Walden Moran had thrown enough parties to know that things were not going well, but for the life of him, he could not discover why.
It couldn’t be the musicians; were they not the finest quartet in the city? Their melodies wound around the great room and tempted a respectable number of dancing couples to twirl each other around to polite applause.
He tapped his chin lightly, appraising the furnishings. No one with any kind of breeding could take umbridge with the decor, surely? He had just had the entire mansion remodeled, the east wall replaced with a towering glass window that framed the crooked arcanist tower perfectly. The marble of the hearth had been carved by the dwarves at Burley and was a veritable work of art.
With a snap of his fingers, he summoned a server, plucked a dainty canapé from a silver tray, and popped it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Simply divine. He sipped his wine and swirled the liquid around his cheeks. The vintage was an utterly perfect match. So what in all the abyssal hells was it?
“It's the bloody long ears, Lord Moran! This blockade of theirs has completely shut down the harbor; all business has come to a standstill,” Lord Tanner decried, his gums peeling back to reveal his large, horse-like teeth. “That’s not to say I don’t like them; many of my friends are faelen, and they’re perfectly respectable. But even so, having so many Covenant uniforms around the city just puts people on edge; it's damn bad for business.”
Lord Tanner was the sort to decry everything, loudly and often ignorantly, but in this case, Moran realized that the walrus-faced man might have actually identified the very problem that had been eluding him.
The two Faelen guards by the main door wore gaudy red jackets that clashed terribly with the new drapes. How could anyone hope to enjoy an evening with such an eyesore?
“Lord Tanner, I thank you for pointing this out. The effect of the Faelen occupation of the city is far more severe than I had previously thought,” Moran announced.
Tanner nodded his head, producing a hurupmph sound, as he smoothed his white pencil moustache with a fat finger. “I’m glad you agree, Lord Moran; I was hoping that–”
“They are positively ruining my party.” Moran snapped his fingers again, and Martin scurried over and gave a shallow bow. "Marty, dear boy, run upstairs and fetch the room divider from my chambers, the large one with those wonderfully painted peacocks.”
Martin hurried away, but Lord Tanner, regrettably, remained, clearly not willing to let the matter go now that he had the bit between his large teeth.
“Lord Moran,” Lord Tanner took on what he must have thought was a fatherly tone; had he met Moran’s father, he would have realized how laughable that was. A hacking cough and a mumbled curse would have been more accurate. “As a preeminent arcanist and the first son of the city, surely you would be best placed to intercede.”
“You’re right, Lord Tanner, something must be done.”
“Then you will take a stand?”
“I feel I must, or the whole evening will be ruined. You’ll excuse me.”
The faelen guards stood stiffly to attention at the main door, their glares made slightly less threatening by their heavily powdered faces, tightly braided gray wigs, and gold rings that hung from their elongated, pointed ears. Street actors used to don similar garb and prance around to the mocking jeers of the crowd, but none would dare now.
As long as they don’t speak with that ridiculous accent, Moran thought as he approached the guards. “Gentle guardsmen, I would be so bold as to ask you to relocate, perhaps outside the door, or better still, down to the main gate.”
“By the esteemed decree of Tarir-del, we are to remain steadfast.” The Faelen guard accompanied his words with an exceptionally well-executed bow.
Moran heard muttered comments and hushed laughter behind him and felt a spike of irritation. Even the lowliest of faelen acted like knights of some damn ancient realm, speaking down to him in his own mansion!
A labored huffing announced the arrival of Martin, leading several footmen bowed under the immense weight of the eight-foot-tall room divider.
“Place it there, Marty; there's a good fellow,” Moran indicated.
Once installed, the huge edifice completely blocked the main door and the two Faelen guards and Moran turned to assess the room, taking a steady breath. Dancers danced, gentlemen made bad jokes, and women laughed. But the discordant note remained, like a splinter in his senses.
His eyes were drawn to the portrait above the mantelpiece; the dusty painting had been unearthed during the renovation, cleaned and mounted that very morning.
Moran approached, swirling the wine in his glass, as his grandfather glared down at him with frosty disapproval. The older man's gray arcanist robes were covered in medals, and the customary library background was adorned with various sharp pieces of weaponry. The painting was the problem, but for the life of him he didn’t know why.
“He was a right bastard he was,” came a syrupy voice behind him that was followed by a wet cough.
Moran gave an involuntary shudder and turned to the weasel-faced man behind him. “Odred, what are you doing here, you horrible little man?”
“I just wanted to see your fancy party.” Odred looked about, his face scrunched up in disapproval. “Bit dry, ain’t it?”
Odred smelled like he had been the victim of some terrible curse, and Moran tried to shut down his sense of smell. Nearby, the cello player gagged and missed a note.
“Get out of here before I have you thrown out,” Moran hissed, signaling to Martin across the room.
“You’d throw me out? Your granda’d turn over in his grave. Specially if he saw you let the long-ears into his house. Why don’t you go show 'em who’s boss?” Odred extended his hands, cackling as he hopped from foot to foot, miming power shooting from his grubby palms.
“I leave the fighting to the mercenaries, the praying to the missionaries, and magic to the mystics,” Moran replied.
“That sort of thing pass for being clever around here, does it?” Odred sneered. “That’s yer problem Waldy, too clever by half. Always got yer nose in a book; yer skin and bone!” Odred looked up at the portrait, sniffing and wiping a tear from his eye. "Look at him, the old bastard; he went out in the world and toughened himself up, made a name for himself.”
Martin arrived trailing two burly footmen and gave Moran an expectant look.
Moran glanced at the portrait, then at Odred, trying to make up his mind. “Him first, Marty. Take him out through the kitchens, and if he touches anything, burn it. When you’re done, get rid of the painting.”
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Odred raised his hands in mock surrender, unleashing a nauseating wave of living stink. “All right, all right, I’m going. Only came to give you this.” Moran took the grubby scrap of paper and a rusted key carefully between his thumb and index finger, and Odred was led away, carving a large path in the assembled guests who held delicate lace kerchiefs to their noses as their eyes watered.
Moran read the message, the cadence of his heart beat quickening as the sounds of the party around him faded to a dull murmur. His gaze was drawn inexorably to the dark stone tower that reared up in the center of the city like a gnarled giant's finger, and he weighed the small key in his palm.
How many years had it been since he had been inside? As much as he hated what it had become, he felt its alluring pull.
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Moran strode through the empty streets, the cold drizzle soaking through the hood of his gray cloak and into the soft leather of his fine shoes. The air held tension like a bow drawn tight, with occupiers and inhabitants careful to draw shallow breaths, lest the fragile peace be disturbed.
Two red-uniformed faelen snapped to attention as he approached. Not that the place needed guards. When enough people who won’t be missed go missing, people start to notice. There are less beggars frequenting the quayside, a lack of orphans roaming in gangs, and absent women plying their trade in dank taverns and dismal alleyways. Then whispers and rumors spread, and the tower is avoided at all costs.
“Pray, declare the nature of your business.” The guard declared, speaking as if he had come from a time hundreds of years ago, which, Moran thought, he almost had in a way.
“Move aside,” Moran commanded.
“Apologies, my Lord; you are expected; pray hasten to the tower portal.”
Moran’s footfalls echoed in the inner courtyard as he approached the gnarled old tower. The roughly cut stones that made up the curved edifice had been rammed together almost haphazardly, and by any law of the natural world, a brisk wind should bring the whole thing tumbling down, but arcanist towers didn’t operate according to anything so mundane as natural laws.
There were no windows, and only a small wooden door at the base. Moran inserted the small rusted key, and the clunk of the lock echoed loudly.
Inside, collections of priceless artifacts had been broken apart and left to collect dust on the shelves, and a cold fire grate spilled filthy ashes that had been trodden onto priceless carpets.
Shattered glass lay on the floor in front of a display case that held an ancient hedron. It was likely one of the first ever created to power the great floating citadels of the arcanum that used to rove the skies. Now it was broken open, his inheritance plundered.
Up the winding spiral staircase, he passed doors at every level that led, quite impossibly, to multitudes of rooms and chambers. If even half of the rumors were true, then those rooms should be sealed up forever, hiding whatever torturous memories had seeped into their walls.
The domed top floor of the tower was at least a hundred and fifty feet above the city. Its open sides affording sweeping views across the ocean, the coast, and the hills, yet they let in neither breath of wind nor drop of rain.
“You’re late.” Sumner Nixton shuffled out of the gloom, his robe trailing in the dust on the floor.
“I was hosting a party. I see you hired Odred as a cleaner,” Moran countered. “and a cook,” he added, seeing the moldy crusts that littered the table.
Sumner gave a wet cough that could have been a laugh. The years had not been kind to his father. He had always been short, with a slightly crooked back and a shuffling gait, but now there was a musty smell to him, like the wardrobe of somebody long dead. “Climb down off of your bloody high horse; you’re going to need to show some humility to negotiate with the Arcanum and the Wikkan.”
Moran blinked in disbelief. “Now you want to negotiate? You chose a side for all of us when you invited the Faelen into the city. Their ships block the passage. They’re in my house!”
His father waved a hand dismissively and muttered to himself. Along with the remains of old meals, the large table was piled high with books, and he rummaged among them, finally producing a thick sheaf of papers. “I invited the faelen here to force the hand of the arcanum and the wikkan; now they will have to give in to my demands. You’ll need this.”
Moran took the papers and flicked through them. They were demands for obscure parcels of land, gold, titles, treaties, alliances, and pardons for names he had never heard of. “Why would you want any of this?” Moran asked.
Sumner gave a sly grin. “Is this you telling me you wish to work with me? Sick of your dancing and prancing and polite society are you? Ready to get your hands dirty?”
Moran suppressed a shudder at the thought of the filth that lay on his father’s hands and the horrible stains in the stones of this tower that might never be scrubbed clean. “No, the people of this city need not fear the entire family.”
Sumner gave a great hacking cough and spat a lump of phlegm onto the dusty floor. “You have too much of your mother's misplaced idealism, and that’s no good to me.”
“You are delusional. The Arcanum might give in; the gods know they have nothing to lose, but the Wikkan do not negotiate, and the Erudorans–”
Summer slapped his hand on the table, sending empty bottles and old plates crashing down to shatter on the flagstones. “None of them have a choice! Without me, without the tower, the Covenant will eviscerate them all. They know it, and I know it. Even those black-eyed witches will have to give me what I want.”
As distasteful as he was, Moran admired his father's cunning. He had contrived to place himself at the convergence of the great powers, and whoever won him as an ally would gain a huge advantage.
“You will be breaking your word to the Covenant, to Myam-tal.”
“You and he both disappoint me, with your honor, your lineage and your poxy heritage, your arcanum pin, and your politics. Nixtons do not hunt in packs; we are lone wolves; we answer to no one!” The old man's ranting descended into another round of wet coughing.
Walden threw the papers onto the table. “I am otherwise occupied.”
“Yes, I hear you’ve been dueling again. How can you stand all that bowing and taking turns? Shaking hands at the end? Bah!”
“I understand that you grapple with the concept of honor.”
Sumner gave a sly grin. “The best attack is when your enemies don’t even know it was you that struck them. Admit it, you’re bored, or you wouldn’t have come. You have more of me in you than you care to admit. You want a real fight? It's a long way through the hills to Helgan’s Rest from here, a journey like that would put some hair on your balls.”
“Go yourself.”
“You know I can’t go near them after what I did to your grandfather; they still worship the old fool, and Roveran would likely have me killed. You’re one of them; they’ll trust you, and they need the ships gone.”
It was a bold move to choose a side so early in the conflict, potentially a fatal one. Moran glanced over at the tarnished mechanism that haunted the far end of the tower. “Does it even function?”
Sumner shuffled over and beat the dish with his fist, it produced a low gong and dust fell from it. “Function? Your mother’s father's father made this; he was as much a fool as any noble, but as a craftsman, this continent may never again see his like.” Sumner pulled cobwebs from the mechanism. “It's a masterpiece, though he was too weak to ever use it, a curse of your mother's bloodline that I fear you have inherited.”
Moran took a moment to turn the information around in his head, half watching his father move around the chamber, kicking empty wine bottles across the floor as he gathered various books.
It wasn’t the faelen guards that had been the problem this evening. It wasn’t even that damn portrait. It was him, he realized. He was bored. Bored of Lord Tanners shouted opinions and the pathetic maneuvering of the others, bored of his mansion and the endless parade of parties. Here was a chance for adventure—a journey into the wilds. He had been a middling student, but now he could return to the arcanum from a position of power.
His father watched him carefully, always calculating.
“So, what do you want, boy?”
There should be a price, but there was only one thing Moran had ever wanted, and they both knew it.
“I want the tower,” Moran stated.
A wet sound came from Sumner's throat, and Moran realized he was laughing. “So sentimental. You’ll need more than elbow grease to get some of the stains out of this pile of rocks. You have a deal, but you must go now, tonight.”
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The red-uniformed Faelen who guarded the gate of the citadel of Morbian were cold and had retreated to the gatehouse, which had a small stove. Some time around the tenth bell, twenty horsemen clattered across the causeway and out towards the hills to the west.
The guards ran out, but they were too late to stop them, and the night was cold, and their rations were poor, and if they made a report, they would likely be punished. They argued and complained and failed to choose who would go into the hostile city, then retired back to the warmth of the gate house.
After all, how much damage could a group of horsemen do anyway?