Eadwald slowly slipped into his loose, leathery coat with furred trims and angularly funnel shaped collar covering most of his neck, his blade resting in its sheath thrown over his back. After the breakfast he remained on the ground floor ordering a few more drinks and asking the lievhen bartender with a deep earthly complexion and ursine facial features after the others have left to their suite then headed out to the training grounds to kill some time.
From the bartender he learned the city only had one gate leading out from the city lessening a bit his determination as he was sure the guards were probably notified to not let him pass. Though he still resolved himself to slip out as the lievhe said there were quite the many vagrants, traveling merchants that entered daily in the dozen. Hiding amongst them was his only choice at the moment, that he recognized.
He also recommended a few places to visit in the city, like the House of Deossos in the opposite side of this district, a nonagonal structure made from froststone mined in the northern colonial province, a strange fusion of stone and ice usually polished and carved into slabs that resemble marble but instead of a pure white, possessed a marvelous ice shade and sheen.
And he also warned Eadwald to keep a weapon to himself and watch his surroundings as for the past few years, vagrants, adventurers and travelers disappeared without a trace as he pointed at one of the dry paper signs inscribed with phantasmal words and vague drawings constantly shifting.
“Where are you heading?” Eadwald’s body tensed up as he descended the stairs and noticed both Aelfsigior and Priernuss leaning against the pillars near the entrance door.
“Just a little sight seeing stroll around the city. If I have to stay here for months, at least I want to be familiar with the place.” He lied quite not naturally and the two accepted it with a sigh though as he walked through between them, both lurched onto his shoulder and Priernuss said with a cheeky smile. “Well, don’t mind us tagging along.”
Eadwald turned at him with a forced smile and replied gritting his teeth slightly as he revised his plan to escape, including an option to convince the two somehow. “The more the merrier as they say.”
To signal to him they were onto us, Aelfsigior galloped before him, opening the door while Priernuss remained close beside him, his right eye glowing with an otherworldly glow as he kept more than one eye on Eadwald. “It is also better. Seems like some folk in the city may not be to keen on having visitors.”
Whilst they stepped outside, Eadwald’s mind was racing through the words deep and reasonable enough for the two, or at least for Aelfsigior. “I know. The lievhe bartender mentioned it as I asked about the places to visit in the city.” Aelfsigior turned back and stared at him inquisitively. “What places did he recommend?” Then asked not wanting to dwell on that subject.
“He mentioned the House of Deossos built from froststone on the other side of this district.” Stepping out Eadwald stated as he hurried through the wet, muddy ground swallowing his feet and came to a halt in the sweltering light violet and amber daylight. His hands curled into first, pushing into his sides as a strange relief washed over him while rotating in the direction of the House of Deossos, his eyes directed upwards along the wall that seemed to never end.
“He also mentioned wandering merchants whom native to the vibrant deserts that arrived just a few weeks before us.” Priernuss added. “Good, we shall finish the day there if that is fine with either of you.” The two nodded and set off in the sloping street with a paved road of gloomy stones of asymmetrical silhouettes sunk deep into the ground.
Giving up for the day to escape, Eadwald decided to truly familiarize with the city and his gaze wandered across the angular buildings of multiple floors. As Priernuss noticed it, he explained that originally these were homes the same size as Vonschneithars’, though as more and more folk migrated southwards, refugees of the Dhaugruz Basin from the fallen kingdom, the homesteads were expanded, altered into elevated, stretched cubicles rising straightly, reaching almost the top of the walls.
Whilst originally there were space for alleys and gardens between and behind them, as more and more people flocked to the city, these additions faded and now each floor belonged to a family smaller or matching in size to Eadwalds’ with a singular staired corridor on the left and right side. Some gardens to remained in a different form. The mansions, houses closest to the palace district possessed large balconies overlooking the city, large enough for one or two trees and a flowerbed or two for harvests or native flora to be grown.
In the districts themselves, drawn out and angular archways grown from the walls and segmented the districts, runes carved into the touching keystones far above their heads, sifting the shadows with a faint iridescent tint on the mundane level. On the arkhaine, Eadwald felt as if he passed through an unseen, intangible web which for a short moment, latched its tendrils onto his soul, searching for something and then retreating with the same velocity after it found it.
“A checkpoint. There are magusos in the towers keeping note of any irregularity in the soul and body.” Noticing Eadwald halting and staring back inquisitively, Aelfsigior explained. “Mostly they look for signs of a veil that alters the outward appearance or well in some cases the mark of augmentation not registered by the Order of Maghia’s Truth.” Priernuss expanded on as Eadwald was not the brightest spark when it came to matters of arkhaine, maghia.
“Or in the case of criminals, they usually carry the Mark of Justice the inquisitors of the Order embed into their soul.” Aelfsigior added as they continued onwards the House of Deossos in the small garden segment where birch trees with veiny cavities and white bark rose on the sides, bearing crimson and deep violet leaves while filling the air with a temperate, pleasantly scented air. Between the rows of trees the same road continued on, hurting the experience of this calming place Eadwald thought.
At the end of it – as the lievhen bartender said – laid the entrance to the House of Deossos in all its frosty magnificence. Before the great nonagonal edifice, the road widened greatly with elevated gardens on the sides ornated with mesmerizing flora, shrubbery. The greenery lit up occasionally in a shifting, melding mixture of ruby, sapphire, amber and chestnut emanating from the circling, swirling, twisting petals of the various strange flowers protruding or slanting timidly forth the emerald or dull green shrubberies while grass bright and white as snow stretched in the cubicle space separated by the crossroad.
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At the center of each crossroad, a large fountain arose spewing pristine cerulean water. Sculptures of the deossos and their undying servants decorating the angularly curving trims while the central pillar spewing forth the water from the rhombus aperture consisted of the same shape stacked neatly into and against itself growing forth the dark grayish stone submerged beneath the unblemished water.
The House of Deossos itself was moated by emerald shrubbery with statues unfamiliar to Eadwald erected periodically before the mosaiced windows glinting in the light of the illius. Aelfsigior named a few whom he himself met during his days in the legion centuries before.
“That was High-Mystriir Erenco of the Septurriost Circle, a great magusos whom I accompanied on a hunt for a great kraken terrorizing the eastern shores.” He said with a nostalgic gaze focused on the carving of the masked figure in long layers of loose robes eternalized with a draught of air passing through them, the only merkin distinction the webbed hands raised as he tamed the element of water.
“The wind I still feel carrying the malodorous stench of the corpses stuck in the spikes of teeth arrayed in that sickeningly round maw, how Erenco wrestled control from the beast over the waters, the whirlpool it created to suck our ship into itself. And the triumphant relief that followed as he forced the kraken into a bubble lifted it into the air while we hurled javelins, shot it with arrows and spells yet not a single one of them could penetrate its scaled black hide, only the pressure of the deep brought an end to its terror once and for all.” The two listened silently, staring at the statue with various expressions – wondrous, reverential for Eadwald, dazed off for Priernuss who imagined every details, present or absent.
The three stood silently before the statue, then after Aelfsigior muttered a prayer to Erenco’s soul, Priernuss walked away to inspect the others in hope to evoke a similar memory from Aelfsigior. Though in the end, it was he who was flooded by old memories from the far south he hailed from, from the days he first joined with the legion. “Is it someone you knew uncle?” Eadwald asked noticing the solemn, lost gaze in his eyes. Priernuss simply nodded.
“Ryathus. A friend of my father and one of the reasons I began to study the ways of arkhaine and became a magus so many a days ago. I fought under his command many times after father passed away against the many threats lurking in the domed vistas of the far south.” He began with half a smile while his eyes pasted onto the lifelike sculpture of the aurhe draped in long embroidered robes and pieces of armor strikingly of southern style. “It may be absurd of me to say this, but he was a second father though we only spent a fracture of his or mine life together.”
His chest bulged, a crescent smile formed on his face as he exhaled in a strange relief. “Fate must have truly took pity on me to bring me here, to satiate, to cease the tolling thoughts that born in my mind ever since he stepped out of my life, of my mothers’ life so many a days ago.”
“What was he like?” Aelfsigior asked as he stepped against his other side with folded arms. “Kind as he often showed compassion, sympathy for bandits and raiders whom took up that profession out of desperation and treated every folk with equality.” He stopped for a moment, closing his eyes, evoking memories of the days spent in the searing south of myriad shades standing before the pleading enemy whose mind Ryathus probed for the truth. ”Clever as he always knew what to say, and well of course proved proficient in the arts of Illusion as often he would act as judge and jury in the fate of criminals and those who earned his sympathy were forced into an endless blissful world of their mind instead of one filled with nightmares and suffering which they themselves metered out against their victims.”
“It is no surprise then he may have come here in hopes of swerving back those pariah folk to the path of the Empire.” He said in a whispery tone while balling his hands into fists, gulped the pebbles weighing his throat with pain and relief. “A goodman to the end.” Hot air breezed his lips then expunged the pain with heave of sigh.
He turned to the other two with their hands on his shoulder, their fists on their abdomen where the central arkhaine point of all living and mortal beings laid, calmed down once more and adopted a cheerful manner. “Now shall we head in?”
**
Though as all three believed they could spend a few hours in the House of Deossos, in the end they only spent an hour before they visited each shrine dedicated to the Ur-Deossos. Even Eadwald who prayed the longest for the well-being of Ulrich reached the shrine of Almodo before hour of midday. Though in the end, whether because of the weight of his sword or because of the long path they walked, Eadwald felt the crawling voidness of his hunger accompanied by the grumble of his stomach.
The moment they stepped out, they all unanimously decided to head straight for the market to buy luncheon instead of visiting some other segment of the city or the training ground where the others waited for them while practicing with golems. By the time they reached the market, all of them were weakened mildly by their hunger, though a certain uncertainty grappled their decision making on what to eat upon assaulted by the cavalcade of tantalizing scents in the grand space of the market place, a collection of spiraling kiosks of both northern and distinctive southern kind, large stalls shrouded by colorful velvety tents, bathed in vibrant shadows of crimson, golden all condensed into the center in a spiraling formation.
“What’s that?” Eadwald pointed at the hovering golden and crimson runes above the southern stalls and kiosks, patting weakly Priernuss’s side.
“Aether Signs. You have to pour mana into your eyes and focus on them, will them to reveal their meaning.” Priernuss said then suddenly stopped before continuing. “Though most of these places serve food way spicier than you could handle it I believe.”
“We’ll see about that.” Aelfsigior chuckled heartily at the firm declaration of the boy. “I bet three hundred daeniir that you won’t be able to handle more than three spiced and shrunken crocodile legs.” Relieved by the attitude of Eadwald, Priernuss invited him to the challenge and the trio headed straight for the tent at the tail end of the spiral. Though their chance of entering fizzled for the moment, when shrieks increasing in number reached their ears, and Eadwald without thinking grabbed his blade and rushed to its source.
The rush of people impended their way in, though folk pointed Eadwald towards the center when they noticed his peculiar blade and the determination and anger in his eyes. At the center, the ghastly figure of an undead turned at them, halting in its search through the stalls, surrounded by three merchants’ corpses. It lunged with its long claws, stretched jaw laden with dagger sharp teeth at Eadwald, though neither reached him as the undead monstrosities’ head flew off by the swift and precise strike of Eadwald.
“Everything’s fine.” Hearing movement from behind one, he rushed and leapt onto the wide stall bereft of goods, though he lowered his blade pointed forwards for a short moment in which he recognized the dwarven child with a metallic epidermis of brass clutching a toy. He sheathed his blade, assumed an affable look and reached out to the girl. “Let’s find your parents, shall we?”
With the kid in hand he leapt down just as Priernuss and Aelfsigior caught up to him, their weapons drenched in the ichor flowing in the veins of restless dead. “Was this the last one?” He asked the two and they nodded then sighed a relief just as the earth trembled by the heavy steps of the approaching custodiir of the city.
Leading them was a tall orkh clad in the dull, white armor of the Custodiir, flailed helmet under his pit as he approached Eadwald. “I’ll take it you are Eadwald. Please come with us.”