In the end, it had been quite a simple matter of obtaining transport to Rooskeld. They did not even have to ask for guidance, as, before they neared the caravan market within Westgate, dozens of drivers yelled out destinations and fares. A few of the more cunning caravanners yelled out to the crowds of prospective passengers with foreboding warnings of staying in such a dangerous city as what Helmsgarten had become.
“Ride to Rooskeld! Ride to Rooskeld! Escape the danger and worry of the big city! Only forty-two Novarins!”
It was not long before Jakob, Heskel, and undead Sig were seated within the tight stow of a wooden carriage. Rusted metal strips were secured carelessly with thin nails to the wooden frame, giving off the impression of structural stability, though Jakob knew it would not hold against even modest winds, let alone provide any meaningful cover should they come under attack during transit. The canopy was likewise not in the greatest shape, but their trip would only last a day and a half at most, so he did not care. Besides, having lived in the frigid sewers made even such shoddy transport seem like overindulgent luxury to him.
A few other passengers had been about to board, when they saw the trio and promptly left to find a different carriage. The driver glared daggers at them, until Heskel, with a nudge from Jakob, handed him the payment for their trip: a golden orb that had once been an eyeball. Afterwards, they were treated like royalty, though the driver still waited around a while longer, perhaps hoping some senseless passengers would board regardless.
“Waste time,” grumbled Heskel.
Sig stared blankly into the air, as though a puppet with her strings cut. Jakob was looking at her, once again satisfied with himself at how he had reduced such a proud heretic to this, and did not bother respond to his impatient Lifeward. At last he had found a punishment for her Eyeless faith that he thought fitting.
Then Sig turned her black-eyed head slowly to look out the opening at the back of the carriage. The sudden animation surprised Jakob and he followed her gaze despite himself, managing to catch the exact moment a passenger boarded.
A ruffled bush of crimson hair was the first thing that caught his attention, then he recognised the face and the dimpled smile, but he quickly rose from his seat when he noticed the eyes that mirrored Sig’s own.
“…Jakob…we meet again…”
“Guillaume. What are you doing here?”
“…I was drawn…to her…”
“You want her for your collection?”
“…yes…”
The way the body of the Daemon’s puppet stood completely motionless, his mouth and eyes not moving a hair’s breadth when he spoke. The way he was so clearly just a facsimile of the living. It unnerved Jakob no small amount. Heskel quickly got in front of him, misunderstanding the situation.
“I have forgotten to introduce you,” Jakob said flatly. “Heskel, you may treat him as a neutral party, for now. Guillaume is an Undying Daemon whose service I summoned, on behalf of the Crown, to return to them an inconsequential Prince.”
Heskel looked wrongfooted by this and only relaxed his threatening posture slightly. “Why help?”
“They would have slain me if I refused. Besides, I deemed it a decent way to get them off our backs, though it seemed not to have lasted long…”
“…the Prince…now a King…it has been amusing…to watch…”
“Why are you here?”
“…when I sensed Her…when I saw your Divine Work…I felt myself drawn…to you…once again…”
“Mister, are you getting on or not??” asked the driver from behind Guillaume suddenly.
“He is with me,” Jakob answered the man.
“Very well, get seated, we’ll be leaving shortly.”
As the driver went around the carriage and hopped into his seat up front, Jakob returned to his seat and Guillaume sat opposite Sig. Heskel however remained standing. It was strange to see him so disarmed and unsure.
“Heskel, sit down.”
The Wight grunted disobediently, but Jakob quickly tightened the leash to quash his mutiny in its infancy.
“Now.”
Heskel grumbled but sat down, so that he faced both Jakob and Guillaume from the side. Moments later, the carriage took off, bumbling across the paved streets of Westgate.
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“Why are you being so difficult?”
“Suffer not the Daemons, for they lack the sensible restraints of True Demons.”
“…we have a similar…saying…about humans…” Guillaume remarked.
“You may quote Grandfather as much as you desire, but would that he had entreated with a Daemon such as Guillaume and perhaps he would not have been buried within the bowels of the city to save his own life.”
Heskel was struck mute by this degrading reduction of his Master and Creator. In the end, he had no retort however, as Jakob spoke only the truth.
Decades prior, Grandfather had fought the Crown and lost. In the final fight, he had suffered tremendously, leading him down a desperate path to prolong his own life and stave off the encroaching shadow of Death. Jakob was not simply made an apprentice to ensure the Old Spider’s legacy and craft lived on, no, he was Grandfather’s last hope: a hope of salvation from the limbo he had ensured on himself. But there was doubtlessly little about his self-induced interment that Jakob could fix, after all, Grandfather himself could not solve his conundrum and he wielded an arsenal of magic far greater than Jakob and was possessed of a cunning and intellect unmatched in all of the world.
But it was clear that he was slipping, given how irresponsible and unhinged his behaviour had become when he learnt of the tomes Jakob had obtained. Something that Grandfather had never said, but which Jakob had learnt, was that he valued freedom above all else; above knowledge, power, and even the reverence for the Great Ones. He wished to obtain the ability to leave his laboratorium and survive, but it seemed such would never come to pass.
Though Grandfather would not reveal which Great One he had prayed to, begged to, sacrificed to, and supplicated before, in order to obtain salvation, Jakob had a fairly good idea. He had prayed and a Great One had responded, but the salvation came in the form of a Faustian Bargain, one so devious that no one but the Flayed Lady could have devised it.
Grandfather had been saved from what to all mortals was inevitable, but, he could never leave his laboratorium. Within the narrow space where Jakob had been summoned so many years ago, his Mentor existed, never straying beyond its stone walls. He lived vicariously through his servants, chimeras, monsters, and his apprentice.
One time, Jakob was unsure when, the Old Spider had tried to leave, believing his internment a mental one made to fool him, but the moment he crossed the boundary, half his body turned to ash, thus reducing him to the husk he now was.
And Heskel knew this truth well. He had to have seen through the veneer of his Creator. He had to have seen the whimpering and pathetic old man who hid there, hoping that creating monsters would protect him from the one monster all men fear.
“Guillaume,” Jakob started. “If you agree to aid me, you may have Sig.”
“…what aid do you…seek…”
“We are summoning Nharlla.”
There was a pause before the petrified undead facsimile responded, but then it came, building like encroaching thunder in the dark, a drawn-out and maniacal laughter.
“…I will aid you…if I get to witness Nharlla…descend to this mortal plane…”
Jakob smiled beneath his scent-mask. It seemed that he needed not have been so cautious of the Daemon.
“You revere the Great Ones?”
“…they are the primogenitors…of us all…”
Jakob nodded enthusiastically. “Indeed.”
“…you must know…I will dedicate myself…fully to aiding you…”
“That’s good.”
“…to that end…I will inform you that…the King seeks your imprisonment…”
“I am aware,” Jakob replied indifferently.
Heskel looked between them uneasily. Jakob knew he must have guessed as much already, but the confirmation was no doubt still troubling to him. Particularly given the fact they had already succeeded once.
“…I will utilise my…other vessels…to stall them…”
“You can consciously operate more than one of your corpse puppets?” Jakob asked, the prospect seemed impossible to him, but then he also did not know the limits of the Daemon’s powers. After all, despite Demons and Daemons following prescribed formulas, in terms of power and temperament, they yet retained manifold quirks and powers that oftentimes were unique to the individual creature.
“…yes…I currently possess eighteen…my power multiplies with their numbers…”
It was little wonder that an Undying Daemon could decimate a nation in days if allowed to run rampant, Jakob considered darkly.
“Will they notice the absence of one?”
“…due to my grip…on the life…of their King…they allow me much…freedom…”
“And they cannot track you?”
“…no…”
“Very well. We are going to Rooskeld, a township to the west where we hope to find one of the Tolls of the summoning rite.”
“…may I see…the instructions…”
“No,” Heskel replied adamantly. He was clutching the Tungsten Scroll jealously, as though begging the Daemon to take it from him.
“Guillaume. You may be an ally, but you have not earnt that right. Talk is talk, and though your kin are not known to boldly lie, there are things we cannot trust you with, even if we bind you with a thousand contracts and oaths.”
“…I understand…I simply desire to witness…the Avatar of a Great One…”
The child-like sincerity of the Daemon’s desire made Jakob grin deviously beneath his mask as an idea formed in his mind. Through the opening at the back of the carriage, he saw the gate that Westgate was named after shrink into the horizon.