For all the negativity he had heard with regard to these monthly parties and his own biases against the Duke, Arkk couldn’t say that the party was bad. Strange and alien, yes. Social rituals were being conducted all around him, ones he didn’t quite understand nor could he participate in.
Arkk, led through the ballroom first by Hawkwood and then by Aron Wolf, bounced from group to group. He barely had time to talk to any of them before being whisked off to be introduced to the next little clique. Zullie, Ilya, and even Dakka were nowhere to be seen. None had alerted him to any problems…
If he were being honest, he wished one of them would have a problem just so that he could disentangle himself from smiling at some old man who was droning on about how well the glassblowing industry had faired this year. Arkk kept up a polite smile, not sure what to say or do. Aron occasionally interjected with his commentary on whatever business ventures he had entered into recently, mostly discussing his plans for Darkwood come spring.
At its base, the party was a festive feast. Not altogether unlike a good meal after a bountiful harvest back at Langleey. Yet the whole affair was so… subdued. People stood around, talking and making business deals rather than celebrating. This wasn’t exactly a celebration so maybe that was understandable. Still, it just felt off to Arkk. Then there was the food and drink. People drank but not like at a proper feast. They sipped at tall glasses, metering and measuring how much they consumed. The food was slightly less surprising, if only thanks to Hawkwood’s invitation to dinner upon Arkk’s arrival to Cliff. It consisted of a dozen plates of what was effectively samplings of a proper meal, though, as of yet, that proper meal had yet to be served.
“Ah!” Aron said, interrupting his own words. He reached out and patted the old glassblower on the arm. “I’ve spotted Geralt. I simply have to speak with him this evening.” He paused and glanced toward Arkk. “Head of a woodworking guild who I’m hoping to court to produce end products,” he explained. “Care to meet him?”
“That’s… very kind of you,” Arkk said, trying to avoid looking like he was searching for an escape while still looking for one. If he were being honest, he very much wished that he was still being led around by Hawkwood. At least the man’s mercenary contacts were more… interesting than hearing about trade commissions all evening.
Thankfully and luckily with perfect timing, someone in the room screamed. A sharp note of surprise, not pain. An instant later, blinding white light reflected off the slanted panes of glass overhead, making Arkk blink for a moment before an entire corner of the room went dark.
“But I should see what this is all about,” he said, moving quickly before Aron had time to protest. It helped that the man—and the other businessmen in this group—were looking around with obvious shock and surprise, trying to figure out if something dangerous was going on.
Arkk wasn’t concerned. At least not that the party was under attack. Weaving through pockets of people, he made it to the end of the room just after a small contingent of guards. Judging by the looks on their faces, the guards hadn’t expected anything to go amiss. They probably worked at a ton of these events, all of which went smoothly. Of course, all those events hadn’t had Zullie in attendance.
“—flimsy filigree! It is no fault of mine that the Duke’s contractors couldn’t build the ritual array to last! I was just looking! I didn’t even touch it.”
“—staring at it all night! I watched her walk around the column no less than eight times.”
“—tried to make it look like she slipped but she did something when she touched it. There was a flash. I saw it! Everyone saw it!”
A small crowd stood around in the darkened corner of the room, all talking at once. The poor guards were looking back and forth, trying to sort out the stories. It was clear that none of the guards were leader-types as none had taken charge. Figuring it was best to get in before things could degrade, Arkk started forward and froze.
A tall man broke the barrier formed by the crowd before Arkk could. Hands clasped behind his back and wearing an empty smile, Master Inquisitor Darius Vrox reached the pillar in just a few quick strides of his long legs.
“Zullie, Zullie, Zullie. How lovely to see you again.”
A change rippled over the crowd. If these people didn’t know who Vrox was, the gleaming silver pin of an eye with a bar through it told them enough. Many onlookers turned, not-so-subtly edging away from the area. If an inquisitor was involved, they didn’t want to look like they might have had anything to do with the problem. Even the guards, while immediately deferring to the inquisitor, shuffled in obvious discomfort.
Arkk, for his part, remained in the wings, watching to see how the situation played out. If Zullie looked like she was in trouble, he would jump in without hesitation. Until that moment, however, he wanted a better read on the situation. This was the first they had seen of the inquisitors. It had gotten to the point where Arkk figured they just didn’t care. Vrox knew that Zullie worked with Arkk and, by extension, the ‘being from beyond the stars’ as well. Zullie had even fought against Vrox during the invasion of the false fortress, though she hadn’t played a very focal role.
How Vrox interacted with Zullie would tell Arkk a great deal about how the inquisitor might treat him. Would a fight break out right here in the middle of the party? Would Vrox act cordial as he had their first few encounters? Was he upset and holding a grudge? Was it just business?
“Darius,” Zullie said, tone cool and with a note of familiarity. “Finally decided to crawl out from under your church to harass a respectable researcher more intelligent than yourself again?”
“I would never describe you as any of those three words,” Vrox said, tightening his smile ever so slightly. His eyes flicked up to the top of the pillar, which, Arkk noted, was leaking a bit of smoke. Thankfully, the glass ceiling had panels that could be opened. The room wasn’t filling up. “You overloaded the array. Beginner’s mistake.”
“If someone had designed a proper shunt, it wouldn’t have been possible to overload. Not that I did. I was just looking when the cycling magic overloaded itself.”
“Ah yes. Spontaneous overload. One of your earlier research projects. You wrote a paper on the subject that almost got you laughed out of the academy. A way of excusing your mistakes in array construction, so claimed your peers, with no factual basis in reality. Haven’t heard a word about it in the years since.”
“The context of those essays was overlooked,” Zullie snapped, stomping her foot. “Spontaneous overload only occurs in planar arrays that fail to compensate. Not regular ritual circles. Everyone ignored that bit… And I didn’t shut up about it because my ‘peers’ mocked me.” She used her fingers to accentuate the comment. “I dropped the research because you came knocking at my door.”
“I recall that conversation. Early in my career, I was a little more generous. Shouldn’t have let you go free, should I have?”
Zullie shifted, looking a little less confident. She adjusted her glasses in a way that Arkk had come to understand meant uncertainty. “I appreciated it,” she hedged.
“Well—”
“Darius Vrox,” Arkk said, deciding to not let his employee suffer any other threats to her life. “How good to see you again.”
“Arkk,” the man said, turning. His circular glasses slid down his nose as he looked down from his height. “I heard you were in town,” he added, tone as flat as Arkk’s.
“I’m hurt you didn’t come visit. I was expecting you from the very first day and you never showed.”
“That, Arkk, is exactly why I didn’t come. You’re one of those types who isn’t as clever as you think you are. The difference between you and those incompetents is that you have a frankly absurd degree of luck to fall back on,” Vrox said. His smile slipped during the latter part of his comment. Taking a breath, he let it out as a long sigh before smiling once again.
“I try,” Arkk said. “I think I’m getting better.”
“That concerns me.” Vrox cast a glance around the room. “You didn’t bring the purifier with you?”
“Agnete said that she isn’t interested in these kinds of things. Even if she was…”
“You wouldn’t want to put all these people in danger,” Vrox finished, nodding his head.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to. I know the purifier. Though not as well as I had thought. I honestly expected you to slip up and leave the Binding Agent aside, opening yourself to incineration. I suppose that was too much to hope for.”
“She isn’t that bad.”
Vrox hummed a note of disagreement.
“So,” Arkk said, eyes flicking down to his shadow just to confirm that it stretched a little too long. With the column in front of him darkened and the rest of the room lit, it reached clear across the space to Vrox. “What now? Fight? Try to arrest us?”
“Unless you’ve come with war in mind, not today, Arkk. Hardly a suitable location for it here, is it? No. I’ve studied your movements and actions for the past several months. You aren’t the type to place unrelated people in danger. I am not either.” He shook his head, looking mildly upset despite his words.
“You sent random people searching through the Cursed Forest.”
“And none were harmed,” Vrox said with the worst smile. Like he knew that there had been no danger in the first place. He was right. It still irritated Arkk. “Arresting you would be within the realm of reasonable action. If I thought it would work. I do not believe you would have come here without some trickery or foolhardy plan on how you might extricate yourself.”
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At that, Arkk dipped his head in acknowledgment. That one was true and Arkk didn’t mind admitting it if it was a factor in not trying to arrest him. “So what then? Smile and wave and go our separate ways?”
“It isn’t too late to avoid all conflict. Have you given any further thought to our last discussion?”
Arkk blinked, taking a moment to remember. His first thoughts were of the invasion of the fortress. Aside from panicking over an unleashed Agnete, they hadn’t talked about much during that fight. The last discussion had taken place in Langleey just after he sent Hale and John off to the fortress to keep them out of the inquisitor’s hands.
“About handing over my companions?” Arkk asked with narrowed eyes. “I haven’t spared a single second thinking over such nonsense.”
“Shame.” Vrox’s eyes flicked up and over Arkk’s shoulder. Arkk didn’t turn. Although he couldn’t see any eyes lighting up his shadow, he trusted Vezta to have at least some awareness of their surroundings. If someone was sneaking up on him, she would react. “Very well, Arkk. I trust you to not cause issues tonight.”
Trust. An odd way to put it. Arkk doubted he would have trusted Vrox if the man were wandering around Fortress Al-Mir during a party. Nevertheless, Vrox clasped his hands behind his back once again and started away. The guards watched him go, still unsure about what to do with the situation. They had been hoping the inquisitor would definitively resolve it and he clearly had not.
Arkk took advantage of their uncertainty, rushing forward and taking Zullie by the arm. “What were you doing?” he whispered, trying to lead her away. “Blowing up their lights like that?”
“I didn’t. I was just looking. There is something unusual about the lights here. The light isn’t generated normally and it isn’t emitted as a byproduct like what happens with a flame. It is… siphoned from somewhere. Planar magic. Right in the open and on full display.”
Arkk stopped short, glancing back. He had thought he understood the array when he saw it. Granted, he had only looked briefly before his attentions were stolen away by the rest of the party. His studies hadn’t reached a point where he had started learning anything about planar magic, unfortunately. He only knew how to draw out teleportation circles from rote memorization, not from any actual knowledge of the subject.
“You’re sure?”
“It is subtle,” Zullie admitted. “But it is there.”
“Where is the light coming from?”
Zullie shrugged. “That’s what I was trying to figure out. Could be the other side of the world where the sun is still up. Could be… elsewhere.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“How am I supposed to know that? I don’t even know where it is coming from. Unless it is brand new, other parties have been held here and nobody has—”
“What is the meaning of this?” a deep voice bellowed in anger.
Arkk hid the grimace that appeared on his face as fast as it came. He wished for a moment that he hadn’t stopped to look back at the column. It was a silly wish. The guards wouldn’t have taken any time to track him down if he stayed at the party.
Now, he had to deal with the main man.
Arkk had never before met—or even seen—the Duke Levi Woldair. That didn’t mean he didn’t recognize the man before him instantly. He had heard from Ilya, from Aron Wolf, and from Hawkwood what the man was like and how he looked.
With bloated cheeks, a round belly, and eyes a smidge too large for his face, the man looked like a toad. A toad dressed in a flashy red and black suit with thick lapels. Golden thread adorned the hems of his suit jacket, the legs of his pants, and even the ruffled ascot tucked down his front. More gold bands wrapped around each of the man’s thick fingers. Enough to buy a small room back at Fortress Al-Mir.
But Arkk’s eyes lingered on the red-faced man for only a moment. The figure behind him, standing tall with an uncomfortably familiar ethereal grace, stole his attention. Her long hair flowed behind her, draped over her bare shoulders above her light gray dress. There was no doubt about her identity. If there had been, the way her sharp silver eyes flicked over Arkk, Zullie, and the pillar would have removed any uncertainty. It was the same look Arkk had seen a million times while Ilya was out tracking down game.
Although, when she looked at him, Arkk failed to see any familiar recognition in Alya’s eyes. He supposed that made sense. It had been fifteen years since she last saw him. He had been a boy. A peasant at that, off in some backwater village that most of the Kingdom had likely never heard about. Now, he wore fine clothes and stood with dignity among those who would have passed him by with an upturned nose before.
Hopefully, the back of his neck wasn’t quite so sun-worn now.
“Duke Woldair,” Arkk started, forcing his eyes off Alya before she realized how much he was staring. “Pleasure to finally make—”
“Enough,” the man interrupted, face turning shades of purple that couldn’t be healthy. “What happened?” he said through grit teeth. It wasn’t too surprising given what Arkk knew about the man. He valued appearances and wealth. Having a whole corner of his ballroom plunged into darkness with smoke billowing out from the skylight wasn’t the best look.
And Arkk didn’t quite know how to answer him. So he looked to Zullie.
The witch rolled her eyes before donning the fakest smile Arkk had ever seen. “I’m a magical researcher with Company Al-Mir. While enjoying your fine festivities, I started hearing a fizzling noise. A sure sound of improperly vented magical circles. Following my ears, I found the source to be the lighting ritual here,” she said, motioning back toward the pillar. “I began a cursory examination. Following the Keppler array and applying Ragnold’s transvector theorem, I deduced the problem as a violation of Leibniz archaeo-ingnem horaspace directional slipstream. Unfortunately, before I could figure out a way to properly vent the system of excess magical energy… well…” Zullie glanced up, looking and sounding genuinely sorry.
Arkk just stared at her. He had only been properly studying magic for a few months now and only between all his other tasks. Still, he was fairly certain that he should have heard of at least one of those things she mentioned. He hadn’t. Had she made it all up? Arkk honestly could not tell.
At least the Duke looked less angry and more confused. He clearly had even less of a background in magical studies than Arkk did. “This room was built in my grandfather’s time and has never had a problem.”
“Not surprising,” Zullie answered instantly. “An issue like this is only apparent if the one activating the array has a drastically above-average capacity for magic. Fairly rare. Was someone new in charge of turning on the lights this evening?”
Woldair shared a look with Alya. It was clear that neither knew. Arkk doubted that the Duke involved himself in what was likely the duties of the lowest servants. Arkk wasn’t exactly sure what role Alya played. From what he had heard, she had served as some kind of advisor for the last five years or so. Managing servants was probably not among her duties either.
After frowning up at the thin layer of smoke that wasn’t quite venting out the open windows fast enough, the Duke looked back to the main entrance and made a swift motion with his hand. One of the finely dressed men announcing incoming guests hurried over.
“Majordomo,” the Duke said, sounding far more reasonable now that he wasn’t apoplectic. “Have tables set up in the throne room. Have the guests head to the entrance hall for the time being. We can’t carry on here.”
The servant nodded without a word, turned, and made a few hand motions of his own that gathered a few other servants to his side. They quickly left, departing the room while others began ushering the guests out. Arkk noted Dakka among the first few out the door, talking with what was likely the only other orc in the room.
“Company Al-Mir, you said? I appreciate your efforts at preventing this, even if they failed,” the Duke said, clearly skeptical still. Perhaps he just didn’t want to make more of a scene. “I’ve heard of you. Got the mines of Silver City running again?”
“Yes sir,” Arkk said, hoping his smile didn’t look too forced. Being recognized startled him somewhat. Given that their invitation had been forged, this was the moment when everything might crash down around them.
“A good metal,” the Duke said, nodding his head. Or maybe not. As with the lighting arrangements, the Duke didn’t send out invitations himself. “Not my favorite. It tarnishes too quickly.”
Arkk just kept his smile, not sure what to say to that. Eyes flicking down to the rings on the Duke’s fingers, he had a feeling he knew what metal was his favorite.
“I heard you turned down the reward.”
“The city looked like it needed all the help it could get. Taking what little they had wouldn’t have helped.”
“A man should be entitled to the fruits of his efforts,” the Duke said.
“In that, we agree completely,” Arkk said, trying to keep anything unpleasant out of his voice. Hoping he hadn’t slipped up, he quickly added on, “It was really no effort at all. I just asked the gorgon to move somewhere a little less disruptive.”
“If that was all,” the Duke said, relaxing even more than before. He stepped forward with a smile slowly forming on his face, making him look even more like a toad. “I can’t say I’m upset that you didn’t take my silver.”
Arkk’s eyebrow twitched as Woldair laughed and clapped a hand on his arm.
“That isn’t the first reward you turned down for a job well done if I remember right. Keep that up and you’ll go far indeed. Some of these mercenaries are greedy beyond belief.”
Arkk doubted any mercenary company could turn down rewards while still paying their men. Fortress Al-Mir was a bit special in that regard.
“Arkk was it?”
“Yes sir. Leader of Company Al-Mir. This is Zullie, my chief magical researcher. My field commander, Dakka, just got swept out into the hall with some of the other guests.” Arkk paused, turning slightly. “My second in command is standing just over there.”
Through his employee link, Arkk could see exactly where Ilya was and the conflicted, hesitant expression on her face as she watched the goings on.
The Duke turned to follow his gaze. Alya did as well. The Duke’s eyes took on a far more disgusting look as he mumbled something about “A man after my own heart.” Arkk had nothing polite to say about that and kept his mouth firmly shut.
Alya, on the other hand, drew in a sharp breath of air. She hadn’t reacted upon seeing him or even hearing his name. If the Duke knew this much about him, she had probably heard it before. It was very likely that she hadn’t thought he was the same Arkk that she had helped raise for a little under a decade. Arkk doubted he was the only one with his name in the whole Duchy let alone the greater Kingdom.
Seeing Ilya standing off to the side, however, dispelled any notions that he was someone else. She placed a hand on her chest, wrinkling her dress as she stared at Ilya. Through obvious force of will, she managed to look back to Arkk with renewed interest, looking him up and down with nostalgia in her eyes.
“Arkk?”
“Ah,” the Duke started before Arkk could say a word. “My vizier, Alya.”
“Yes. I’ve… heard of her. Though she is nothing like I imagined.” Namely, a slave chained to a dungeon wall, not someone high in the Duke’s confidence.
“Exotic and beautiful,” the Duke said, nodding his head in total agreement with nothing Arkk meant. “I have a taste for good… people,” he added with a wink.
“People…” Arkk said with an ill feeling in his stomach. He shook his head and smiled once again. “Does she ever write home to her family?”
Woldair propped an eyebrow up, not quite understanding. Alya, on the other hand, narrowed her eyes.
“Ilya, my second in command over there, worries a lot about her family. She frets and fears the worst. Just a few months ago, she made her way back home only to find out that the place had been raided by slavers. The poor woman was beside herself, thinking her entire family were slaves, sold off to the most deplorable sorts for reasons nobody wanted to think about.”
“The Duchy condemns slavery,” the Duke said, frowning as he started looking around.
“Oh yes, officially. Rogue elements still operate between burgs. Company Al-Mir just took out a large slavery operation near Moonshine Burg.”
“Terrible business…”
“Indeed. But just imagine poor Ilya’s surprise when she found out that one of her family wasn’t sold off at all but was leading those slavers.”
“Arkk…” Alya said, fully frowning now. “You don’t understand…”
“Oh? I don’t, do I?” Arkk asked, anger rising. “I was there, seeing everything with my own eyes. Saw Ilya’s mother cavorting with—”
“Arkk!”
Arkk clamped his jaw shut, looking to where Ilya was hurrying over.
“That’s enough,” she said, voice cracking. “That’s enough.”
Arkk disagreed. Fifteen years, they thought Alya was some slave to the Duke, taken against her will. Yet here she was, standing tall next to the Duke. He didn’t know the dynamics of the situation exactly but he was willing to bet that she was one of the more powerful people in the Duchy in terms of politics. Vizier? And she couldn’t even write a letter to her daughter?
But he didn’t open his mouth again. He was fairly certain that, despite speaking obtusely, he was going to be thrown out of the party if he kept talking. If not by the Duke, then by Alya. So, after lightly resting a hand on Ilya’s shoulder, he stepped back.
“Ilya,” Alya said, word careful and guarded.
“Hello, mother.”