From above, the town of Haviskali looked like a set of ever-moving blocks; stone for the commoners, with glass, wood and precious metals for the wealthy. The moving platforms ran all over the town, with the uniform-sized shops on either side of them, separated by the spiral monolithic keeps that housed the aristocrats within the town.
But up close…
“Don’t even think twice! This is the finest ether in the land!”
‘Yes, of course.” Tanya’s fake smile was so tired from overuse that she wondered if she’d be able to smile normally afterward.
Maude looked genuinely interested but given that this was the thirty second person who had stopped them in the last two hours to peddle their wares she simply had a far better poker face than Tanya did.
He was selling ether crystal and was exactly the same as all the peddlers who stopped them before him. If there was anything remarkably different about the man in front of them, it was his mustache. The man was getting progressively more excited as he described why his ether was better— by far compared to the other frauds who were selling inferior and low quality products.
There were two types of towns in the Llaisy Kingdom. The first were towns that were ‘useful’, providing valuable materials from anomalies and unique minerals and resources. This usually led to military might as well, with both nobles and adventures gathering where the wealth was.
The other kind were those that sold ether. Ether was something that everyone needed for quick and easy manacrafting and didn’t require any particular skill to manufacture. Rather it was just the compressing of raw mana into feldstone crystals, something that was present in abundance in the Llaisy Kingdom. It only required time and therefore, everyone was doing it.
Moving away from the salesman who had now picked a fight with the man who had set up a stall next to him, Tanya stood in front of the massive edifice of pure, white tefelvane stone looming over her. This was the Grevane, a citadel that both served as the administrative center of the town, the offices for the Cobalt Army, and the official premises for most bureaucratic activity.
Most nobility unlucky enough to be delegated in Haviskali ended up living here, a show of wealth to contrast the surrounding ether factories. The area was marred however by the conspicuously missing hillock upon which once rested Zuken’s mansion.
“Feels weird, doesn’t it?” Tanya murmured. “Just less than a year ago, we were so excited about our first job from nobility. And now…”
She trailed off staring at the ugly misshapen, charred land that contrasted with the surrounding whiteness.
“I wonder how it felt when Zuken saw it getting destroyed before his own eyes. ,” said Maude. “Must have been intense, no?”
And there it went again. Ever since the change, Maude was different. She had all the memories and abilities of the old Maude but there was a cruelty about her that she spoke of so casually.
“Almost makes me wish I was there to see it happen. Zuken was never one to display strong emotions. It would’ve been so… stirring.”
Maude had been doing this throughout their journey. Despite her assurance that the old Maude was still there. A part of her, she viewed humanity with the eye of curiosity akin to a child poking an ant nest with a stick.
“Do you…” Tanya hesitated. “Do you feel happy that this happened to him?”
Maude’s lips twisted into something that was almost but not quite a smile. “I…. don’t know? Zuken was good to me, but he was also an intruder. To the yurei. And yurei cannot feel. Vanir… feel a lot. I just wonder how exquisite that pain must have felt. Seeing his life upturned before his very eyes ....”
She looked at Tanya with an almost hungry look on her face.
“Are, I mean, do I still call you Maude?”
“Maude knew suffering, knew struggle and strife. She spent her entire existence cultivating and building and working towards something. Malon guarded the corridors of the anomaly ever since its conception. Guarding, creating, killing — that is all it has ever known. And one day, both woke up and found that their existence, their memories, have been given to someone else. To have your entire life’s accomplishment and purpose snatched from your grasps, and given to an identical twin you never knew existed.”
“Me,” Maude said after a moment’s pause. “I’m not Malon. I’m not Maude. I’m….”
“An Oni,” said Tanya, looking at her warily.
Oni were not something overly talked about in the Asukan Empire. There were records of Arpen, the first oni to be captured around four hundred years ago, the first known true fusion of Bremetan and Yokai, since the War. Because of its tremendous power they tried to weaponize it but it had gone out of control. Something had happened because a month later not only was it executed but everyone who had anything to do with it had vanished as well. After that any research on the subject was banned and the word Oni had gradually faded from common use.
“Mmm.”
Whatever she was about to say died in her throat. Tanya stared, bewildered, at the large twenty by twenty banner that floated way above their heads. On it, above the sigil of the Shogun, was printed in glowing, bold letters, proclaiming —
ALL SVARTALFAR WARES ARE HENCEFORTH CONSCRIPTED BY THE GOVERNMENT
TRADING IN SVARTALFAR WARES DECLARED ILLEGAL. TRESPASSERS WILL BE FINED FIVE THOUSAND MEZALS.
There was the insignia of Lord Naowa, the Shogun himself, along with the signature of Bezu Carvein, the Cobalt Army General, and Joran Axelson, the Army Captain of the Phalanx posted in Haviskali.
Now that she looked, none of the shops that traded in svartalfar wares were open. The shutters were down, with bills stamped with the Cobalt Army’s seal on their faces.
“What’s going on?” She asked. Svartalfars were anal-retentive, blood-thirsty weaponsmiths with a fetish for beheading others and ferocious sticklers for privacy. They also loathed the Asukans with a passion, and that went double for Nobles, and only traded their wares through third-party agencies, or the government. They also had some kind of deal with the Empire, because of which they had access to a particular borderland, a fringe territory bereft of Eternal Light in Haviskali, and a form of pseudo-amnesty from the Cobalt Army so long as they didn’t break Sacred Protocol.
“Aven’t you eard?” coughed a peddler from the street. “E Shimizu killed them all. Keep’s gone. No more magic metal, no more weapons. Gone.”
Tanya couldn’t believe her ears. Gone? The Shimizu had killed the svartalfars? What nonsense —
“The bigguns up there are furious,” said the peddler. “Army’s gathering all wares. Me son was dealing with those bitches at the Keep. Told im, dont. And now this.”
But Tanya was no longer listening. She and Maude had come to Haviskali to inspect what had transpired at Zuken’s place, and visit the Zwaray Keep to contact the svartalfars, and fabricate a story of their return through the Well. Solana had enough pull with the greedy bastards to make them play ball.
But if the svartalfars were gone then….
“Well this is interesting,” said Maude, looking at a cheap item on a stall to her right. A bundle of tiny balls with Eternal Light blitzing and reflecting within. “Does it come in black?”
Tanya suppressed the urge to growl. “Interesting my ass. This fucks up all our plans. Stop mucking around with —”
And for the second time that day, Tanya froze, staring at the stall owner’s face, or rather, his eyes. The last time she had seen those black orbs, they had glittered with savage laughter, adorned with fierce features, shoulder-length hair, and the build of an experienced soldier. It was a face to dominate or fight, never one to patronize or pity. Like a wild animal trapped in a cage too small.
Now? They looked glassy. His hair was no longer perfectly styled but rather bedraggled, his skin pale and his cheeks sallow and sunken. He looked like he wanted to leap and maul anyone he could reach with his grasping, talon-like hands, only to be held back by an ironclad confirmation that he would lose.
“...Olfric?”
The hawker froze, and looked at her with a mix of fright, shock and surprise in his eyes. The light of recognition filled in them, and he croaked…
“...Tanya?”
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“And that’s how Elena and I escaped and we’ve been in hiding ever since,” said the mustache.
It was brown and long and while the color matched his hair, its shade was slightly different, and Tanya couldn’t take her eyes off it.
“Is it real?”
“... sorry?” asked Olfric, bewildered.
“Is it real?” she asked, edging closer. “Did you paste it? Or grow it naturally?”
Tanya had many questions bubbling through her mind, and none of them had anything to do with Olfric’s story. She was no connoisseur of mustaches but there was something about it that fit Olfric’s face to a tee. It was furry, almost worm-like, and moved left and right that made her want to poke it. It just looked so right, that she wondered why Olfric never wore one before this.
It took him a moment to realize what she was talking about. “Does it matter?”
“Err… no.” Tanya blinked twice, and pulled back. She really should have Lukas get a mustache.
They were sitting inside the Errol’s Tavern, a dull, dim, drafty sort of place, unlike the heads of the great many people that frequented there. Tanya often visited here during her starting days as an adventurer. It was where you got good beer for cheap, along with under-the-table deals, dirty jobs that paid a lot of mezals up front but had no guarantee for later. Thieves, assassins, abductors, spies, feelers serving the Empire, undercover agents serving the Cobalt Army… you got it all. And the beer was good and cheap.
Basically, her sort of place.
They were sitting at a side table, Maude next to her, with Olfric sitting on the opposite end, his back facing the wall. He had an Eternal Light trinket grabbed tightly in his left hand, and kept glancing warily at Maude expecting a demon to tear its way out of her and eat him alive.
“I’m not going to bite you, Olfric,” said Maude saucily. “At least, until you want me to.”
Maude had been going out of her way to antagonize him. And watching her act with the face of a comrade was taking its toll on him.
“Stay away from me, demon, if you know what’s good for you,” said the former aquamancer, reaching for his sword with his right hand.
It was larger than she remembered it, to the point where its ability to be wielded effectively was being impaired by its size. It was how Olfric dealt with trauma. Everytime he went through something difficult, he would come back with his sword a size larger. His arranged marriage had fallen apart after he had been cast out of his clan and his sword seemed at least twice as large since the last time Tanya saw him.
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Maude gave him a rather sad and gentle smile. “Look at you, the poor man. A trinket and a sword. Did Father not give his son a new kami after he lost his?”
Maude’s face showed such genuine concern that if she looked at the scene without Olfric doing everything in his power to not get up and attack her, Tanya would believe that she actually cared.
“You and your kind are to blame for my loss, demon.”
Maude smiled with a shade of mockery so faint that no one who wasn’t looking for it could possibly have seen it. It was just enough to make sure that Olfric knew that she was rubbing it in his face.
She probably practiced it in a mirror.
She didn’t stop there. She was goading him, trying to bait a reaction and Tanya didn’t understand why. Something had changed in Maude beyond simply fusing memories. And she wasn’t sure what Maude’s angle was… or if there even was an angle.
The old Olfric would have most likely attacked by now. And yet being antagonized beyond what anyone would call reasonable,
Instead he took a deep breath and ignored it.
Turning to Tanya he asked, “Can you help me and Elena out?”
Of all the things he had said, this surprised Tanya the most. Olfric was always a headstrong man, stubborn bordering on arrogance, self-righteous, but absolutely fixed on his beliefs. His definition of the right and wrong was rigid, inflexible, unbending like the trident of the storm god he worshiped. For him to blatantly put his ego aside, and ask her of all people — someone he had always looked down upon — spoke volumes.
“Do you realize what you are asking?” she said. “I can help you. But you’d have to join me and the Yokai.”
“The yokai…”
“Or you can go and hide as a hawker,” said Maude. “Seems to come naturally to you.”
The air between them got physically colder which was… impossible. Olfric didn’t even have a kami. Tanya saw the slight curving of Maude’s lips.
“Think carefully,” said Olfric, grinding his teeth. “Before you call me a coward.”
His blunt, strong features were smooth and unreadable. He wanted to scream. He wanted to fight. Instead, he gave her an angry glare, before sighing. He looked down at the glass of liquor on the table and downed it in one go. As if mirroring him, Maude took hers and made it vanish without twitching an eye-lash. Tanya took a polite sip, and looked at the other two amused.
“Say… I agree,” he said at last. “What’s the plan?”
Tanya beamed.
The so-called ‘plan’ was split into three parts. The first was escaping the city, which was crawling with guards and added security after the destruction of the svaltalfars. There was no doubt that Shogun Naowa would deny the Shimizu any and all access to the Cobalt Army, but that didn’t mean her grandfather didn’t have spies and abductors all over the place.
The second was to locate Zuken and Olfric and to regroup with Lukas and the Yokai. The final part of the plan was to rescue Zuken.
It was worth mentioning that Tanya was not a strategist.
“That's not a plan.” Olfric roared. “ You just listed exactly what I told you needed to be done in three points.”
“No, it's fine.” Tanya argued. “I’ve been on the run for a long time and it's always worked out for me.”
It was worth mentioning again, that Tanya was not a strategist.
“Perhaps,” said Maude. “We should contact the Leader and discuss?”
“Leader…” began Olfric, as Maude left the table and walked off to the counter.
“Think of all the demons your daddy told you stories of as a kid,” said Tanya. “The wicked spirits, the evil body-stealing demons, the vile nameless things that live in the shadows.”
She grinned savagely. “Solana gave them lessons.”
Solana was the heavyweight champion in the yokai territory. Whether it be in direct, face-to-face mayhem or acting through defensive wards, there were relatively few people in the territory that could face her and win.
“And… you want me and Elena with you… close to her.”
“She’s a monster, yes, but the monster I know. We’ll be fine”
Solana would limit casualties, not for the safety of innocents, but because their deaths would draw attention to and complicate her own operations. She would agree to peace, not to protect others, but to ensure her own kind aren’t getting killed as well.
“And you are going to contact her using a… bowl?” he asked, dumbfounded, as Maude walked back with a saucer-like bowl.
“Mind filling this up with some water, Olfric?” asked the oni.
A pained expression flitted across the former aquamancer’s face as he menially poured water from the jug. Maude waited for the water surface to go completely still, before placing her own palms on it, channeling energy into it. A single ripple formed on its surface, and a reflection of a pair of eyes appeared on them. And while they were beautiful, they were cold eyes, alien, filled with intelligence and desire, but empty of compassion or pity.
And then Solana’s voice said, quite clearly and from within.
“Report.”
It was possible to communicate through still water with the wicked Leader of yokai, but the process involved channeling of ethereal energy in a fashion Tanya had yet to learn.
Maude recounted whatever had happened in a dull drone that bordered on mockery, but the yokai leader didn’t react. She also insisted on wearing clothing with colors that were an inverse of Solana’s attire which wasn’t very subtle.
Despite the fact that Lukas had bullied Solana into handing over the reins of the Yokai to him, Tanya felt irrationally spiteful towards her.
Or perhaps it was completely rational seeing as the bitch had set her up to be a vessel for someone else's soul.
“The Shimizu destroyed Zwaray Keep,” said Solana in a very quiet voice. “Who survived? Can you contact Dvalinn?”
Dvalinn was the de-facto spokesperson for the Zwaray Keep, and a member of the svartalfar High Council. He was the one that Lukas had talked to, and the one to coordinate the Trial By Combat where Lukas emerged as the winner.
“Dead,” said Tanya. “The Keep is gone. As is the Well.”
“This… can be used in our favor. Lord Naowa is unlikely to turn a blind eye to this. The Llaisy Kingdom was responsible for the protection of the svartalfars. For the Shimizu to walk over them like this and destroy the Keep….”
A long moment of silence passed. “Can you contact the Outsider.”
“Yes,” said Tanya. She was still a little miffed at her lover for leaving her like this, but she understood his obsession with resurrecting his Goddess. If nothing else, he had left her an option to contact him, but only if the situation was dire enough.
“Do so then,” she said. “We will need to change our plans to adapt to the situation. Actually there is another possibility…”
Solana paused thoughtfully.
“How would you like to become the next Lady of Shimizu?”
Olfric was lucky that she wasn’t drinking at the moment, because she would have surely turned to spit on him. Tanya considered drinking some and doing a spit take regardless because nothing else could truly dramatize just how ridiculous an idea it was.
“And how,” She asked Solana. “How do you plan to do that? I mean we can always try asking nicely and see how it goes but somehow I doubt it will turn out the way you think.”
“You leave that to me,” said Solana with a confidence that she had no business having given how spectacularly her previous plans had failed. “For now, we need information on their movements.”
For the first time she turned to address Olfric. “You said you were being hunted, no?”
Three days later, they made their move.
“Are you really a Shimizu or is this more demon trickery?”
This was the seventh time he had brought up the topic. The shock of the fact that Tanya wasn’t of common blood had allowed him to temporarily forget his own misery, as well as the fact that he, an Onmyōji, was now allied with the yokai. He had taken them to the solitary ramshackle that was their temporary hideout, where Elena was hiding, and gotten her onboard.
“Let’s survive the day and I’ll tell you.”
Following Solana’s suggestions, they had dressed Olfric up in rich-looking Asukan robes, fitted with his atrociously long sword. Olfric had then been spotted at a number of locations all over the town — the Otamba Bridge, the destroyed mound where Zuken’s mansion once lay, and an official appointment request with the Overseer filed through proper channels at the Grevane — the Capital building that housed the town’s administration.
Not a single person stopped him as he and Elena went to meet the Overseer, submitted a formal request to look into Zuken’s capture, received empty platitudes in return, and walked out of the Grevane with a pouch of mezals after encashing one of Zuken’s cheques.
No cries of alarm. No tromping of soldiers. No attacks by mercenaries. Nothing.
Tanya stuffed another one of the little peaches into her mouth, chewing with satisfaction, as she stood on the roof of the adjacent building, watching them walk out of the Grevane with that giant pouch of mezals.
“What do you think?” asked Maude.
“Oh, they’re quite good,” said Tanya. “Elena’s always had excellent taste in fruits.”
“About them, Tanya.”
A lazy smile spread on Tanya’s face. Even from this far, she could clearly feel the subtle movement in the crowd. The shifting eyes. The looks on certain faces. Six men had been following Olfric and Elena for the last thirty minutes. The duo crossed the street and moved into the alley on the right. Tanya casually stepped off the roof, and the next moment, she was overlooking the alley.
No signs of wards that interfered with manacrafting. Then again, direct interference like that was rather easy to detect and they probably didn’t want to risk getting caught.
There was a person hiding by one of the building windows to the right. They weren’t stupid enough to stand right next to it and risk getting caught, but nobody would stand there in a seemingly empty alley for no reason.
The pole to Olfric’ left was more interesting. Tanya couldn’t tell if they were spiritists, but there was at least one person capable of veiling their presence.
Likely a psion.
That alone told her that these people were working with limited resources. Mana interference was easier to set up than mental interference, but it was a double-edged sword, and would prevent the abductors from using mana as well, leaving no option but to fight using fancy weapons and physical mediums to enact their spells.
They were honestly pathetic when compared to the people her grandfather sent to pursue her. She sighed, more out of disappointment than anything. These idiots weren’t being subtle in the slightest. Sure they were playing to their strengths, but it would have been more effective if they had waited to enact the wards after some time.
The six from earlier surrounded Olfric and Elena while two more shot out of the ground from behind.
“Your grandfather has gotten sloppy,” said Maude.
It was true. The fools didn’t even question why two adults suddenly turned into an alley right after they were being followed. Anyone who had been in this kind of game long enough could smell when a situation became too convenient.
Her right hand whipped forward and a silver whip extended outwards ripping through any and all magical protection like toilet paper.
Two of the men were executed before they could even blink and and then promptly exploded. forming exactly sixteen shards of twisted metal. Each projectile tore through the air, following a different path, tearing through the bodies of the eight mercenaries, chopping off their legs right above the knee.
“What was that?” asked Olfric.
“Just a little gift from my boyfriend.”
Tanya whistled, and the metal projectiles zoomed back to her, reforming into a thick, aqāru wristband for her right arm.
“Now then,” she said. “I’m Tanya, the granddaughter of the man you work for. I have some —”
“We know nothing.” cried one of them. Tanya’s eyes flashed, and an invisible blade tore through the man’s torso in a zigzag fashion, splattering blood everywhere on the cobbled street.
The man was dead before his body hit the floor.
Tanya tried to make her smile reassuring as she looked at the rest. “The way this usually works is that I ask you a question, and then you tell me a lie. If you give me a dishonest response before I’ve had the chance to ask the question, it offends me.”
The other mercenaries shook their heads in quick, jerky spasms.
“Now,” said Tanya. “Exactly what is my dear grandfather up to?”
The interrogation was surprisingly short. However much her grandfather was paying them wasn’t enough to buy their loyalty in the face of death.
“Arghh!” cried another, after five minutes of torture. “Just… Just kill me.”
Then again, she mused as Maude cackled happily as she tore off another fingernail of the man in front of him.
No amount of money was worth that.
“That's enough. He’s told us everything.”
Even Olfric looked uncomfortable.
“So?” Asked Maude.
There wasn’t any more information to be had, she simply wanted to hurt them.
“So leave them be.” Tanya extended her arm and Blob followed, killing the remaining men.
She knew Maude had been mentally unstable ever since the merge but this was unsettling and far worse than she had ever been. Maybe Oni were forbidden for a reason.
Pushing aside her misgivings Tanya tossed a bag at Olfric.
“Clean clothes. Take off anything that had blood on it and throw it in a pile.”
She stepped back and away from the bloodied garments before tossing Blob right in the middle of them.
“Eat.”
The silver Blob shriveled and then expanded covering the clothes, the bodies and all the blood. It pulsed once and then compressed. What was left behind was a polished alleyway that looked even cleaner than before the murders.
“Always leave a place cleaner than before you used it.”
Nobody could accuse Tanya of not having good manners.
“Alright, you can rest for a few minutes and then we’ll head out. I’ve contacted Lukas and we’ll meet him with Solana.”
“Where did you manage to hide in Haviskali for all this while?” asked Olfric.
“Not Haviskali. We’re going to the desert.”
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