Blackstone rose up from the emptiness like some great, wounded beast. She supposed that at some point in history, the sight of it was truly magnificent: a massive, unbroken stone wall that rose twenty feet high, hints of large buildings peeking out overtop that wound and wove their way along the street which led up towards the residing baron’s estate. There were cracks in that wall now, not quite enough to remove the functionality, but enough that an invading force could easily pinpoint the weaknesses to exploit. The gates that led into the city only closed when the sun went down - the river behind Blackstone provided more than rough terrain for its enemies. It made it the perfect place for trade, for merchants on their ships to sail in and distribute their goods. Though Blightwatch had a number of cities, none were positioned as well as this one. A beating heart in the midst of the county.
Their approach saw more people traveling alongside them as they navigated the road. They kept to themselves for the most part, though some were eager enough to exchange words with strangers. Rumors flitted about. Some were harmless: tidbits of information about where the best crops were coming from this season, which breweries had the best beer and mead. There was quieter gossip, too, the sort said in hushed voices: farmers who’d lost their land to creatures prowling the night. Small, defenseless villages that had been wholly abandoned, as though everyone simply disappeared without notice. It was these words that Eida listened to, these words that crawled up beneath her skin.
There was always the chance that there was nothing substantial about it, of course, but it felt to her like those quiet whispers far outnumbered the brighter topics of choice. There was more ill than good.
There were guards at the gates, two within, two without. She knew there would be more in the buildings to either side, left and right. Necessary, in the event there was an attack. Blackstone hadn’t seen any manner of siege in at least a hundred years - it was far too deep within Blightwatch’s territory for most to reach - but the last one left its carapace cracked, and reparations for damage that heavy felt like an impossibility. Recent history had been about surviving more than thriving.
Inside, the sheer volume of people in the streets was a shock. Four days of travel in open fields left the shrill voices of laughing children and the tell-tale hawking of wares a dull ringing in Eida’s ears. Part of her reveled in the teeming life. It felt like a sort of balm against the memory of the dead man, against the embittered, sullen expressions of the people who called Coniston home. Yet it was also overwhelming, and it wasn’t long before the ringing started creeping its way deeper into her skull to become an ache. A steady pounding.
Tadrin’s horse fell in line behind her as she took up the reins and guided her own deeper into the city. The square wasn’t far from the entrance, and it was here that most passing through would linger for however long they remained. Taverns and inns and an assortment of shops sprawled out from it in a kind of radius, built up and subsisting on the coin freely passing hands between traveling merchants. Eida ignored all of it, worming her way around little booths and carpets arrayed with pottery and cloth and food. Her destination was further in. Deeper in, wedged like a particularly stubborn splinter.
There were many universities throughout Blightwatch, though any splendor they once had was as weathered as everything else. The largest, even in the golden ages before the blight, resided in Blackstone. At their core, the universities sought simply to secure and spread knowledge. The knowledge itself was varied: art. Philosophy. Medicine. Common trades like smithing and woodworking. Eida assumed that the building once stood entirely on its own, with a courtyard and some manner of garden, but over the years whatever fence it once had got peeled away in spurts to make room for other buildings. Homes, for the most part, hastily thrown together, meager things of stone and thatch and wood. The university was still imperious in its own right, simply by its size, but it no longer stood apart. It was no longer other.
Eida steered her horse towards the stables and passed it off towards one of the young men working within. She felt some weight lift off of her as she marched towards the doors, studying the imagery etched thereupon. It was an effigy of the Mother, pictured facing forward, her hands outspread, her palms upturned. Symbols for plants and stones, metals and weapons, elixirs and instruments - they orbited her, denoting the value of such knowledge, denoting how it was received and taught with her blessing.
One of the images was defaced. Scraped away painstakingly, until only a crater remained. Eida didn’t know what it looked like - that’d happened long, long ago, and she only saw glimpses of related symbols now and then in old, yellowed volumes within the library, and only when the passage meant to defame and rebuke its contents. Alchemy.
She often wondered if the Mother ever truly allowed such a practice, or if it had been the hubris of the carver to include it. Wondered if it was removed before or after that final catastrophe that led to the corruption of Her precious lands - to the blight.
“I’m going to go unload the horses,” Tadrin said. “You should consider resting up before trying to talk to Crane.”
She blinked, looking away from the door and squinting up at the sellsword. “Why?”
“Because you hate each other.”
She laughed. “You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not. The last time there was a meeting of the Enquiry, you damn near screamed at him.”
Eida rolled her eyes. “Like I said, you’re exaggerating. I’ll meet with you when I’m done.”
She could hear him sigh heavily as she pushed through the door and deeper into the university’s building, but she ignored him. This matter couldn’t wait, and she was certain she could remain civil long enough to report on what they’d seen.
Even if Crane was a bastard.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Her steps echoed as she wandered down the hallway. The ceilings vaulted high overhead in a way that made them somehow feel like they were pressing down on her. It had been over a year since she’d actually stepped foot back here - she didn’t dislike it, even considered it home in some ways, but there was always work to do, and it was never in the same place. Her life consisted of traveling from one point to the next, chasing whispers or following up on the contents of a desperate flyer pleading for help. There just wasn’t often time to come back.
The walls were bare, for the most part. What paintings existed were rudimentary where they weren’t faded. There was a gallery in one of the wings, where the air could be better controlled, the artwork better preserved, but she’d only seen it once. Art had never been a particular interest for her. Neither had music, for that matter, and she outright avoided the halls dedicated to that skill - not because she disliked it that much, but because many of those playing were novices, and their discoordinate plucking and fluting was like torture.
A left. A right. Down past large windows letting in streams of sunlight. Crane’s office sat beyond the first door of the wing dedicated to the Enquiry. Even where the different fields of learning were loosely defined, there tended to be some manner of informal ringleader, a keeper of the books and records who would mark down who enrolled for what, what wealth passed between which hands. The university did charge a fee, of course - nothing exorbitant, but it was enough that admission was a barrier to the poorest in Blackstone. There used to be an option to work through the tutelage - that was the option Eida had taken some years ago - but gold had since become more needed than labor.
Placing her fingers on the door’s handle, Eida muttered an oath under her breath, rolled back her shoulders, and plastered on a smile.
Then she opened it and stepped inside.
Olian Crane was a short man of middling years with grey, balding hair and a wrinkled physique. There was not a scrap of fat on him: he was a wisp of tense energy, his wiry frame always appearing like it was poised to fight or flee. His desk sat at the back of a small room, and he was currently bent over it, scribbling away at some document with the raw intensity of a smith holding tongs over a forge.
Eida cleared her throat faintly. There was no response. She felt her smile wilt.
She gave it another attempt, and when there wasn’t so much as a glance upwards, she said:
“I know you’re not so old your hearing has failed you yet.”
Crane grimaced. He peered up at her with dull green eyes - dull because of the color only, she knew his sight was as sharp as ever. “Most knock first.”
“I used to do that, you recall. You have a penchant for ignoring it.”
He glowered at her. “I’m a busy man.”
“Certainly,” she replied. “I’m here to put in a report. I believe we should call a meeting of the Enquiry.”
He just stared at her, vacantly, the feathered tip of his quill quivering slightly over the page he’d been marking. Waiting.
She sighed, and strode further, until she stood right in front of his desk. Once there, she drew out the journal she’d drawn the mutated Rakisha in and set it on top of the parchment. He immediately scowled deeper.
“The ink wasn’t dry yet.”
“I did not set it on top of the ink,” she said. She was careful to keep her voice level, even, and let none of her mounting frustration show through. “Look at it. We found this thing circling Coniston. It killed three before we got there and dispatched it. Look at the teeth.”
Crane leaned forward, setting his quill down with an air of utmost reluctance. He frowned, lips puckering up into a wormy line, before leaning back again in his seat. She knew he didn’t need any books to verify what the beast was. He’d been in the business long enough to know most of them by heart.
“You’re certain?”
“Quite certain.”
“You’re sure you didn’t imagine it in the moment? Such encounters can be quite stressful.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. Breathe, Eida. Don’t let him get under your skin. “Tadrin can verify it as well if necessary. He took it down.”
“Of course he did. That was never in question.”
Eida curled her fingers into a fist and concealed it at her back to keep from reaching across the desk and punching the man in the face.
“I will speak to Tadrin,” Crane continued. “Verify, and then I will begin putting together the other reports I’ve gathered.”
“There are others?”
He just stared up at her blankly.
“How many? From where?”
“That will be discussed if an Enquiry is deemed necessary,” he stated. “Your contribution is appreciated.” Without warning, he tore out the image she’d rendered of the Rakisha and set it aside. Eida grit her teeth together, grinding them hard enough to restrain her own tongue. “We’re finished here for now.”
“I deserve to know-”
“The more experienced enquirers will be consulted, first and foremost. We will decide how to proceed from there.”
“I’ve been in this trade for twelve years,” she snapped at him. “I am one of the most senior members-”
“And I am the head of Blackstone’s Enquiry,” he bit back. His eyes glinted with equal parts delight and steel. “You will wait, and I will inform you if your assistance is needed further.”
She glared down at him for a few tense beats, feeling her heart pound in her chest, struggling with the urge to let go and throw that hidden fist right into his jaw. With a sharp exhale, she wheeled around instead, forcing her legs to cooperate as she left the office and slammed the door behind her.
She stalked back down the hall, her features drawn into a grimace. She got along with most in the university, but Crane was an exception. Crane was old enough to remember her from when she’d first arrived, gawking and desperate, a fish trying to escape the hook.
The others saw her for what she was now, but Crane would forever see her for what she had been. And he’d always hate her for it.