Once he finished scarfing down Deon’s food, Ike went back to exploring the palace. While he was out and about, might as well check it all right?
He did everything he could to be careful. Broke nothing, made little noise, didn’t run into anyone else. He was actually making some steady progress on his sneakiness. Nerinai might have been impressed, given how very low the bar was for him by now. Ike really had no plans for what to say if he ran into her now. Got lost? Fell out of the room? Problems for future Ike to deal with, though he’d probably be back in the tower by then anyways.
Out of every part of the Palace he’d seen so far, nothing seemed as interesting as the gallery room. The word was etched into a golden plaque outside the doors not far from the sitting room where he met the Arcani.
Whoever used to live here would have been great friends with the Martial, Ike decided. There were a few paintings scattered around the building. Portraits, landscapes, he’d seen a few of the Carrion Cross that looked newer than most things here. The gallery was filled with one subject in all its images: war.
Violent paintings of matched forces meeting under dark skies lined the walls next to polished weaponry , a few benches in the middle of the room. Ike looked at all of them quite briefly before deciding that even if Nerinai had been in this room, she likely wouldn’t have cared to stay.
Then he began to wonder: what would make her stay? If he wanted to help he had to think like her and look for something to help shut the gate. Wherever the gate was. The little black book still sat heavy in his robe but that wasn’t much but a clue. He would probably need more to justify an excursion like this. Hidden behind one of the paintings could be a switch to open an old vault of magical weapons left behind by the first shamans to fight the Len, maybe there was a clue hidden in the eyes of the bloodthirsty soldiers standing on hills of their enemies.
He was just his hands over the gold frame of one when the sound of metal crashing in the next room set him on alert.
Damn! He’d been so careful, hadn’t he? Avoided all the places people were supposed to be, checked every room before he went in, didn’t break anything. The sounds kept on, a steady and paced cling and clang. Fighting. He couldn’t just ignore that, right? That’d be irresponsible.
Ike crept around the benches towards the door at the other end of the room. There were two, and the noise was coming from the right. Just before heading in, another painting caught his eye by the door. Just an ugly baby sitting on top of a grandfather clock looking over a field of blight. Nothing else in the building showed blight. On the contrary, they were all of places foreign and alien to the modern eye. Green fields and dark forests. But this final one felt more like a terrible dream of the real world reflected back to him.
Even worse was the little title written on the bottom in hurried ink: A dream I had, worried.
Suddenly the sounds of fighting sounded preferable to looking at the image for another second. He pushed through the double doors into a room with padded floors and light pouring in through frosted windows, six of the outcasts spread out in the room.
In the middle, hopping back and forth with swords as sharp and thin as toothpicks were Rosa and a woman Ike had never seen before. The both of them stopped when he walked in, and the shaman turned to him with a smile.
“Guardian! Seems you’ve arrived just in time.” She left her sword there standing up from a nick in that matting and nodded to the other lady, then walked over to the bench and collapsed onto it.
Ike pushed himself into the room a bit more, looking around at the faces watching him back. Somehow he’d just placed himself front and center on a very odd stage involving toothpick swords, and he wasn’t sure whether to be excited or turn tail and run the other direction. At least nobody started to yell at him about precious ingredients and soup.
The other she’d been dueling tapped the sword impatiently with her own, staring down Ike with a glare that could have shattered glass. Ike looked her up and down, searching the patterned gray slacks for any sign of familiarity. He looked over to the benches, where a man wearing the same style held her coat. The two of them looked like partners, but of what? Could’ve been some far off cult. Plenty of those in the world. Why come to the Black Palace though?
Many questions brewed on the edge of Ike's mind, and the impatient tap of metal on metal snapped him back to reality.
“What?” he asked with no little bit of annoyance.
The others seemed to bristle at his question, a very serious pissing contest he stepped in on. He looked to each of them for some sort of explanation but only Yanell, the quiet Crow, got up and took the sword from the ground.
She offered it handle-out to Ike, and told him, “It is a duel, Guardian. Just a sparring match so need to worry about your or your lady's honor being on the line in this room. Take the sword please, it is simply common courtesy to take up the invitation when one is granted.”
“By Rosa?”
“Yes.” She pushed the sword a little closer and Ike took it, nodding at her.
He shrugged the shovel off his back and left it sitting by the wall. No need for that now, and he figures probably no need for his robe either. He left both items behind and tested the weight of the flimsy little thing in his hands, right and left, before stepping up to the middle of the mat. He couldn’t be certain, but he thought her stoic frown might’ve been curved into some sort of grin at the bottom.
“So, duel,” he said. “And who are you?”
“Holding a sword,” was all she said before launching herself at him.
The first few thrusts and parries hurt badly, Ike's defense was about as solid as a bubble on water, but he wasn’t terrible. Obviously she started easy. After being nicked with the tip of the sword on his left side three times, he started guarding better. The two of them kept going hit for hit and moving back and forth in a battle for space over the floor.
She danced with the sword while Ike merely trudged. He wasn’t ashamed, just curious. More often than not a thwack on the thigh he earned from watching her parry a bit too close and missing the next swing. This was like training with Thayne, he told himself, but somehow this felt different. The Grandmaster moved more like a bull than a hummingbird, sure. That wasn’t really all though. The longer their duel went on the more it made sense.
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Sweat started to drip down the sides of Ike’s temple. He could feel the rush in his arms and legs from moving out of a strike and scoring a lucky goal. He wasn’t just being beaten down in the name of learning a lesson on footing or throwing the same heavy swing over and over again until Thayne approved, he was proving himself to a room of his peers.
Not his friends or his colleagues in mud, not oddly staring monks or judgmental shamans. The people who were on the same level as he was. His opponent was a warrior like him, a guardian in her own right, and he could feel it every time his sword clapped against hers. For the first time, and without any words, he felt like he was learning something.
Then eventually they stopped, the opponent dropping the tip of her sword to the ground and holding up one hand. Ike found himself grinning like an idiot, feeling like a champion warrior. When he looked around he saw only worried faces, and his opponent hadn’t even broken a sweat. Why stop the fight?
He followed the stares of the others to his shirt, pockmarked with dimples of blood and slashed through on the sides. Seeing that just made him grin harder. He couldn’t feel a thing until he looked down, how odd was that? None of the cuts were deep or serious, barely scratches on the skin, but he clearly needed some more training with the sword.
He held out his free hand to his opponent, who regarded him with a neutral expression showing neither worry nor humor. “Nice,” was all he managed to say.
“Yep,” she offered in return, along with a very formal squeeze of the hand before sliding back to the other side of the mat.
They were about to go again- just testing to see how long Ike could take at this point- before her associate stepped in between the two of them.
“Alright then, enough. Good show Sister Isibeil, but let’s not cut the Guardian into too many pieces on our first exchange, shall we?”
Isibeil blinked once, then solemnly nodded her apology to Ike. He shrugged, not wanting to cause much of a fuss. Whoever these people were, they seemed nice. And most importantly not worth getting into a fight with.
While the man handed Isiebeil her cloak and quietly reprimanded her for poking holes in Ike, he noticed the others in the room had already gone off to their own respective exercises. The Arcani twins were here, both of them working together. Rosa came back for her sword and hung it up on the wall, Yanell disappeared, and that left Ike alone with the gray people.
He pushed himself between the two of them as politely as possible. With all the intentions of discussing sword arms, Ike opened his mouth just a second after the man started to speak.
“Oh, dear me, my apologies Guardian,” said the man, patting Ike on the shoulder. “Call me Brother Marcus. This here is my zealous assistant, Sister Isibeil. Wonderful to meet your acquaintance and, once more, apologies for the sudden and taxing duel.”
“Pfft, that?” Ike let out a nervous half-laugh. “Nah I’m just fine. Good warmup, really. Never used a… whatever that is before. What is it?”
“Rapier.” Isibeil was certainly a woman of little words. Ike couldn’t complain.
“And,” interjected Marcus, adjusting the glasses resting on his face. “Not for poking holes in new people. Tell me, Guardian, are you very familiar with the duel?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Hmph,” Marcus grunted.
The odd man in gray led the other two back to the benches, tapping his chin on the way there. Ike appreciated the break from standing and sweating. Those little cuts were really starting to burn, and another minute of standing there would’ve had him scratching at his gut like a drunkard answering a hard question.
“I suppose you wouldn’t,” he continued, “Having come from the Carrion Cross. It’s not such a common utility among your people. Frankly, in my opinion, you all rely far too much on the strength of the shamans in any given situation. Especially the political, I admit I haven’t had many opportunities to see into the councils and monasteries that lead your settlements. They’ve always seemed quite…exotic.”
Ike found himself nodding along and hoping there were no questions for him. Then Marcus, in a break from his diatribe, squinted at Ike. “Are you aware of what I’m implying here?”
Marcus lifted up the fold of his sweater collar, showing a pin not too different from Ikes. Except for the symbol. It was a book surrounded by a wreath of leaves, the metal tinged with green and a very near white. He might have recognized the symbol from somewhere but thankfully Marcus satisfied his curiosity quickly.
“Brotherhood of University, Drearbridge society. The black cloaks and us haven’t always been on the best of terms, but me and my associate hope to change things with this… visit.”
When Marcus flashed him a small and skeptical smile, Ike took the opportunity to ask himself what Nerinai would do now. Probably nothing he could copy, but wouldn’t she be interested in the motives of new people like this? The others seemed clear: help, or hurt, the Raveness. Or steal. Marcus and Isibeil seemed different in a way he couldn’t put his tongue on. Either it was the stoic looks or fancy swordplay, but Ike was interested enough to start asking questions.
“University?”
“Yes. Oh, dear. Probably not many where you come from.” The little pity face he put on made Ike sick. “Wonderful places for certain people, people of intellect and study. In the ashes of this world there remain some places where knowledge is still the most important wealth to hoard and exchange, instead of war.”
“So I guess that makes the two of you, what, students? What are you going to learn here?”
“A great many things, one hopes.” He waved out his hands to the athletic room, as if the proof were right there. “The Black Palace is a relic. A critical piece of the old world and the new. We’ve already discovered some interesting pieces in the library so far and have high hopes for this plan of your Raveness’s.”
Plan? How did everybody know about this so-called plan that even Ike wasn’t let in on? He figured they had to learn it from someone, of course. The Crows made sense. Donnahais seemed to know more than he let on, and maybe Marcus could put some of the pieces together.
“Do you… I mean, how much do you really know about the plan?” he asked, using his most conspiratorial voice possible.
Marcus seemed to bite. “Very little my friend, our informant was stingy with the information. The University paid a great deal just to learn of the Black Palace’s location. Well regarded secrets they are, but perhaps not as secure as you think?”
So someone snitched. Handed out secrets of the monastery. No wonder Nerinai was paranoid, and here he was fraternizing with what was effectively the enemy. All he could do was convince himself he was right, and focus on making something worth it.
Then an idea hit him. The scholars, Marcus and Isibeil, what wouldn’t they do for information?
“So, Guardian, I find myself wondering-” Ike stood up in the middle of the man’s question and held up a finger for him to pause. He nearly ran over to his robe- throwing it and the shovel back on his body on his way back- and pulled out the strange book he’d found in the above bedroom.
Marcus took the book gingerly, treating the black binding with a sort of reverence. Even lifted his glasses for a better look at the piece. While he studied the piece, Ike noticed his companion was decidedly less interested then she should have been. Scholars like books, don't they? And the way she handled that sword…
Suddenly Marcus shot out of his seat and started marching off to a door at the back of the room. Ike looked from him to Isibeil, who had an exasperated expression on her face.
“See what you’ve done now? Hurry up, Guardian, before he stuffs the book under a pile of other ‘special’ books.”
She shouldered a bag of equipment she had laying by the bench and Ike followed her after Marcus. Maybe his plan had worked a little too well. One way or another he was likely to get answers on something, and he was starting to imagine Nerinai proud of him. That would be a sweet day.