had before. I'll still sometimes hear voices or see figures speaking truths I've wondered at. It's passing, I think, but..."

        "Not passing, you're pushing it away," Ashley interrupted gently, "Which is fine. These things are not natural, better to be rid of them."

        Merlose nudged a bit more of the fabric from his back and lightly traced a forefinger over a tier of the rood emblazoned there. "Yet you embrace them. Why?"

        Ashley drew away from her touch. "It wasn't by choice. It was all... circumstance. Sydney didn't ask me if I wanted to be his successor he just... did it. He was left with no other options."

        "Successor..." the Inquisitor breathed, seemingly hypnotised by the Blood-sin. It was still sore, he flinched when she ran her hard fingernails over the lines and though Merlose could sense his unease towards it, she did not relent in her examination. She pulled the cloth further away from his back, abstractly wondering why he was letting her. "Successor? That's what this is? It's what Guildenstern wanted, isn't it?"

        Ashley sighed, massaging his temples. "Not really, no. He wanted the Dark in Leá Monde. The power of the thousands of souls there. But one has to be a successor of the Dark and Müllenkamp to receive all of that. 'Twas why he took Sydney's Blood-sin."

        "Took it?" Merlose echoed, removing her hands suddenly from his back. "How?"

        "Ah, you were safe by then, that's right. Well, it's all of little consequence, Agent Merlose. Sydney's immortality died, is all. Now, he's just a normal man like myse-- well, a normal man."

        The Inquisitor made a little noise of understanding though Ashley wondered if she truly understood at all. If she did, he would have appreciated her passing on a little of that knowledge. Instead, he felt her press both hands gently onto his shoulders, applying a little pressure there that felt absolutely delicious. He was as tied up as a ball of string, his muscles harbouring just as many knots. Still, there was something a little unsettling about her touch... the way she tickled the edges of the arrow wound in his back with the sharp curves of her fingernails. He wasn't about to protest though. He felt too tired and too stupid to let her stop something that felt so good. Even the sting of his wounds dulled beneath her touch.

        "Why did you come to me, Agent Riot?" she murmured, kneading the muscles of his upper back with the edges of her knuckles. Ashley fought back a grunt of approval to answer.

        "Because I knew you'd have the information I needed."

        "But I could reveal you. There's a price on your head. It isn't nearly as much as you are worth, but it would be enough to see me in luxury for the rest of my days." She redoubled her efforts, squeezing his shoulders and smoothing out a knot to the left of his spine. Working so close to his arrow wound was near torture but coupled with the sensation of her wonderful hands it was almost pleasant. The pleasure was fiery and real, as much as the pain was. Ashley was ready to black out. He pushed away blissful unconsciousness, unready for an audience with Müllenkamp, unwilling to be submitted to the howls of the Dark or the screaming of the damned that would come if he were to lose his grip on the waking world.

        "You would not do that," he said simply, "Because you were there in Leá Monde, as I was. I am perhaps the only person who believes you at all." Ashley turned his head to look her in the eyes. Merlose seemed startled but quickly regained herself.

        "N-nay, I--"

        "LeSait believes something happened," Ashley cut in, reading the argument from her thoughts before she could say the words, "But he also believes the cult drugged you and much of what you imagine you saw were... fantasies? I've been to him already. I know how he interprets all of this. You are alone with your convictions, Agent Merlose. Unless you wish to go seek company in Cardinal Batistum. He'd believe every word, I'm sure."

        The woman laughed nervously, taking her hands from his back at last. Ashley was somewhat regretful, squirming to sit up straight in the chair. "Perhaps that is where you should go," she suggested, tapping the top of his Blood-sin lightly, "You're a walking holy relic."

        "Forget about the tattoo," Ashley said quickly, finally finding the strength to stand from his seat, "It's inconsequential."

        "But what does it mean?" she demanded, burning curiosity adding a touch of innocence to her voice. Ashley wouldn't face her, crossing the small room instead to stand before the mirror and examine his bloody features. He cleaned himself as he answered, reciting it all like a lesson, using Sydney's words.

        "The Blood-sin ties my body and soul together indefinitely. It grants unto me... immortality... in a way. Ordinarily the bond between spirit and flesh is fragile and corporeal. You stop a man's heart and you free his soul from its cage. Yet this rood binds mine forever in this body, whether the body lives or no. With my soul's strength I can make my heart beat, pump my lungs, work my brain... no matter in what condition they may be in. And with that strength I can heal myself in ways... that are almost frightening. This is the boon that Müllenkamp grants her followers, I suppose. It is a comfort, reassurance, at the same time that it is startling. I feel strong ties to that woman... as though she lives within me now." Ashley shook his head, running a hand through his hair. The words did nothing to convey what this was like. "I feel as though I'm... more than I was before; more than the VKP dog, or the father or the husband. I'm losing touch with my mortal side and my mortal memories. They are as clear to me as ever yet I feel distanced from them, as though I've become another man. I cannot touch them. I do not like that Tia's face seems so far from my mind, or that Marco is more like a dream than a memory. I miss them both and yet I cannot conjure the sadness or the guilt anymore. They have left me in peace but I am as of yet unaccustomed to that peace." Overcome by it, he shut his eyes. But the Dark was there in the blackness. The Dark was everywhere and he couldn't escape it; taunting, calling, comforting, speaking, laughing, sobbing. Or was it the souls? From just where exactly did this constant jabbering originate?

        Merlose watched him. "You miss the agony."

        "In a way," he answered after a moment, "The agony... made me human. I believe I understand where Sydney's stance came from now. His confidence, his demeanour, all of it. He was Müllenkamp's pet, as I am now. He was under her care."

        "Yet she offered no aid when Guildenstern killed Hardin. No aid when he took the Blood-Sin. She didn't help Sydney."

        "No, he did nothing to help himself. Müllenkamp is like any deity. She will not intrude in human affairs. I believe that Sydney tired of his throne. He missed... he missed the agony perhaps, of being human. I am not sure, he eluded so many of my questions." Ashley himself missed the agony... but there was so much new agony to replace it.

        "So he ended it like a vampire fleeing into the sun?" Merlose clarified, not truly believing. Ashley let her doubt, it was only speculation on his part anyway. He couldn't imagine that Sydney had ever actually enjoyed living as the thing he was. Better to pass it on to a heart-broken Riskbreaker and be rid of it.

        "I would rather not discuss this with you actually."

        Merlose found that funny. "You magick your way into my own bedroom and start spinning your tales to me and now you suddenly decide I'm not worthy enough to hear the finer points?"

        "Call it whatever you wish," the sorcerer sighed, turning from the mirror and draping a bloodied rag over the back of a chair, "I should be leaving. I never wanted you to know I was still alive, Agent Merlose. I was hoping the whole world would forget Ashley Riot."

        "Ah, selfishness," she answered, hiding a touch of sadness, "Such a beautifully masculine trait."

        "Nay... 'tis better for you to forget all that happened. Stop with your accusations towards Batistum. They'll only get you killed. Müllenkamp and I will deal with the Cardinal. You stay with the VKP and rise in the ranks. Run the damned thing someday, eh, Agent Merlose?"

        She raised her head and the braids hanging on either side of her face swung gently like pendulums. "I told you already. Call me Cal." He smiled and straightened his hair, casting an eye towards the door. "Where will you go? Ashley... go to LeSait. Explain the matter to him. I'm sure he'd understand all of it and then you can clear your name! As it is now you're a hunted man; you'll have every sellsword in five provinces after your hide."

        "You suppose? My, won't that make things interesting."

        "Arrogant to the last," she sighed, unsurprised, "Yet if a garrison of city guards managed to nearly kill you last night, imagine what a band of trained elite might accomplish."

        "Nay. These wounds are only because I tried to play the game as Sydney would play it. I tried to outmanoeuvre them with magick and I'm simply not good enough at it. When I drew my sword, I remembered who I was. I need only retain that memory and retain this sword and I'll cut a path towards a future." Ashley smiled softly, the words summing up an idea that had been playing through his head for the past few hours. The brown-eyed Inquisitor was not quite so thrilled.

        "What of Sydney?"

        Ashley had a simple answer. "I'll find him."

        "But it would appear he does not want to be found. If so, he would have found you by now. That's his way, he does what he wishes, takes what he needs or wants whenever he so chooses."

        Ah, there was that ignorance again. Ashley found it almost charming. He was about to tell her something to that effect when he caught the sound of footsteps pattering towards them from the hall outside the door. It wasn't so much the footsteps that he heard though as it was the noise of another mind. After a few moments, the more definable of the two sounds became audible to Merlose and she flinched, looking around for a place he could hide. Before she turned her head twice, she found he'd already vanished.

        "Riot?"

        There was a knocking at her door, three sharp raps from impatient knuckles. The Inquisitor spun around in a circle, searching out her former comrade, unwilling to believe he hadn't said goodbye. Something whispered in her ear, and she felt hot breath against her neck.

        "Answer your door, Cal," he insisted in a voice barely above a purr. She nearly jumped from her skin; the voice was so real and near yet its owner was not. She spent a few fruitless seconds searching him out but the room was empty. She was alone. Merlose heaved a baffled sigh then hurried to follow the advice.

        Hadley was on the other side of the door. He looked ready to burst like a fat tick from excitement.

        "Callo!" he breathed, pushing his way into her room, "There's a steward of GrandMaster LeSait's here to see you! Come all the way from Valnain!"

        "LeSait's steward...?" Merlose echoed, a hand slipping to her lips in surprise, "What does he want?"

        "I haven't the faintest. But don't let them make you leave here! Don't return to Valnain and allow my life to revert to its former meaningless tripe!"

        "Hush your nonsense," the Inquisitor replied vacantly, eyes blanked over with thought. She couldn't imagine what LeSait might want of her. Upon presenting her with orders to relocate here to the Graylands for a while he'd heaved a great sigh, as though relieved beyond words to be rid of her at last. Merlose was nothing but trouble in Valnain now. She caught the Church's eye and put Parliament's every action in the spotlight. She'd assumed he would try everything he could to disassociate himself with her so why send a representative?

        It could be nothing important at all. Yet with Bardorba's murder that night and Ashley's sudden appearance this morning bearing news that Müllenkamp's cult was somewhat alive and well... it was very possible that there could be renewed struggles between Parliament and Iocus once again. To Parliament's eyes, the murder of Bardorba, one of the strongest opposers of the Church, would put Iocus in a very negative, suspicious light, especially now after the events of Leá Monde, which had already called the Cardinal into question. Perhaps Bardorba had known something about Batistum and the city that would have damned the Cardinal once and for all? He'd had to be silenced before he could reveal what he knew...

        According to Ashley, Sydney had killed the Duke. But no one else knew that and Merlose was sure not a soul would believe her without proof. This little fiasco could cause a rift in Parliament that might doom them all. The Church-supporters would continue backing Iocus while the smaller percentage of more governmentally-inclined statesmen would point fingers at Batistum and demand an investigation. Such suspicion would not be well received. A rift in Parliament would accomplish nothing save separating Bardorba's backers from the rest. They'd be swallowed and powerless and Parliament would lose all who had always fought to keep the Church's power curbed.

        Merlose only hoped that the less powerful representatives would know better than to act rashly and allow that to happen to themselves. They had to bide their time.

        The Inquisitor shook her head slightly, bringing herself out of the thoughts. The politics of all of this was unsettling. She turned back to Hadley, who'd fallen to examining the blood-soaked towels scattering her bedroom floor. He looked up at her and grimaced.

        "That time of the month?"

        "Get out!"

        "Oi, calm down--!! I didn't--!!"

        "GET. OUT."

        "Aye aye!!"

        Merlose booted the young cadet in the backside a few times until he'd crawled out of her bedroom on his hands and knees, dropping apologies. Holding back a snarl, she slammed the door shut so that it caught him in the ankle, eliciting a nice, satisfying yelp of pain. "Tell that man I'll be out to see him in a moment!" she called through the door, "And the next time you speak to me, Cadet Hadley, may indeed be the last time you speak to anyone. I'll stretch your tongue for a purse strap, whelp."

        "Eep! Aye!"

        The Inquisitor leaned against the shut door for a moment and listened to her young tormentor's footsteps scampering off down the hallway. She heard him pull to his feet and swing into the sitting room near the entrance, then muffled words as he delivered the message. Well, at least he knew how to follow the orders of a superior, she could say that much for him.

        "You really do seem too hard on the lads here," Ashley's voice called playfully from behind, "Are they all as enraptured with you as that one?"

        "Ah, 'tis only a game they play with me and with themselves," she sighed, turning around and unsurprised to see the Riskbreaker reappeared, intact and standing straighter as his wounds closed, "But it is certainly odd that a steward of LeSait's is here. Could they have heard about the Duke's death already?"

        "Possibly," Ashley replied, grimness washing the play from his features and leaving them strained, "He may want to take you to LeSait himself. But don't go. They'll want to question you about me. Something is wrong about all of this..."

        "No, I trust LeSait. He's a good man. Actually... perhaps we both should go to him. If anyone in Valendia would lend an ear to your story, it would be he. You can't run forever, Ashley. Would it not be better to strike out? The last thing Cardinal Batistum would ever expect would be for you to run to the VKP for aid." Merlose grew somewhat excited with the idea and took a step towards her former comrade, hoping it might catch on. Ashley shook his head adamantly.

        "I don't trust the VKP anymore. Not after what Rosencrantz and Sydney told me."

        "But don't you trust me?" Merlose wondered, "You came to me today, you must trust me. I say that LeSait will help you."

        "And I say that you are blinded by loyalty," Ashley retorted in frustration, "I will not hold such false faiths anymore. Even to you, Callo. I advise you to grow up a bit. You're in a dangerous position and putting your faith in any one man only makes you more vulnerable."

        "You're bitter and disillusioned, Riot," Merlose snapped back, "I cannot take advice from you."

        A silence hung in the air and the Inquisitor waited for him to break it. Ashley seemed otherwise inclined. Pulling his collar up closer around his throat, he made for the door, the air rippling about his body as he called upon another glamour. "What will you do now? Wander about until someone finally manages to kill you? You're mad to think you can exist like this, Riot. After last night, Batistum knows you live. He'll hunt you. Especially since hunting out "Lord Duke Bardorba's murderer" will shine a favourable light upon him in the public's eyes."

        "Let him hunt then. I'm not helpless."

        He was so stubborn! Merlose was half-tempted to kick him as she'd kicked that boy Hadley. She'd rip the cloak away from the tattoo on his back and make him face this! He couldn't simply run! "You're going to wind up dead!" she choked, her concern for him obvious. She'd felt an overwhelming concern for this man right from the start. He just didn't seem to know what had to be done! He plunged into everything without a moment's thought or a single shred of information.

        "Calm your fears, woman," he answered shortly, a hand on the door, "I think I know where to find Sydney. I think I may understand his motives in all of this."

        "I will not bother to ask what you suppose those to be."

        "Good. Save your breath." Ashley spoke low words that held no meaning for Merlose and then he was in the guise of a teenager in a cadet's uniform. The breath caught in her throat to see the change and be so close when it happened. Everything about the glamour was perfect. She could see every strand of his suddenly black hair and watch the low light playing in his bright green eyes. His uniform was starched and pressed, there were even little scratches on the buttons of his coat. The Inquisitor reached out a hand to rub her fingers over his lapel and feel the cloth. Yet there was nothing there when she did. She felt only his bare chest beneath her touch. Ashley smiled and opened the door.

        "You see, Callo? It isn't a perfect disguise. Touch knows things our eyes can't know. I thank you for your hospitality."

        He passed through the doorway and was gone from her as suddenly as he'd come. Callo stepped from her room after him and saw the black-haired cadet striding down the hall towards the front entrance. His steps were far from perfect, his limp recalled his wounds but it was an impressive magick nonetheless.

        "Who is that boy?"

        Caught off guard, Merlose heard Hadley exit a room across from her own and take a belligerent step after the retreating Riskbreaker. The cadet's eyes were narrowed in barely repressed fury. He turned them accusingly on Merlose. "You had someone in there with you?" he breathed, "Another man?"

        "He's just a friend. Though it's really no business of yours."

        "No business of mine? Callo, I'd be your willing slave if only you'd say the word! How can you have another man here under my roof! Are you so callous?!"

        "Cadet Hadley!" she exclaimed, her patience reached its peak, "This isn't your roof! It's a public dormitory and I am not yours!"

        "I know!" he cried, all but weeping, glaring after Ashley in mock-grief, "Do you have to remind me!"

        "Daft boy!"

        "Cold-hearted succubus!"

        "Rrrr!"

        She could hear Ashley laughing as he pulled open the door and exited out to the streets. That didn't help her aggravation at all. Merlose ignored the cadet and took a few steps down the hallway, running a hand through her hair to straighten it and convince a few of the more wild strands to stay at bay behind her ears. Her thoughts were still focused on Ashley when she swung into the waiting area at the front of the dormitories and confronted LeSait's steward. He was a short, squat little man with bulbous cheeks like a squirrel's full of chestnuts. She'd seen him at political functions in Valnain on occasion but had never made his acquaintance. She did so now, offering a friendly hand and a smile.

        "You're a long way from the capitol, sir," she began pleasantly, noting his sour expression, "What may I do for you?"

        "GrandMaster LeSait is here in the Graylands," he answered, not wasting a word, "He requires your presence."

        "LeSait is here?"

        "Last night's unfortunate event was not the first evidence the VKP has had concerning Agent Ashley Riot's welfare after the Leá Monde incident. We've suspected he was still alive from day one. However, we never suspected he'd become a turncoat. Come with me to LeSait's quarters, Agent Merlose. Your skills are most in need."

        Dazed, she nodded and went to fetch her things. It never occurred to her to refuse.


        The ocean was somewhat calmer now.

        The sky was a leaden grey, flat as a board, reaching from himself to the horizon and the air was thinner here; he couldn't catch his breath. It had been so thick before and full of blood and memories that had seized him when he'd breathed them in. He'd never before realised how thick air could become and still be breathable. This air, fiery hot, had pulled in and out of his lungs like a plumb-line, razing his insides and stealing his sanity with the pain. Everything had been pain for a while; the sort of mindless pain that becomes a living thing demanding to be battled and he'd writhed beneath it, helpless and hating his helplessness. For a long time, he'd made it a specific goal in his life to never be helpless. He'd had no desire to be used as other people had managed to use him, or to be manipulated for the causes of others. He'd become the manipulator and been very comfortable in that role.

        The ocean was dull, like a newly-plowed field under a storm. It seemed so still and solid, Sydney wondered if he might tread atop it but he didn't move to try. He felt no reason to. He was so very tired and his eyes hurt though he couldn't feel them. It was much better to stay here and breathe the air and watch the life passing through him, wherever he was. He saw the ocean but was certain he was not actually in the waters but on a shore looking out. It was hard to discern though. He saw nothing save the still waters and the visible air, shimmering with the blood, the pain, and the memories. It shimmered brilliantly; oranges and yellows that scalded despite his inability to see them. He only felt the colours and felt the thick burning air in his soul.

        With a great sluggish roar, the ocean began to roll again. A few colours reappeared; green and blue and the shine of wet red from a sun swallowed by clouds. Sydney sighed once the sound of the breakers became breathing. He loved the simple sound of a human's breath. In and out like a melody. Sometimes he would sit in the little room that he and Hardin shared and just listen to him breathing as he slept. Hardin's breaths were so free and easy in his slumber and strangely soft like a child's. Like Joshua's. Sydney had been in his Father's mansion once when Joshua was barely two years old and he'd stood outside the baby's room as he'd slept and just... listened.

        Bardorba had come to interrupt that reverie. The Mansion had been dark and the servants all asleep. Sydney could enter the home undetected and remain there as long as he liked but it was a bit harder for the Duke to uphold such secrecy, despite the house being his. Meetings between the two could be nothing save brief affairs while the servants were unawares and the night cloaked their actions from prying eyes. Tonight was no different. Sydney had walked the hallways under a mask of invisibility, waiting for the Duke to find a moment for him. He'd spent the last half hour just standing in the doorway and watching Joshua slip into slumber. The Nursemaids managed to fall asleep long before the baby ever did and Sydney found that amusing. Joshua was lively and observant. He'd stare out the window of his little gilded cage through the chinks in his little gilded cradle and just watch and watch the moon until those thickly-lashed eyelids of his slipped closed and he fell into dreams that Sydney envied.

        "What do you think of him?" Bardorba asked, approaching from behind with a handful of parchment. Sydney didn't turn, his head resting lightly against one side of the doorframe.

        "He looks like you."

        "Nay, he looks like you," the Duke admonished, the hint of a smile in his words, "So much so that it's unnerving at times."

        "Unnerving enough to banish seventeen years?"

        "Has it been that long?"

        "Close enough. I could reckon the days as well if you like." There was the old challenge in the younger man's voice and Bardorba seemed weary to hear it. The moment Sydney made out that weariness, he regretted his words. "Have you only asked me here tonight to meet your new family then?" he questioned, turning away from the door and the sounds of Joshua's breathing, "Hadn't you best get to it then, Milord? Or shall we make our rounds in the shadows. I'm afraid I might disturb Her Lady Bardorba if I meet her in the light. Or does she know you have another son at all?"

        "Have you come across Monique?" the Duke asked, deciding to ignore the bitter question. Sydney calmed suddenly, realising just how unwilling he was for a confrontation.

        "I saw her upstairs," he replied softly, "She is very beautiful. I am jealous."

        "Are you?" Bardorba said, losing a dram of his patience, "Well I am not here to show you my family, Sydney. Are you here to mock me?"

        "I have better things to do."

        "Are those 'better things' what have kept you from coming to me these past three years?"

        The cultist smiled and closed his eyes, wandering idly through the dark and silent hallway they stood within. "I've travelled all over Valendia since last I spoke to you. I've even ventured out of the country into the pagans' lands, thinking I might find support in men as hunted as myself. I've gone far in search of believers, building a backing, a following, men who'll listen when I speak."

        "You play this well," Bardorba complimented, "I've already heard mention of your name in the District buildings. You'll have Batistum and the VKP panting down your neck before long."

        "Ah?" Sydney breathed, turning suddenly to look upon his father with laughing eyes. A high window to his right poured moonlight on the both of them and his claws shone silver and cold when he gestured. "The best of both worlds. But better they bare their fangs at Müllenkamp than at yourself or the Statesmen, those with real power. Is that not what this is all about?"

        Bardorba rustled his papers awkwardly, bowing his head to trace the patterns in the carpet with his eyes. "You're not some distraction. I would not have you make yourself a target. You, little mouse, do not see the true danger in the lions whose paws you dance so playfully about."

        "No, no, Milord, I think if anyone's blind 'tis the lions themselves," Sydney contradicted with a wagging finger that flashed in the moonlight, "The church knows that they crush people with their advances. They know it, they accept it, but they do naught to correct it. They consider the animosity of their foes to be a force that feeds their power, never suspecting it is actually a force that could threaten that power. They think that all things are mice. They do not see the cobras hiding under the fur."

        "You're a cobra?" Bardorba asked, masking a bit of scorn, "Such zeal. I assumed you'd play this all as a prisoner acting against his will."

        Sydney shook his head, some of the gaiety slipping from his voice and the bitterness making a return. "The Church is at the heart of all of this. Their hypocrisy sickens me. I've met people they've tortured, women they've shamed, men who can't make a living now because the Church's clerics have branded them heretics. They eat and they eat of the delicacies around them, spitting the bones and the shells at those who will not serve. No man could be shown the things I've seen and not begin to feel the hatred I've began to feel. I've seen the 'truth', Milord, and it springs not from my own past nor from the doctrines of the Great Lady nor the complexities of the Dark. I see a truth forged by the actions of a power that is quickly becoming absolute. If that power is not curbed then I fear--"

        "For tomorrow's mice?" Bardorba interrupted. The Duke let a smile broaden his features and his expression held a trace of pride. "I worried for a while that you'd become a bitter little boy too wrapped up in the ways you imagined you'd been wronged to ever see the bigger picture. I'm glad those worries were unfounded. What will you do to tame those lions?"

        "Why did you call me here tonight?"

        Challenged, the Duke decided to turn away. "You're young and arrogant but I warn you to stay clear of the Cardinal."

        "I don't need your warnings."

        "But you need my money," Bardorba growled in return, the parchment in his hand crackling as his fists tightened, "I can cut you off if I feel you've began to grow reckless."

        "Cut me off then, sir," Sydney scoffed, intentionally raising his voice to set the Duke on edge. He'd wake this entire household if the old man continued these inane threats. "I never asked for your money nor did I ask for Leá Monde. You can have both back if it keeps you out of my affairs. You would never follow through with such things though. Anymore than you'd take ME back after offering me unto men of Müllenkamp. You forget your heritage, defy tradition, cater to the government of this country that crushed your home and killed your kin yet even in that there is a degree of simpering baseness. All of your spoils, anything that you needn't keep to maintain your front, all of it you return to the people you've left in the shadows. And why is that? So that you may feel ease when you lay your head 'gainst the pillow at night beside your lovely wife and newborn son."

        "Ach, ach, little boy, beware that brash tongue," Bardorba warned, his old eyes piercing his son's bright grey ones, smouldering anger in both, "You'll regret these words when I'm gone."

        "Yes, that's likely," Sydney sighed, "But tonight you're here and so am I. Do you know how painful it is to see this home? To see you with a new son and wife as though mother and I never existed? I feel as though you're flaunting these things in my face like pearls before a pauper."

        "That was not my intention," the old man answered, leaning back heavily against the wall. He shut his eyes and massaged the lids with the palm of one hand as though to push the exhaustion away. He was literally folded over with exhaustion. Sydney saw now that the papers in his hand were carefully penned orders to his lackeys in Parliament. Bending closer, he saw the papers were stacks and stacks of puppet-requests, written solely to delay the coming election proceedings in order to give the independent parties more time to prepare.

        "You're tired, Milord," Sydney said suddenly, much more softly than he'd spoken before, "I'm leaving the province tomorrow for a while. Perhaps with myself gone you needn't be so anxious."

        "This isn't about you, scamp," Bardorba said testily, waggling his paper-laden hand, "Not everything is about you." A little humbled, Sydney wasn't sure how to respond. He stepped backwards instead, casting a quick glance through the darkened doorway leading to the little boy's bedroom, thinking he'd heard the rustling of sheets. Quick and clever Joshua. Sydney smiled as the Duke continued. "I didn't mean for this to be an argument, Sydney. I only wanted to see you tonight, that's all."

        "But why?"

        Bardorba shifted his gaze away. "Three years is a long time to keep from seeing you... I had no ulterior motive. No order to give, nor favour to ask. I just wanted to see you."

        "Hush now," the younger man whispered, "You're almost starting to sound sincere."

        "Don't play your games with me."

        "If you insist, Milord."

        There was an awkward silence then. Bardorba felt like a warrior in battle who'd just ripped off his breastplate and bared his heart to the enemies' spears. He flipped idly at the papers in his hands and Sydney watched him, his claws limp and lifeless at his sides and his hair fallen forward over his eyes. The Manor was large and profound about them both; a third party to the forbidden meeting. There were echoes of memories in this place, waves and waves of the past striking the present shore that he might acknowledge but chose not to, backing away instead from the surf. He could hear these waves, as audible to him as Joshua's breaths and felt a sudden chaos that threatened to send him away from the Manor and his father into something infinite, painful, and endless. But then, even this place and time weren't anything that brought him real peace. He couldn't be with his father as he would have truly liked to anymore than he could now freely walk in the Square without a robe to hide his iron arms. Still he found a dark pride in his monstrousness. He wouldn't let go of that, not even now.

        "I'm still yours then?" he asked suddenly, seeming almost like a child as he turned his face up to the Duke, the moon's light sitting favourably on his delicate features. Bardorba nodded, laying a hand to rest on the younger man's shoulder.

        "You doubted it?"

        "With a replacement as fine as your little Joshua, how couldn't I?"

        "Quiet, child. For a leader of men, you're remarkably insecure."

        "Insecure?" Sydney chuckled quietly, "Never, Milord, only a mite lonely at times."


        The sky here was like a gift. Truly beautiful skies always were. He'd never asked to see such splendour in the heavens nor made a request for those blues, those greys... this was a gift from the Divine. Or mayhaps it was simply a pattern that his eyes and mind found pleasing so he made them into the Divine. Mayhaps it was always that way with God. One found God in things too lovely or precious to explain.

        ~You look too often to the sky.~

        Müllenkamp. Of course she'd say that to him. The sky was naught but light. The colours, the shape and visual feel of the clouds were all defined solely by the way the sun struck. Müllenkamp had little love for the light, painting her portraits with Dark in its stead. Sydney knew that the light that defined the sky had nothing to do with what they termed the opposite of the Dark to be yet if he could aggravate his Mistress with a pun, so be it.

        "I look to the sky because it's there and it's permanent. It's the most beautiful thing we have; the maker of every other beautiful thing this world cares to claim. 'Tis why so many men see God in the clouds."

        Insistent and deafening, the waves crashed and Sydney was standing at the window of a hovel in Valnain, a tiny place some of his followers had rented the night before. His gorgeous Lady of the Dark had been in his dreams often as of late and such sport it was to feel her lips against his neck as he slept. There was purpose behind her touch though, and definite intention in every kiss.

        "...they're uneasy... this city is absolutely infested by the Church's plague..."

        "If it wasn't, it wouldn't be Valnain."

        Abrupt but casual, two things only he could ever truly manage at once, Sydney turned from the window to face Hardin. His eyes were still entranced by the view of the perfect skies outside and so his friend's face seemed a little too dark at first. He couldn't make out the unease written there though it poured from his mind like new wine.

        "I've sent a few of them away," Hardin continued, looking nervously over Sydney's shoulder and through the window at his back, "We should keep our numbers low. I'm not sure exactly how covert our entrance was. Some of the guardsmen put up more of a fight than we'd anticipated."

        "But you disposed of them, correct?"

        "Like applecores," Hardin answered with a little grin, "Tossed 'em in the river. The pikes will feast tonight."

        "Good man."

        Pleased with the approval, Hardin nodded and moved a step aside so Sydney could pace past him, further into the tiny room. The accommodations were sparse at best yet the quarters were temporary. There was no need for grandeur. Besides, lowering themselves to these standards allowed them to d