First hour in the morning, while Gleur refilled the water bowls of the creature’s cage sand eyed them with disgust, Ald presented himself before the door of the place Gleur had denominated “the stables”. They were some old military installations just outside the walls, barely used buildings that sometimes served as barracks or a reunion center for soldiers. One room was also used as a small arsenal. Yet the bunk beds were now empty, the metal cages resting over the wooden frames. A few of them shaking over their contents.

“You are early,” Gleur barked. It was more of an accusation than a statement.

“I wake up with the sun and go to bed with the sun. Such is a farmer’s life,” he said, leisurely making his way into the building, despite Gleur’s long face.

Ald counted the prisoners. Four. “We lost another one.”

“Yes, the miserable thing committed suicide overnight. Clawed his own entrails out.”

“A mistake on our part taking him or her prisoner?” Ald asked with a tone so cold it almost sent shivers down Gleur’s spine.

“No, animals eat their own legs to get free from traps, this is not necessarily a signal of any underlying Felsian thought processes. None of them answered to my questions in any sensible way, nor to the signs I made in case they were deaf. None of them showed the smallest speck of rationality.”

“What if they speak with” Ald made a short pause, trying to parse his thoughts “other words? Like birds speak in songs with their mates and dogs bark at each other, isn’t it possible for their words to be different than ours?” asked Ald, because the Felsians had no concept of different languages. All Felsians spoke with the same words, sometimes one of them made a new one, but it was just that, a neologism. One city, one tongue.

“Then may The Mother forgive us for doing what she is forcing us to do, Ald.And if she intends for us to sacrifice her own sons and daughters instead, well, this that I will say next is heresy, so feel free to cover your ears.” Gleur waited a moment. Ald remained impervious, his gaze fixated on the sage. “Fine, I don’t want the blessings or forgiveness of The Mother if she demands the blood of our siblings in any way or capacity. A mother that kills her own offspring is worse than a beast. Father is cruel, a necessary evil, enough evil. Mother being evil too breaks the balance, cannot be accepted.”

“Animals eat their children sometimes. Bitches eat their pups without apparent reason sometimes and—”

“And we deem there is something very wrong with that particular animal when that happens.” Gleur interrupted, then palmed Ald on the shoulder. “Take a seat, there isn’t much to do until the others come.”

Ald went up to the battered round table whose surface was full of knife marks and even had some slurs carved on it. He set aside a chair whose legs didn’t agree on which was the proper length they should have, wobbled it a little to see if there was some position where it would stay balanced, and, after giving up, sat on it.

“Do you have a rock or a book or anything at all I can use to fix this thing?”

“Books are to be read, not to be put under chair leg’s.”

Ald sighed and slouched against the chair’s back. “Fine. Can you prepare some tereptes?”

Gleur remained silent for a second, and then spoke. “You failed to mention the moment in which I dressed as a maid, for you to assume I am one.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Is that your way of telling me I forgot to say ‘Please’?”

“Pretty much so.”

Ald sat up and took some lazy steps towards the old pantry, opening its wooden doors, sounding the creaky hinges. He dug among the multiple jars of conserves and dried foods. Until he found a characteristic brown sack woven out of plant fibers, a Felsian equivalent to burlap, if the comparison would please you.

He gave it a quick sniff, inhaling deeply. Yes, that was what he was looking for.

“Do you want me to prepare a kettle?”

“Yes,” and then Ald hesitated for a moment, “please.”

Gleur ignited the fire using flint, steel and a little tinder. Ald thought it half-old fashioned, and half innovative, with the latter being due to the fact Gleur used the pommel of his dagger as the aforementioned steel.

As the fire struggled to rise and burn harder, Gleur filled the kettle with water from some fine ceramic jugs —which contrasted with the overall atmosphere of the place, and particularly, would have felt they were being held prisoners of that dirty and unorganized place if they weren’t, as they could only be, inanimate objects— and Ald was grinding the herbs in a mortar. For the sake of illusion and fabrications, we are not going to reveal the true thoughts of the plants that had been brutally plucked from the soil, dried under the scorching summer sun, and whose mummified corpses were now being ground to small pieces to then be submerged in near-boiling water.

Ald then placed the pulverized herbs into a semispherical lattice joined to a steel ring. Under this filter, a wooden recipient rested. This recipient bore a straw made out of a resistant stalk.

“So, Ald, why did you come so early?”

“I have already told you.”

“You have already lied to me, which is different. I want the true reason,” Gleur said, never taking his eyes away from the kettle.

“I meant to question what will we be facing out there. Over the drink. I was about to ask. To begin asking,” he muttered. He didn’t want to look like a coward in front of his superior.

Gleur took the kettle and placed it on a crocheted trivet at the center of the table.

“I don’t think it’s likely we will come across one of the dangerous masterworks. Of the known ones, at least. We could come across the one I hate the most, but that one is … fundamentally inoffensive. It mastered annoyance, though,” he began, not without certain notorious reluctance.

“Which one is that? A name, Gleur,” said Ald, as he carefully poured the water over the dry leaves, and gave the first sips to the drink.

“You will know when you find it. And you’ll find it, provided you live long enough. It visits Felsians who know about the masterworks. Time and time and time again. If you truly want to give it a name, call it Malediction. Or Curse, if you are one of those folks allergic to long words.”

“How many masterworks are known to the felsian government?” Ald pushed further.

“Six,” Gleur snarled. “Two of them could be called neutral or benevolent. The other one inhabits the Worldvein, and is the one most Felsians have heard about, even if not aware of its particular nature.”

“Baskeut?” Ald ventured, naming one of the monsters the riverfarers spoke the most about.

“Yes. The legendary warden of the waters. He is a kind beast, and this I say having found him only once. There is a reason why most tell tales of the majestic creature shining under the waters of the Worldvein, greeting them without even approaching their boats. He knows, Ald, he knows what his size would do. He cares for the fishermen.”

Ald emptied the shallow recipient under the filter with some quick sips, and then poured water on the herbs again, before passing the steaming infusion to Gleur.

“So, tell me about the other three, the ones I have to worry about.”

“That’s illegal. Not by my decision, but of Milod. Just know that Wildfire has a twin, yet they don’t wander near each other. The other two have only been spotted near Felsia once before our lifetimes, and believe me, the archives we have about them lead me to believe they are not the kind of things one is worried about being sneaked on by.”

Then Gleur drank the infusion, passing the tereptes back to Ald, who in turn refilled it once again, with the herbs getting a little bit more washed with each cycle.

“So… Is that all you can tell me?” Ald asked between sips.

“Indeed, little brother. Felsia lives and dies by its laws. And while I may whine about the ones I don’t agree with, reneging on them is plunging a dirk into the heart of our society.”

Ald decided it was high time to change the subject. They still had good time to kill before the hour set for the rendezvous. “So, what will we do if it cloudcries?”

“Get wet. Get mud on our boots. Maybe slip and fall and die a horrible death,” Gleur deadpanned, and after a few seconds, chuckled.