Wellynd turned but nothing stood behind him. Just the hollow darkness. Without any more hesitation, he sprinted up the stairs, two steps at a time, not even taking the time to watch the torch turn back to its familiar colour as he ascended the stairs.
Bursting out of the recess, he pushed through the door and grabbed at the unlit sconce, yanking it down, the rock grating out in response. Wellynd ducked under the door and began to descend the stairs.
He had just started to slow down when the stairs disappeared from under him, turning into flat stone. He fell onto his back and began to slide down a chute, turning once in a curve before being spat out into open air.
And into a pile of rubbish and refuse.
Wellynd groaned as he tried to roll out of the pile without touching anything else. Everything was wet. This is where they must dump their human waste as well.
Slim’s idea of a joke.
Wellynd finally crawled out of the mess and looked around. He was in some sub-courtyard deep in the Old City. He could tell from how dark the stone was on the tall buildings loomed over him. He scanned the walls. There was no clear indication where he had come from.
The sun was no longer visible from within the courtyard so it must be well past midday.
He’d have to find his way back to the Crest’s and change before he went to see Selkis at the Observatory.
He certainly couldn’t go smelling like this.
Telling the old scholar about his failure of the exam was already going to be embarrassing enough.
Turning twice to get his bearings, Wellynd set off back towards the Crest’s, the whole way, his mind haunted with visions of the shadowy figure dwelling beneath the Old City.
~
About an hour later, Wellynd stood out front the Crest’s Inn, the afternoon sunlight pleasantly warming his face, refreshed and cleanly clothed. Holding up his arm to his face, he inhaled through his nose and smiled. He now smelled subtly of lavender and mossroot. He couldn’t believe he’d had fresh water drawn just for him at the Crest’s, and that they had included a choice selection of oils and soaps to be infused into the bath.
He could get used to that.
The bath had also given him time to rationalise, or, at least try to piece together what he had seen in the Mox Ambrum’s hideout.
The figure had to be human.
He’d never read about, and certainly never witnessed, any creatures that so closely resembled a person. He wondered if they were from far away, like Shadkara. Knowing the Mox Ambrum, they were probably keeping them prisoner for a ransom, or the purpose of some other devious scheme.
The only thing he couldn’t make sense of, when he sat with half his head below the water of the hot bath, enveloped in bubbles and steam, were those eyes.
And that whisper.
They obviously had something to do with the strange power that seemed to ripple off of Tanner.
Whatever was going on, he had no plans of investigating anytime soon. His curiosity about their hideout had been satiated. The Mox had always seemed innocuous enough, but Tanner’s demands and threats had changed that.
He was even considering asking Laine to have someone else deliver skald to them from now on.
Wellynd glanced around the square. Some workers were unloading crates from the conveyor, as usual, and there were a handful of passers-by no doubt returning from the market, netted bags laden with fruit or new clothing. One girl, leaned against city hall, was covering her mouth, snickering at him.
No doubt she’d watched him relish his new-found love for luxury bathing.
Face turning red, he started up the northern road that headed out of the square and toward the Observatory.
Unlike the Old Town, the New Town buildings became sparser as one moved further away from the city centre.
Wellynd walked down the perfectly formed brick road, staring through large windows of shops and admiring the opulent merchant houses that took up the majority of the district.
It was always easy to tell when one was getting close to the Observatory. Pubs were replaced with coffee shops, and merchants' stalls were replaced with book shops. Younger people, all around Wellynd’s age, walked about in small groups wearing robes of varying shades of grey with a distinct crimson stripe along their shoulders.
Robes that Wellynd had once thought he would be wearing.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
He couldn’t help but clench his fists as a tall, older looking boy in darker robes pushed by him. In light of the day’s series of events, he’d managed to forget about the aching sense of loss at his failure to pass the exam.
A group of four girls in robes brushed by him, laughing amongst one another.
He tried to steel his mind. He wasn’t coming here.
Such an effort took all his focus and he tried to ignore the effervescent and vivacious atmosphere only found in places where everyone is collectively committed to doing something extraordinary.
He was so focused on ignoring this world that was now lost to him that he almost ran into something.
“Can I ‘elp you?” said a voice.
Wellynd shook his head and looked up.
In front of him stood two massive stone pillars, framing a gate formed of numerous brass rods, the symbol of Arthus connecting the two gates ornately formed by thin gilding in the middle.
He looked behind him to realise the last grouping of buildings was nearly 200 paces back, the city having given way to the open green fields that characterised the grounds of the Observatory itself.
The source of the voice was a guard standing in front of one of the pillars, outfitted in an ornate looking set of armour. It was still made of the signature Vertan bronze, but a series of etchings and patterns ornamented the helmet and pauldrons. The guard carried no spear, instead holding a large two-handed sword, its blade pointing down and his two hands resting on the pommel.
“What? Uh, yeah. I’m here for Master Bardov.” responded Wellynd, distracted.
“Delivery?” replied the guard, glimmering bronze pauldrons highlighting the inscrutable face poking out of her helmet.
“Yep.”
“That’s right. I recognize you. You’ve been ‘ere before” she said, stepping forward.
“Yeah, that’s me” replied Wellynd, stepping forward a little more confidently.
“Do delivery boys come through the main gate?” she returned. Wellynd almost responded to the question genuinely, but caught a glimpse of the woman’s arched eyebrow under her helm. His face reddened even more.
“Right. Yeah, sorry. I’ll head to the back” he replied awkwardly.
“I’ll let em’ know you’re comin’” said the soldier before resuming her perfectly straight stance and staring straight ahead into the distance. How the soldier would let the guards at the back know, Wellynd had no clue. Another mystery he’d probably never solve now.
“Oh shutup” he muttered to himself as he turned up the narrow gravel path that ran alongside the length of the fence.
Ruminating wasn’t doing him any good. He was still getting the rare opportunity to even go into a place that most people never even dreamed of witnessing.
This meandering journey around the outskirts of the Observatory was often the highlight of his visits to the mainland.
It wasn’t rare for him to catch a class of students sitting in a field or sometimes sparring, the combatants moving at near impossible speeds, jumping ten feet in the air, almost hovering for a moment while they gained the bearings of their opponent.
He had no idea how any of it worked, but, according to Selkis, sparring wasn’t traditionally part of the curriculum. Apparently, their Vertan patrons had demanded that Koshai receive more physical training, since so many of them ended up joining the military.
Wellynd continued along the path, which sloped gradually up towards the structure whose battlements were now just visible over the crest of a hill. The grounds inside the perimeter of the fence were perfectly manicured, a short, even, vibrant green grass topping its gentle rolling hills, a white poplar occasionally breaking up the uniformity of green.
When the Observatory itself came into view, Wellynd couldn’t help but stop and admire it.
He wasn’t quite sure what kind of structure it was. It was distinct from the buildings in the New and Old Town.
While it possessed battlements, it wasn’t exactly a castle or fortress; certainly nothing like Fort Gravician that sat further out from town.
Seemingly carved from a single piece of nearly white rock, the building was three stories tall and unfathomably long. Sometimes, Wellynd was able to explore the grounds after completing his delivery, and one time he had sprinted the length of the building.
It had taken him nearly a minute, at full speed, to get from one end to the other.
Tall arched windows lined the building on each floor, each window about three paces apart. The stone itself was etched with perfect lines between each floor, and the middle section of the building possessed ten large columns on either side of the main door, each half embedded into the structure of the building itself. Altogether, the pillars held up a grand archway that depicted an ornately carved relief of hooded figures that praised a floating Eikon at the peak of the arch, the eikon itself emanating an array of beams decorated with gold leaf.
Each end of the building also held a turret of sorts, ascending another two stories and capped with large glass lanterns.
Wellynd soon found himself, like he did every time he visited this place, face pressed up against the brazen bars of the fence, staring at the magnificent structure. Even though the building was now tainted with his failure, it was still the most beautiful place he had ever seen.
Fighting the urge to sit and stare at the structure all day, Wellynd pushed himself from the bars and continued on, circling past the sides and rear grounds, where there lay a series of less impressive outbuildings.
As the perimeter circled behind the main structure, the path and grass gave way to cobbled stone. Wellynd continued along the fence until it too disappeared, replaced by a wall of grey brick. He finally came to a relief in the wall that contained a nondescript wooden door. He knocked loudly.
“Delivery for Selkis” he yelled, slightly annoyed that he had to return from his reverie to the task at hand.
After a moment, another, less decorated guard opened the door and nodded at Wellynd to follow him. The pair wound through a series of hallways, up two staircases, until they entered the main hallway along the back of the Observatory, long cathedral windows lining the left side, and a series of lecture halls on the right. As they walked down the hallway towards Selkis’ office, Wellynd listened hungrily to the echoing lectures that rang out through each doorway he passed, sometimes punctuated by howls of laughter, other times complemented by choruses of wondrous gasps.
They reached the end of the hallway and walked through another arched opening, turning right to find a narrow hallway of offices. The guard led Wellynd to the final office and knocked on the door.
“Observer Bardov, you have a delivery,” said the guard.
Wellynd couldn’t help but smile when he heard the scuffling of a chair and a muffled squeak of excitement behind the door.