Riding a Sept horse was an unprecedented experience. Rio had offered a ride on horseback to where the attack had taken place, and Riven had accepted without much thought. Anything to get away from Chasm-damned Glaven and the stupid meeting that wasn’t even supposed to happen for hours later. The nerve of them to reject him with so much time still in their hands.
But he had cooled off on the ride, and now that his thoughts could focus less on his pretentious brother and more on the current situation, Riven had a hard time not biting his tongue off. “I’m not exactly sure this was the best idea.”
There. He’d said it. Out with it, as Viriya and Father liked to say.
“What do you mean by this?” Rio asked.
“This… horseback ride.”
“Hmm?” Rio glanced back. “Oh!”
Big as the Lightspeed was, Riven was still a little too close to Rio. In fact, he had a hard time not being pressed up right against his companion. The horse’s rump bucked a little with every hoofbeat, trying to throw Riven forward up against Rio’s back, which was the very opposite of broad. Damn it, but the last thing Riven wanted was to throw them both off the horse.
“Are you awkward back there?” Rio asked.
“A… little,” Riven admitted.
“Why?”
“This whole ride is rather suggestive don’t you think?”
“Suggesting what?” Rio looked around. More desolate land, pocked with Coral trees and sprinkled with thorngrass. Riven was yet to see any sign of wildlife. “And to whom? There’s no one here.”
Riven sighed. Explaining things sometimes deepened the embarrassment. “If anyone does see us, they’re going to assume things.” People didn’t ride together on the same horse unless they were together. What part of that basic social tact did Rio not understand? Unless… “Are you having fun at my expense? It’s really not funny.”
Rio laughed. “You people and your silly norms and etiquette. We’ll be there soon, and then you can do whatever.”
Riven kept his grumbles to himself from then on. He kept hands crossed together, even when he was in serious danger of falling off the horse. Riven just used his legs to grip the horse’s torso whenever it tried to buck a little again. Hah, as if he’d let the damn beast have the upper hand for long.
Rio needed to redefine his idea of soon. It was impossible to be sure how long exactly it took before they reached the site of the incident, but it sure felt long.
But Riven’s resentment faded once he was there.
They stopped at a small graveyard. Tombstones patterned the even ground, most little more than blocks of stone, but a few were artfully carved into shapes ranging from the mundane like chairs and shovels, to the so extraordinary Riven had no idea what they were supposed to be. One looked reminiscent of a storm cloud, another like arrows shooting to a point in the sky. The noonday sun was sinking, and the first hints of mist were popping up all over. Thorngrass had tried to straggle in there as well, but the groundskeepers had done a valiant job of holding to the edge of the cemetery.
The real site of the incident, and the real destruction, was the small Haven in front. It looked as though a hurricane had swept past. Half of it had caved in, most of the top floor having fallen into the lower. Gray bricks had crumbled beside the little structure, iron rods spearing the ground all around it. No one would be praying here for quite a while.
“You Essentiers?” asked one of the guards keeping an eye. Military, by the looks of his coat and the rifle.
“I’m riding a Sept horse into an area where a Deadmage attacked,” Rio replied. “What else am I supposed to be?”
“That’s an Essentier all right,” piped up another guard.
Riven sniggered. Then promptly slid off the horse before the guards got ideas. He walked past them as Rio went to tie Lightspeed to a nearby steel signpost, remembering to take his carpet bag and Viriya’s suitcase with him. They held precious cargo, things he wasn’t allowed to forget or misplace. The front door was still intact, and Riven pushed it back and entered. He didn’t get far. The floor was littered with debris, and he had to step carefully to make sure he didn’t fall through the torn ground.
“It’s curious,” Rio said, observing a piece of broken plaster. The sun poked in with many tiny shafts, covering the ground in a patchwork of light and shadow.
Riven stepped over a fallen concrete beam, iron rods jutting out of the broken end. “What is?”
“There’s no Sept here, reportedly. So why did the Deadmage attack?”
“Wasn’t it during a congregation?” Riven didn’t know, but he assumed it had been when the Deadmage could harvest most Spectres. But then, Spectres wouldn’t form if there wasn’t any Sept to begin with. “Could he have brought the Sept with him?”
“They’re not known to tote things around, unlike you with your not one but two bags. Purses and handbags are out of fashion in the afterlife, apparently.”
Riven gripped his carpet bag and Viriya’s suitcase tighter. “Was the Deadmage a woman?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Purses and… never mind.”
Rio kicked at a small mountain of rubble near the back. A poof of dust went up like an eruption. “I think I’m done here.”
“But we didn’t actually investigate anything.”
“You didn’t you mean. I saw everything I had to,” Rio added with a little laugh.
“All right, correction. We didn’t discuss anything you found.”
Rio paused to consider, a thoughtful expression stealing over his face. Riven took the moment to try and see what Rio saw. He didn’t get much. The Monast’s pew behind him was buried in more rubble, the paintings of the Scions on the walls were all shredded, and the windows had been shorn off all glass. None of it said anything about the Deadmage, so far as he could see.
“Well, Riven, it’s now time for your first lesson in being an Essentier. You know, other than the ability to bash heads with magic.” Rio grinned at him, and Riven tried to grin back but there was something off-key about it. Something very critical. “See how the roof was torn off and the smaller debris are littering the ground outside everywhere? Proof of powerful winds, like a tornado. The piles of rubble happened after the walls collapsed. What’s even more curious, the tombstones are untouched which means the twister was created here, right at this very spot.”
“We could have learned this from the survivors, right?”
Rio ignored Riven’s interruption. “Assuming that there was Sept here, what do you think would have happened to it in those vicious winds?”
“If there was Sept…oh!”
Rio grinned. “Right. It’s all poof. Gone. Carried away on the breeze.”
“So the Deadmage must have only come here—”
“—to carry off the Sept, yes!”
They headed out, buoyed by the discoveries. As Rio headed for his horse, Riven strode into the graveyard. Little curls of mist brushed him as he passed, soft and cold touches that tried to repel him. He shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t safe. But Riven didn’t stop until he was between several tombstones, standing at the exact spot the Deadmage must have been to tear it all down. He turned, staring everywhere, past the tombstones and into the mist-cloaked horizon. And then he saw it. Tiny sparkles in the mist, a trail of earthly stars leading way to the north,
The Sept left in the Deadmage’s wake.
Riven hurried back to the guards and Rio, bags slapping his back. He was already pulling his horse away, beckoning Riven to join.
“I found the Deadmage’s trail,” Riven said, a little breathless after the rush.
“The Sept?”
“Right.”
“We can check it later.” Rio slapped his horse’s rump, indicating Riven get on. “Right now, I want to meet the survivors first.”
For a heartbeat, Riven wanted to argue. They had a lead to where the Deadmage currently might be and they needed to get to him before he wreaked more havoc. But Rio was the Essentier, not Riven. Maturity, Father had said. Faith and all the crap.
So Riven muffled his protests, tied his bags, and got on, ignoring the guards’ looks and making sure not to poke holes in his trousers with the embedded Sept crystals. Rio whipped the reins, and they were off.
#
Like everything else in Welmark, the hospital stood apart from everything else. At least in this case, a few other buildings were at an observable distance. Though those were likely the homes of the ones who kept the hospital running.
When they had arrived, Riven thought they’d circled back to the Consulate somehow. The military was here too, both Resplendian and Arnish, and the whole area held an air of importance and gravitas. Rio slowed his horse as they approached, and Riven plopped off its back, the Sept crystals embedded in the mount’s rump catching him on his jacket before he tore himself away. No need to give the ones here the same impression he’d given the guards back near the site of the Deadmage attack.
They were checked before they were allowed in. Riven glared at the man who returned his ID. Were they checking in every patient who was coming to the hospital? It seemed very rude. The military were the imposers here, not the people who needed treatment.
Viriya was waiting inside.
“The Chasm are you two doing here?” she asked. Her eyes fell on Rio, and hardened. “Especially you.”
“Same as you,” Rio answered. “Investigating. By the way, Rorink, I have a name.”
“You might have a Scion-granted decree that lets you do whatever you want hanging from your arse, and I wouldn’t give a shit.”
Rio stared at Riven. “She seems pissed to me. Does she seem pissed to you?”
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Riven ignored him, taking a step towards Viriya. “Has something happened?
Viriya closed her eyes and sighed long-sufferingly. She took a while to respond. Maybe she was counting to a hundred. “The Arnish delegation wanted to investigate too. Municipier Glaven has graciously led them here, and they are now interrogating the survivors.”
“Oh. Let me guess, you came to interrogate them too, but they beat you to it.”
Viriya’s silence was all the answer, Riven needed. He shoved the suitcase at her. “You’re welcome.”
She snatched her suitcase from him, glaring her gratitude for hauling it around all over Welmark. Riven would’ve shoved his carpet bag at her. Tit for tat, and all that. But then, what if she found out about the Sept crystal?
Two of the Arnish came down the stairs. Their sleeveless coats were long and fur-trimmed, though it wasn’t anywhere near cold enough to warrant that sort of getup, and their grey-brown skin was tattooed with red and blue swirls at the temples, upper arms, and perhaps others he couldn’t see. The men were talking in excited tones, too fast for Riven to catch, but his passable Arnish gave him the impression that what they had learned had made the trip to the hospital more than worthwhile.
“Upstairs, right?” Riven asked.
Viriya screwed her eyes at him. “Why?”
Riven turned and headed upstairs. She hadn’t said no to his question.
“Why?” she asked from behind again.
“I want to see what’s going on,” Riven threw back.
“We’re not allowed up there yet.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Rio joined him, grinning ear to ear and walking languidly at his side. Viriya sighed, then followed in their steps.
The hospital had an antiseptic air to it. Clean, spotless, and one that made him tread carefully in fear of spreading the filth he’d brought from outside. No touching. No spitting. Absolutely no swearing. Riven managed to get to the survivor’s area without doing anything to put the carefully erected ecosystem of health at risk. He couldn’t say the same about the soldiers though. There were too many. So much so, all he had to do was follow their presence for a little while until he ended up where the survivors of the Deadmage attack were being held.
For such a tiny room, there were a lot of guards. They were stopped of course, Arnish and Resplendians combining forces against the common enemy of the intruding little brother. Simply flashing his ID wouldn’t be enough so Riven brought out Father’s document. If it had gotten him through in the Consulate, it’d work here too.
It did. They stepped out of his way like he bore the plague, the Arnish more reluctantly than their Resplendian counterparts. A couple medicers stood outside as well, staring worriedly at the closed door. Had they been kicked out of the room? Couldn’t have been for secrecy when they were happy being so loud.
Riven paused at the door. Muffled voices were floating out, hard questions that drew soft, weak answers, eliciting even harder responses. He had misgivings, of course. Riven was the de facto leader here. Always, he’d been following someone else’s lead, going where they directed him to go or doing as he was told to do. Viriya had been the leader in the fight with the Deathless, Father the one who held the strings when it came to Riven’s living arrangements, his access to the research, his very duties while he stayed in Providence Demesne. He had even followed Rio earlier during their investigation, refusing to put his own wish of following the Deadmage’s trail. Yet now, they were the ones following his lead. If anything went wrong, as it very well might, it’d be on Riven’s head.
But that wasn’t what stopped him. The voices grew louder, and now Riven could make out the specific words.
“Did you know the Deadmage?” A female voice, slightly accented with a nasal tone.
“We’d never seen him before, trust me,” a man replied, strained as if every word had to be dragged out reluctantly.
“The cut of his clothes then?”
“Just plain, my lady.”
“Any weapons?” There was no response for a while, just some coughing. “Weapons?”
“No,” the man wheezed out.
“Hair colour?”
“White.”
“Skin?”
“Blue. Like the sky.”
More questions followed, answered by more coughing. Once, the man even pleaded to be left alone, which was only replied with more inane digging about what had to be the Deadmage. Riven didn’t look around. Didn’t check to see if everyone else’s expressions were as twisted as his. They’d kill the man, some poor survivor of the Deadmage attack, trying to get to what they wanted.
Riven hammered on the door. No one stopped him, and the conversation stopped. He hammered again after there was no response from within. Before his third try, the door was wrenched open.
“Who’s interrupting after I demanded to be left alone?” The Arnish woman spitting the words in Riven’s face was severe as the cracked ground of Severance Frontier, and at least as old. Her skin was more grey than brown, and she had the same telltale tattoos on her forehead, though black instead of red and blue. The tattoos on her arms were obscured by the long sleeves of her rich crimson coat. “Who in the Chasm are you?”
Glaven popped into existence beside the woman. “Ah, my apologies, Luminary. My wayward little brother has the awkward habit of inserting himself where he isn’t needed.”
“I’ll be damned before I only appear when someone needs me,” Riven said.
Glaven gave the Luminary of Vedel Arn a pointed look. “Very wayward, as I said.”
“Yes, it’s quite obvious.” She observed Riven critically from head to toe, her wrinkles rippling at the motion of her head. “Recall your manners boy, and leave us alone.”
Riven shot his foot forward as the door slammed in on it. He winced at the pain, but grinned at her. They weren’t getting rid of him that easily. Not again. “You talk about manners while you’re killing a man who was injured.”
“Get him out of here.”
“They can’t. I’ve got official word from Rosbel Morell. You wouldn’t want to ignore that, now would you?”
Glaven stepped forward, opening the door wide but blocking the entrance with his muscle-bound bulk. “Allow me to handle this, Luminary.” He turned to Riven, the smile he had for the Arnish woman replaced with a hard smirk. A jagged, get-out-or-pay-dearly-later slash across his pretty mouth. “Now Riven, are we going to have any problems?”
“Well, Municipier,” Rio said from behind. “I was ordered to accompany the delegation by the High Invigilator. I need to relay all that has happened back to him.”
“And yet, you were missing when the Arnish delegation arrived.”
“I’m not missing any longer, though. Are you going to block orders straight from the High Invigilator sir?”
Glaven glared at Rio. Riven’s brute of a brother was half a head taller than him, and he peeked under Glaven’s shoulder. A row of beds occupied the room, each supporting a man with ghastly injuries. The one who the Luminary had been interrogating was laid out flat on his bed, the stump of his wounded arm ending with bloody bandages. Even at this distance, the sweat glistening on his face and his chest rising rapidly from exertion were obvious.
Rio pushed past Glaven’s arm and into the room. When Riven made to follow, that arm shot out and stopped him. Glaven had transferred his glare to him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Riven, of course, punched him. A quick drawing back of his right hand, then an even quicker jab of his fist right on Glaven’s nose.
With a muffled cry, Glaven staggered back, clutching his bleeding nostrils. He bent over cursing with his eyes screwed shut. Riven took his time joining Rio at the injured man’s bedside. The two medicers from outside rushed through the gap—and the distraction where everyone was focused on Glaven’s muffled and nasal curses—he’d made, and started attending to the injured man.
The Luminary of Vedel Arn finally looked up, staring at Riven with a slight twist over her lips. “I think I’ve had enough of this little farce.”
Riven nodded. “I agree.”
“Clearly, you are far too incompetent to deal with one Deadmage. I’ve seen enough.”
She turned on her heels and stomped out, boots clacking on the stone floor. A moment later, the Arnish soldiers fell into formation and followed in her wake.
Riven remembered his manners. “Goodbye!”
It took a little longer for Glaven to straighten. He’d brought a pristine white kerchief and held it to his still-bleeding nose. His eyes glared murder, twin suns about to blast the world with a drought and unprecedented heat. Just for a moment, he appeared to be getting ready to attack, and Riven’s heart thudded loud. He wouldn’t really cause an even bigger scene in a hospital would he? But Glaven closed his eyes and mastered whatever impulse he was wrestling with. “You’ll pay for this, Riven. Little brother, my arse. You’ll regret ever coming here.”
Then he marched out, dragging what remained of his shredded dignity. Like the Arnish before them, the Resplendian soldiers took a moment to let their leader get the designated between them, then followed in the correct formation.
It wasn’t until Viriya had entered and closed the door behind her that Riven realized he was shaking. His fist trembled like a flimsy tower in an earthquake, and it spread from there, overtaking his whole body. His left fist had clenched tight on the carpet bag’s handle. Why had punching stupid Glaven turned him into a tuning fork? The bastard deserved it, a hundred times over.
“Well, I’m not sure if I should thank you or not,” Viriya said. She appeared calmer than before, though her dark eyes were steely.
“I’m always deserving of thanks.” Thank the Scions, at least Riven’s voice didn’t quaver.
“Well, I would, but I think they’re exhausted as it is.” She stared at the injured man who had been grilled for who knew how long until Riven had arrived. One of the medicers were helping him drink a strange broth, while the other was replacing the bandages at his stump of an arm. “He’s out of commission for now.”
Riven stared them all over. All five patients seemed to be out of it, conked out and probably exhausted after the stress of being interrogated by such important personages. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. He could now pester them to follow the Deadmage’s trail.
Then Rio saved the day. He poked one of the medicers. “Were all they all disturbed by the people who came before us?”
The medicer looked like she’d been caught in a trap. She swallowed. “The man at the back wasn’t bothered, but he’s been unconscious for over a day now. Perhaps comatose. We’re not sure.”
Rio strode to the far man, and to the medicer’s utter horror, shook him awake. A purple glow crawled out from Rio’s hand and encased the patient’s wrist, whose eyes shot open a heartbeat later. “Ow!” He snatched his hand away.
Viriya tutted, then headed over. The medicer’s protest on the patient’s behalf went ignored. Riven tried for a reassuring smile, but his lips felt weird. He’d chased off his brother and the Arnish and here they were, ready to resume with the queries to get to the bottom of the little mystery. No, he’d make sure they took heed of the man’s condition.
“By the way,” Riven said to the medicer. “Does the medicine you’re using have Sept in it?”
She was frowning at the patient. “Most medicine nowadays have Sept in them. Once properly granulated and treated, it becomes a very strong healing agent for lacerations, abrasions, and so on.”
Riven nodded. More proof that finding a cure for Mother was possible. He’d have to be tenacious.
“Who are you?” the patient asked.
“Essentiers,” Viriya said. She stared at Rio. “I’ll go first.”
Rio pulled stool lose, then swung one leg over it before sitting down. “That’s not how you ask permission?”
“Like I need your permission for anything.”
“Riven, you decide. You’re the one who got us both the chance.”
Riven froze. “Way to put me on the spot.”
Rio laughed. He made a go on gesture, rolling the fingers of his left hand.
“Easy. I’m going to be doing the asking.”
“Like you know what needs to be asked,” Viriya said, shaking her head.
“Up to me wasn’t it?”
“I never agreed to it.”
Rio laughed again, leaning back on his stool without any fear of falling off. “Ask away. Just don’t mind when I jump in with something relevant.”
Riven stepped forward. The man was looking between the three of them like he’d been transferred from the wounded’s hospice to a special room for the mentally ill. His injures didn’t seem too severe apart from his head, which was wrapped entirely in bandages, save for his eyes, nose, and mouth. “We need you to answer a few questions for us. But tell us if you are getting too uncomfortable, all right? We don’t want to cause you distress. That all right with you?”
The man nodded. “Are you really all Essentiers?”
“Well, I’m not.” He took a moment to think what he needed to know. What he did need was for them to stop asking and start looking for the damn Deadmage. “Anyway, what was the last thing you saw during the attack, assuming something fell on your head and you lost consciousness?”
“A brick fell, right.” Unlike the last man, this patient’s voice was steady. Not yet burdened by the stress of his injuries and his recollections. “I was on the ground floor, prayin’ with the rest of ‘em, when the Deadmage attacked. Was insane! Everything flyin’ everywhere. I tried to run but too crowded, and then the top floor fell on my head.”
“Where did the Deadmage come from?”
“North.”
“Ah. I saw a trail of Sept heading that way. Must have been him.”
“Well, I didn’t see him. I just knew the fella.”
“Wait.” Rio leaned forward in his seat. “Where did you know him from? The other man said he didn’t recognize him.”
The man took a moment. Riven sent a silent prayer he wasn’t too tired to answer questions now. “His name’s Blint. He’s from the mining encampment a few leagues away, where I used to work too. He used to come here to visit the graves of some of his miner friends buried in the cemetery.”
Hadn’t Riven seen a shovel-shaped tombstone? No doubt, some of the men of Welmark got work in the Sept mines a league or so away.
“Mining. Sept. Graves.” Viriya looked at them, her eyes sharper than a jade knife. “You realize what that means?”
Hints of what Viriya meant swirled in Riven’s head like a misty cyclone, the shape of the truth a shadow within. “I think—”
An earthquake tore through the area. The whole hospital shook, the Sept lamps flickering as plates, glasses, and cutlery fell to the floor. Riven was about to fall too, but Viriya’s iron grip on his arm steadied him. He had no idea how the medicers kept themselves from freaking out as they went about calming the shrieking patients.
Rio shot to his feet. He looked unaffected by the tremors. “Come on,” he yelled, rushing out of the room. Viriya dashed out after him.
Riven was about to follow when another tremor shook the building, harder than the first. This time, he did fall, the carpet bag flying out of his hand, the latch catching on the cuff of his shirt sleeve. It opened as it flew, and the Sept crystal jumped out.
Landing right on the patient he had been interrogating.
Soon as it touched the man, his shriek went up several octaves. It rammed into Riven’s head, and he clasped his hands over his ears. The man changed. His shrieking grew warped as though the sound was coming from everywhere and his body was fading. A jagged, glittering outline raced around his figure. Riven took a harsh breath, and stepped backwards until his back hit the wall.
Impossible. No way. The man had turned into a Spectre. With one touch from the Sept crystal, he’d become a Deathless.