On inquisitors – Excerpt from Wielding their last gift

...High Inquisitors are the chosen ones whose faith has allowed them to engrave an emanation of each season, bearing splotches of all four colors in their eyes. Some are said to have up to eight emanations, having completely covered their eyes with the holy colors...

Early spring / Mercy 782 ADM – Eternal Empire – Modona’s upper district – Kabey's coach

The coach rode smoothly on the upper districts' paved road a lizardman mounted on a war-horse and holding on to a brown mare followed them closely.

Inside Ulysse was seated in a corner, next to him was the unconscious form of his knight, she still drew breath he checked. Just like she had every time he had checked in the minutes since they had departed. The three crossbow bolts still stuck out of her body but the lizardman had forbid him from touching them, citing it would cause bleeding. It was hard to convince himself she was better of with the things inside, not outside her body.

On the other corner of the coach sat the mage. The boy somehow looked even more uncomfortable than him, glancing tentatively in Ulysse’s direction. That pissed him off, the guy was kidnapping him, he could at least make it look like the roles weren’t inverted.

“I don’t suppose you have changed your mind about letting us go?”

“I really can't do that, truly I am sorry, this is not something we ever do.”

A few more minutes passed in uncomfortable silence, they were now in the residential quarter, almost halfway to the patrician estates he supposed to be their destination.

Surprisingly it was Osen that spoke first, he was still uncomfortable but looked pretty serious.

“Earlier, when we fought, you mentioned calling the inquisition.”

“What of it? You are a mage, and a criminal, it’s the obvious thing to do.”

“If you call me a criminal then clearly you are ignorant of your family’s ways.”

The boy had struck a cord and I showed on Ulysse’s face.

“They don’t tell me much, at all. I can only listen to gossip at home.”

“I get you, my world was overturned the day we had the Talk.”

“What talk?”

“About my first point, the inquisition and magic.”

“Wait, you don’t mean you have a family of mages?”

“Yes and so do you, among the few mages in Modona most come from your family. Only an handful comes from ours, so if you call the inquisition they will come sniffing at your door too, then we can all burn on the same pyre.”

Ulysse rubbed his temples, processing the shaking revelation, it made so much sense. It explained so much.

“So Kresida is really a witch.”

“Who?”

“Hu, nothing. How do you know all that anyways?”

“I was told…”

Of course he thought, the one thing his family never did, telling him about stuff.

“…but only when I showed potential for magic.”

“So, we both are from mage families… What do mages do anyways, you hu, don’t really look like the type to make human sacrifices.”

“Not at all, stories spread by the church are so dumb. We mostly live openly as enchanters or alchemists. As long as we give them hefty donations, the church doesn’t really bother us. Then in secret we learn magic, well, try to really, our house doesn’t have a lot of magic knowledge."

He paused taking a deep breath.

“It’s likely the same with yours, except that your mages are really powerful, and scary. During yesterday’s raid there was...”

His voice caught at the harsh memories he hadn’t yet processed.

“I'm sorry, I don’t think I'm ready to talk of yesterday.”

Just like that the conversation was over, Osen looked like he was lost in his thoughts.

Unlike his last revelation this one didn’t bring a feeling of betrayal, it had made sense for them to keep a secret that could bring down the inquisition, plus it didn’t feel as personal as the torture channeling had brought him. Instead he contemplated things he had sometimes found strange at home, or lacking context. Kresida and the Librarian came to mind first, then the general lack of faith at home, easily explained since religion called then monsters. The Merxau branch he thought, it was there that they had most of theirs enchanters, the family business. Were they all mages? With the Merxau enchanters, the Librarian and Kresida, rounded up to account for these he had missed, it summed up to about 15 mages, that felt like a lot.

Were did they learn their magic from, that was the next mystery on his list. By deduction the book the librarian had given him was likely in their family's native tongue and he had promised to ‘teach him much', did he mean to teach him magic? Likely, now that he thought about it. It meant it was a tongue of magic.

Then it clicked, during their fight the mage had called him a necromundian, at the time he had thought it to be just an insult throw in the action due to his pale skin or eastern features. After all necromundians were know for theses traits while stories often mentioned black hairs and eyes of unnatural colors. Most of his family had black hair, purple eyes, and eastern features mixed in with northern and imperials ones.

Unholy shit, he was a necromundian.

He'd always thought they were just immigrants from some town at the frontier, not from the other side!

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“Osen I’m sorry my family is evil. I'm sorry for whatever they did to yours.”

“Wow, you were angry at me a few minutes ago, what brought that on.”

“I think we are necromundians.”

“Obviously.”

“You say that like It’s normal!”

“To be fair from what we've seen your family doesn’t seem to use black magic or necromancy, they are pretty normal as mages goes. If they are evil It's in trade and politics.”

“Ho, I thought they’d attacked you for some magical purpose.”

“Your attack was wholly unjustified, you wrecked our new enchanting warehouse just to get rid of concurrence. I was there you know.”

He took a deep breath he continued, this time he seemed ready, steeled against the memories.

“One moment I was trying to enchant a light, the next a huge monster, likely summoned by your mages, burst through the wall. There were shards of wood and bricks everywhere, peoples were panicking and thugs streamed in, breaking everything and beating peoples up. I actually got a huge bruise before nana healed me. In total there were 7 dead.”

He looked devastated, and shaken, Ulysse shuffled closer and put a hand on his shoulder.

“For what It’s worth if you had told me about this before the fight, I like to think I’d have followed you.”

“Thanks, for that, and for talking with me. I know you and I aren’t in the best situation, many would close up in your position.”

“I felt like closing up, but you’re not so bad for a kidnapper. Also what did you mean by you and I?”

“I guess I can explain some more about tomorrow's move.”

“You mean using hostages against our family?”

That made Osen frown, clearly he didn’t like the idea of using hostages.

“Guests, and not so much against as together. Obviously our Elders will want compensation for the warehouse and the workers, but the message was pretty clear, had your family wanted to they could have killed everyone at the warehouse. The Merentahs aren't peoples you can afford to have as enemies. So they are thinking of building an alliance.”

“Isn't it counter productive to take hostages then? It will just piss grandma off.”

“I thought the same thing, but the elders said we had to be taken seriously, our peoples are not known for violence or ruthlessness. We had to show we were capable of it.”

“Ok, so the hostages might work for the compensation and serious part, but what about the alliance?”

“Sadly that’s the part where I come in. I'll be sent over as a ward to the Merentahs in a show of good faith along with whatever they negotiate, and if the elders have their way your family should teach me some of their magic. Then someday I'll be able to bring the knowledge back home.”

Osen didn’t seem happy about it, he was resolved. Yet he still found himself looking outside the windows as if seeking freedom.

“That’s rough, I wouldn't want to be sent into a weird family of mages either.”

“I was terrified at the idea this morning, to join a necromundian family… but you seem pretty normal, I get why they made me kidnap you now.”

“Ha! See, you don’t even try to polite about it anymore, its invite, not kidnap.”

“I really hope you can forgive me about that someday.”

“I think I could forgive you, but I’ll be angry at your elders and the lizard for a long time, they really hurt Grace badly. I think its fair if you also hate my family, the warehouse must have been way worse than what happened at the smithy.”

Maybe it was cold to think of family this way but he felt guilty for what had happened at the raid. Two days ago they had been joking with his sister about their uncle stabbing bad guys, that was far from what had happened, theses Kabeys didn’t look like bad peoples, one could argue they were better than the Merentahs.

“Speaking of the smithy, you are pretty good with that blade.”

“I'm really not that good, you should see the Olian kids.”

“Olian, like the knight’s family?”

“Yeah they are one of our two main family branches.”

From the windows they could see the coach take a turn into an alley leading towards, it led towards a large red building, barely visible behind the tall hedge walls.

Strange trees of long palmed leaves stood in manicured rows along the entrance.

Ulysse noted their domain was much smaller, an acre at most, however most of it was covered by a squat rectangular building with walls of red smooth plaster and painted blue arabesques. All around columns of beige stone supported smooth arches that barely reached the three meter mark, making a sort of outdoor corridor around the complex, after the second story some exotic potted plants and length of cloths providing shade could be seen, likely some sort of rooftop terrace.

Around the entrance a small crowd had gathered, he could see peoples here of varied ethnicity, most wearing orange flowing robes. The most numerous were dark skinned southerners like Osen yet there were many lizardmen and humans of varied features.

“Are they all part of your family?” he asked as the coach was slowing down.

“Not quite, our clan consists of many families merged into one, unlike yours which is one family split in branches.”

They stopped before the crowd and the lizardman warrior, Veless if he remembered correctly opened their door.

Suddenly the sound wards were off and a deluge of voices washed over him, the crowd was angry and did not agree with each others.

“This is wrong, he is a child.”

“We should execute him to show those Merentahs a taste of their medicine.”

“Fools the both of you, we need to trade him for knowledge.”

“Look, there is another one, we could do both.”

The chorus of voices, both in imperial and in a southern tongue rose in chaotic disagreements, Ulysse didn’t dare set foot outside in case the man who had talked about execution did so right now and then.

Veless joined the shouting trying to get them to stop while spreading his arm so they would not approach the coach, after a few failed tries the bodyguard’s throat started to glow red, Focusing on his voice he yelled like thunder.

“ENOUGH!”

That seemed to quiet them down, the ones in front of him were holding their ears and recoiling.

“The elders already have plan for them.”

He turned to a lithe man.

“You, we have a wounded fetch a healer, she has three bolts stuck in plate armor, likely a concussion and paralytic poison.”

“Why don’t you d…”

“Now! And scamper off you all.”

The crowd reluctantly dispersed with a few last grumbles of disagreements, a moment later the lizardman stepped off from the coach door.

“You can come out kiddos.”

“Thanks Veless.”

Osen left the coach and Ulysse followed reluctantly, sending a dark look at the lizardman.

“You don’t like scalies little guest?”

“Those who harm family are our enemies.”

“Careful who you chose as an enemy, I spared your knight, by the code you owe me her life.”

“Veless you know the hunter's honor has no place in this city. And stop antagonizing him he's on our side now.”

Ulysse didn’t correct him, he empathized with him and owed him for what he'd learnt however his allegiance still held to his family, it didn’t matter if they were necromundian mages. Their heraldry, the linked rings, weren’t for show, they represented the bounds of family.

Osen turned back towards Ulysse, “Why don’t we show you to your quarters?”

“Sure, as long as they are not behind bars.”

“Not at all, and you won't be pestered by the other factions of our clan there.”

Osen followed a path of slabs to his home and Ulysse started after him, not wanting to stay with the lizardman. Said bodyguard seemed to stay at the coach, watching Grace.

“What are you going to do with her once she is tended?”

“They will likely keep her in the infirmary for the night, send her with the other guests. Since she is an veteran channeler they will give her something to stop her from doing that.”

“Wait, you can stop someone from channeling?”

“Yeah, you just need to flood the body with mana, she wont feel it as long as she doesn’t channel, but if she does I’m told the feeling is horrible, they describe it as…”

“Wrongness?”

“Hu, yes, how did you know that?”

Ulysse looked away, unwilling to tell about his problems.

“Doesn’t matter, you also said other guest, does that mean someone is already here?”

“By all accounts there should be, we had another group delivering an invitation.”

By then, the two of them had walked through a series a corridors leading to a stair guarded by two lizardman in similar gear to Veless.

“Here we are, I’ll accompany you to get settled.”

“You shouldn’t young master, a guest has already arrived and she is quite violent, she tried to stab one of the elders with a dagger she had hid in her boot when he came to visit.”

“Ho, that sounds like Vic'.”

The guard nodded at Ulysse.

“That is her name, yes. We will now search the guest for weapons.”

At this moment, Ulysse regretted not sharing his relative's paranoia, if he had a dagger he could have taken Osen hostage in the coach and make it drive him home.

“No need, he is 10, he doesn’t have any.”

“As you command.”

The guard frowned but complied either way.

Ulysse climbed the stairs to the second story, he turn his head to see Osen making a small wave of his hand, then continued on his way.

Into his prison.