Horizons of the Heart

By Melange
Copyright © 2013 Melange
All Rights Reserved.

Synopsis

With Jaden and Mirena in the hands of the cult, their friends desperately scour the city trying to find them. The captured Mystic and knight face a terrible decision.

Flashback: Before joining her friends in adventure, Oleander took care of another group of people

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Chapter 7: Treading Places

OLEANDER

Even though it seldom snowed during the winters here in Tarad, it could get cold, and most certainly bleak. The sky became overcast and grey, and there would be entire days spent without ever seeing the sun. Everything was washed out in a subdued half-light that made people unwilling to leave their homes. It was a very bad time for the homeless.

“Stop, you thieves!” An older man stopped to lean forward and rest, out of shape and out of breath. The two children just continued running, clutching their ill-gotten goods close to themselves.

As the young boy and girl scampered through the alleyway they saw a familiar shape up ahead. She waved them through the hidden gap in the fence, and then replaced the loose plank before the pursuing baker could catch up with them.

“Looks like you found some good stuff, Talem!” She praised her young protégées.

“Uh-huh! We even got some sweetcakes, Lea!” The girl held up a deliciously smelling bundle.

“Well, let’s head back to our place, then, and share the goods.” Oleander took the lead.

Growing up in the streets of a town at the very edge of the Olmar kingdom had been hard. You had to be smart and quick, and learn who you could trust, and who you should stay away from. Stealing had been necessary to survive.

She looked on the two children trailing at either side and smiled. How much easier wouldn’t her life been, if someone had taken care of her when she was their age? At least with these she would be able to make a difference; them and the other forgotten kids.

It wasn’t much, but it was theirs. An abandoned house where the town bordered the forest. She didn’t know what it had been used for before they claimed it, but for now it was their castle.

“Alright, you dirty urchins, wash your paws before you eat!” She clapped her hands and pointed at the barrel of rainwater. “We don’t want to catch the rot, do we?”

“No aunty Lea!”

It was a bad time to be homeless, but home was anywhere you felt loved.

Rough hands pushed them into a cellar room that had served as a holding place for any previous unwilling guests. Stone floor and outer walls, but the ceiling and wall around the door were all wooden.

After they had been forced down the stairs they had also passed another room on their way through the corridor, that could only be described an abattoir. Skinned animals hung from thick chains, and a chopping bench was stained after many years of use. Jaden couldn’t help but wonder if that room was used for more than just slaughtering beasts.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” the tall, wrinkled man said as he gestured across the barren room. “We will talk again, soon.”

The Sons had relieved them of their weapons, of course, and other apparent items of power. As a couple of the men had roughly gone over them, it hadn’t taken them long to discover Kellen’s drawnstone in Jaden’s vest pocket. The ritual leader had been intrigued by it, and kept turning it over in his bony hands as he watched the process.

As the door slammed shut, they could hear other voices coming from up the corridor. The thick wooden door muted the words very effectively, though. They couldn’t tell what was being said; only that someone was giving out orders.

“Are you alright, Jaden?” She looked dishevelled and tired, but Mirena’s first concern was always for other people.

“I’m fine, Rena. Don’t worry about me,” he mumbled, thoughts preoccupied with something that could be important.

When the Sons relieved them of their weapons and gear, they hadn’t taken Jaden’s mirage veil. Of course, it was disguised as a simple hat, but it meant that the nethermancer couldn’t tell enchanted items from mundane. He had just dismissed it as the hat it was.

To be fair, only experienced craftsmen could tell items like that apart, and only some magicians possessed the skill to distinguish spells from different traditions. Most magicians only bothered with understanding their own brand of magic. At least, that was true for the rest of the world. As a Lacunai Mystic, perceiving the strands of magic was a basic sense like sight or hearing. It was vital for their way of using magic at all, so it was easy for Jaden to forget that most of the world didn’t share that sense. To them, it was just an ordinary hat.

Did it matter, though? A greater veil would be able to hide him from sight completely and offer an opportunity to escape, but his kerchief was merely a cosmetic effect, no matter how many nymphs made it.

The door unbolted and swung open again, admitting two heavily muscled cultists and the nethermancer himself. A barely visible purple bubble surrounded the man. Apparently they learned from previous experiences. The air suddenly felt thicker, as if something unseen pushed against it. Jaden could see how Mirena’s eyes narrowed. She felt it as well.

“Now with preparations out of the way, let us talk about what is going to happen,” the man explained, briefly touching the side of his head where his hair had grown almost white. Had it been that colour before?

“What do you want, heretic?” Mirena was straight to the point.

“Our property, of course. You stole something very… important to us, and we want it back.”

“Forget it. I’m willing to die to keep monsters like you from infecting my city any further.”

Jaden noticed that she was also apparently willing to add him to that fate, but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if she was bluffing or not. At the moment, it wasn’t as they had a lot else they could do but stall. Stall and hope.

“Of course, of course. A knight of Telum such as yourself, a true paladin of the temple, would gladly sacrifice herself for — what do you say? ‘The greater good’?” The nethermancer pulled his lips back in that unsmile of his. “That’s why we won’t threaten you, if you won’t comply with our demands.”

“You wish to hold a civil discussion?” She didn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Oh, no no. We will threaten someone else. Not your friend, since you seemed all too willing to throw him to the wolves, so to speak.” Mirena looked guiltily at her friend. “No, there needs to be something more poignant. Something like… a barely familiar innkeeper?”

“What? No! Leave them out of this. Your quarrel is with us, fiend!” She took a step toward the older man, but the meaty hand of one of the cultists shoved her back heavily enough to make her stumble against the wall.

“That decision has already been made, I’m afraid.” The man shook his head in a mockery of sadness. “What was his name… Hakim? Dakim? He will be brought here, and he will be killed.”

Jaden and Mirena stared at their captors, who calmly described the murder of a man.

“You can’t do that!” Mirena yelled.

“The decision has been made,” the nethermancer repeated. “It is up to you, now, to decide whether it is worth your while to save the three girls who worked there with him. Take until the evening to mull it over, we can wait.”

He turned to leave the cell, but stopped as if he remembered something.

“Yes. We will probably flay them.”

Then that heavy door swung shut and a heavy bolt slid into place, leaving them with their thoughts.

Riding had been slow ever since entering the busy Inland Street. Too many people were pushing past each other, too many wagons trying to negotiate their way through the crowds. Kellen fought back another tired yawn, and checked that his redheaded bundle was still on top of her horse. She looked like she was sleeping. In a way, he envied her.

Both of his hands were occupied, holding the reins of both horses as well as his runes. It was a difficult balancing act in more than one way. He needed to keep maintaining the enchantment that mirrored Oleanders aura on the persons carrying the drawstones.

It was a most unusual enchantment. Most rune seekers dealt primarily with elemental powers, like earth and sea. Thanks to his Northern heritage, he had studied some of the preserved books containing the old rune magic, from the time when it had a more spiritual component. He knew just enough to add an interesting twist to the much more common enchantment that switched footprints. With his improvised rune, he had been able to switch soulprints.

“Too bad the others couldn’t appreciate the finesse involved,” he mumbled to himself.

He checked the enchantment once more. It gave him a very rough idea in which direction the recipient was, and how far away. His cousin must have left through the south gate already. Jaden’s rune was still in the city, though. Perhaps they took a sneakier approach than a full on gallop like Stann must have done? Though, to be fair, the north side of the city held the temple quarter. There would likely be more people there. Almost as many as Kellen had to wade through near the Tradegate.

Suddenly, the connection with Jaden’s rune flickered and went cold.

“That’s not good.” Kellen chewed on his moustache in indecision for a while, and then turned his horse around.

“I think we can slow down now,” Rhyce shouted over the loud thudding of their horses galloping.

“Did you see their faces? It was glorious!” Stann laughed and let his horse slow down enough for him to sheath his blade.

As they had approached the Olmar gate, the south exit out of the city, the archer had spotted some suspicious people who kept watch over anyone passing through. When they got closer, they had both recognised one of the cultists they had fought in the stairs back at the Sons’ hideout. The heavy build and broken nose from Stann’s shield-slam gave him away.

Rhyce had wanted to do something clever, perhaps leading them into an ambush, but any such plans had gone out the proverbial window when Stann had simply charged through them. This had upset the guards as well, but without horses of their own to give chase they had resorted to simple name-calling. In their defence, some of the curses had been particularly inventive.

“We might want to avoid using that gate again for a few weeks,” the Northman said with a smile.

“No doubt.” Rhyce stood in his stirrups and shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked back toward the city. A couple of birds circled high above the two men.

“Well, now we just circle around and meet up with the rest on the north road.” Stann nudged his horse into a trot.

“Wait. Plan’s changed.” The archer looked grimmer than usual.

They looked at the sturdy, barred cell door. It would take a tremendously strong person to break it open, and probably tools as well. Their combined glaring at it for the last hour or so hadn’t seemed to do any good either. They felt as if they were running out of time.

"My faith grants me strength…" Mirena began. But I'm not that strong, went unsaid.

"And my magic will only put us into more peril." Jaden frowned, imagining being trapped inside the cell with a fire raging. He would probably be fine. The fire wasn’t going to hurt him. Not with his… condition. But the roof collapsing or choking on the smoke might.

He glanced at Mirena, and was suddenly reminded of yesterday. This could easily become a very similar situation. He had to avoid that, any way possible. He just couldn’t lose any more of himself like this. He had made a promise.

"What about... Jaden, I know you don't like talking about your-" Mirena cleared her throat. She wasn't usually at a loss for words, but the ways of the Mystics were strange to her. "Your tradition is known for their fierce battle-shapes. Maybe..?"

Jaden looked apprehensive, and slowly shook his head.

"It's... not suitable for breaking us out that way, Rena."

Mirena looked at him carefully, weighing their situation against pushing further. But the situation being what it was, though, she couldn’t afford to reject any possible resource without examining it. The military commander inside her refused to do so.

"Implying there might be other ways that it could?" She asked.

They looked at each other, as her friend shifted his weigh from one foot to another. The young mystic looked increasingly uncomfortable. Mirena didn’t know the reason behind what had brought Jaden into their adventuring group almost a year ago, but they had all their own reasons for leaving home.

"Under some specific circumstances, it might help us. It's pretty unlikely we'll find ourselves in an appropriate setting for that, however." Jaden looked sideways, and blushed a bit. This was clearly embarrassing him.

Mirena smiled a little, and decided to back off for now.

"Did you know that Oleander believes your battle-shape to be a sea serpent? That's why we don't see you use it, she says."

Jaden grimaced, the subject of his spiritual form something he'd rather avoid talking about. Or even thinking about.

"Look, I'm not a... she's wrong, okay?" He said, gently. "And, we don't call it 'battle-shape', though I imagine some of my friends back at the mountain would like that phrase."

"May I ask what you do call it?" Mirena softly pried, trying to understand her friend.

"Have you noticed how Stann is letting his sideburns grow, lately?" Jaden deftly tried to steer the conversation into another direction.

"Would you like to talk about something else?" Mirena had an eyebrow raised.

"Was I that obvious?"

"Of course not, my friend. The very picture of subtlety." Mirena reached out and patted his hand.

They sat in silence for a while longer before they heard some people come down into the cellar. There were sounds of conversation barely audible coming from up the corridor, from the slaughter-room. This time, the noise ended with a muted shriek that went on for much too long.

Mirena looked shaken, and held herself. She couldn’t do anything to stop this, and it was killing her inside. Something terrible had happened in the other room. After a moment, they heard footsteps stop on the other side of their cell door. They could feel the wrongness of the presence outside, stronger than before.

“His name was Darim,” said a dry voice.

The table broke apart when the second man landed on top of it.

“I don’t think this is working.” Rhyce considered the terrified man he had pinned to the wall with an arrow through the wrist. He had a very good aim, but not good enough to hit a sleeve and not the arm in it. It was close, though.

“Why would you say that? They’re cooperating — aren’t you, lads?” Stann shouted the last part at the mostly unconscious men sprawled around his feet. He got some groans as a reply.

“We’re still not any closer to finding out where they took Jay and Rena. We’re just wasting our time with these lowlifes.”

“You know, I wonder what Oleander would do?” Stann always appreciated how the small redhead could ferret out useful morsels. Most of the time without resorting to larceny, too.

“Let’s never ask ourselves that question again.” The archer left his pincushion and helped unbury the still moaning person under a couple of his resting friends.

They leaned over the poor man, and grabbed him in one arm each.

“Stop! Don’t… I don’t know what you want?” The man protested through a split lip. One of his eyes was swelling over.

“The Sons of Husk. Olmani cultists. Probably deal with dark magic goods,” Stann told their new acquaintance and rattled off the same message they had used at the last three places they visited.

“They might also supply meat. I saw many of them using butcher’s knives last time,” Rhyce added. That was not a weapon you used just to make a statement.

“Wait, are you talking about the Umnir slaughterhouse? They’re that new group that began selling Olman beef and mutton here in Tier,” the man sputtered. “I heard some strange rumours about them.”

Stann and Rhyce looked at each other for a moment, then turned back to him.

“Where can we find this… Umnir place?”

Kellen turned the bag around in his hands. He was careful not to touch the actual idol, and used the bag as a makeshift mitten. His drawstone rune allowed him to mirror an aura, and feel its distance and direction, in a very rough sense. Could he, somehow, use the skull to find the cult’s new location?

When he had decided to try and find Mirena and Jaden, he needed a place to work. The busy streets — or horseback for that matter — would not do at all. In the end, he had simply asked a fellow clansman merchant if they could use his wagon house. There were a few of them here in Tier, and clan loyalties ran strong. Someone had even found him a tankard of beer.

The groaning by his side made him look at his responsibility. She had been stirring more recently. Whatever hold the artefact had over her had clearly faded away, though whether it was by his doing, her fighting it, or something else, he didn’t know.

“Whu-“ her eyes fluttered. “Don’ leave…”

Her voice was weak, and somewhat sad. That she was speaking at all was a surprise, however. Kellen smoothed back her pixie-short red hair.

“Don’t worry, little fox, you’re safe.” His voice, meant for leading men into battle, was calm and reassuring.

It took her a few more tries to fully regain consciousness. During her relapses into sleep, he kept examining the skull. It was covered in glyphs and marks. Symbols. Language. He could work with that.

After a while he noticed that she had rolled over on her resting place on an unused cart. Her grey eyes were focused on him.

“Where are we?” Her voice was a little raspy.

“In a shed, not far from the clarion bridge. You can see it if you cross the road,” he offered her a sip from his beer.

She took a gulp, then frowned as she held her head.

“Are the… there are others, right? Others than just us? Jay?” She suddenly looked uncertain.

“Yes, of course. We split up to avoid the Sons. Only, it turned out that didn’t work as well as we had hoped. Mirena and Jay are missing.” Kellen filled her in on what had happened during her absence.

“We have to find them!” She struggled into a sitting position which brought on a coughing fit. The large Northman just pushed her back down with a single hand. “Kellen! We need to help them!”

“We will, Red. And I am.” He gestured at the skull, safely tucked into the bag.

She shuddered and tore her eyes away from it. She didn’t want to look at it any more.

“I’m certain I can find them using this. I just need a little more time.” He spread his hands.

Oleander looked at him for a while, as he worked on the puzzle. Eventually, she looked resigned and moved to a more comfortable position.

“Can you at least give me some water? I’m thirsty.” She coughed a couple more times.

Kellen stood up, and made sure the skull was safely wrapped.

“Yes, of course. I’ll be right back.”

He knocked on the back of the leatherwork store his clansman owned, and was met by his wife. Darya was a good, solid northwoman as tall as any Tier man, and able to beat him senseless with her apron if he looked at her the wrong way. For Kellen, though, she only offered a smile and the hospitality of her house.

As he returned to the shed with a pitcher and two cups, he stopped cold in the doorway. The skull was still in its bag, untouched. Oleander, though, and her pack were missing.

He hurried back out around the shop and into the street, looking either way to see if he could see a tiny red spot in the crowds. He cursed his carelessness, and chewed on his moustache in frustration. Slowly, he walked back to the shed. His best bet was to find the Sons before she did. Worst come to worst, he could always collapse whatever building those cultists had holed up inside and flood the rubble. If he could only find it, that is.

Kellen stared into the mocking sockets of the obsidian skull.

“They’re going to kill those girls,” Mirena repeated herself, slamming her palms against the heavy wooden door. She felt so powerless.

“What can we do? Far whisper is limited to a couple of hundred yards, and if I don’t know where any of them are, the message won’t reach them anyway. I mean, how can we even surrender if we can’t tell our friends to bring that thing back?” Jaden paced the small cell. His feet felt really sweaty in those thick socks.

“Maybe they know something we don’t,” the knight mused to herself.

“They might also be crazy. Have we considered that? They could be actually, porridge-knife crazy.” What a frightening thought. Captured by madmen and expected to comply with impossibilities.

“No… They’re too organised, too rational. Everything that man did to capture us, it felt like being a piece on the board. I suspect they might have herded us into that ambush without us even knowing about it.” Mirena sounded thoughtful, her hands still against the door as if she could just will it to break.

“The drawstones! They probably think they’re communication enchantments!” Jaden burst out. It made sense, in a way. “The nethermancer can’t tell magic apart. He must believe we could talk at a distance.”

“But we can’t use them like that. When they make their demands, we can’t keep up our end of it, and then those girls will die.” She forced herself to relax her jaw. Knights didn’t grit their teeth. Ladies didn’t grit their teeth either. She did her best to be both.

“We can’t warn the others, we can’t do what our captors want,” Jaden ticked things off on his gloved fingers. “We can’t even escape. It’s not as if I can just burn that door down.”

Mirena looked up, with a strange expression.

“Why not? Why can’t you do just that?”

“Mirena? We’ll die,” Jaden gestured around the cell. “We’d choke, cook, or burn before that door gave out.”

“But you can protect yourself from the fires, can’t you? I remember you almost immolating yourself to escape that Kynian Horror back in Carrick Field.” She recalled one of their previous adventures.

“Not one of my best ideas,” Jaden grimaced, vividly remembering the snapping mandibles. “But even if I can survive it, you can’t expect me to… to martyr you on the off-chance I can escape from here on my own?”

“They may have taken my sword, but my faith remains strong. Telum will keep me whole even as the fires burn me.” The look in her eyes showed just a hint of the zealot she could’ve been if her life had gone down a different road.

“Mirena…”

“We have no choice. We can’t expect the others to find us. Not in time.” Not in time to avoid innocent blood spilt, or worse. Much, much worse.

She backed away from the door as Jaden approached it. He gave her one last reluctant look before he raised his hand against the hard wood and made a fist. It always seemed to return to fire. His condition. His solution.

“Valignat!”

The man straightened his cap for the second time, and dabbed a folded cloth across his brow. Across from him sat that… that girl. She had walked in just a short while ago, and was making an absolute pest of herself.

“Don’t bother denying it, Pered. You know I know what you do, on the side. I know all about your Whitewater connections.” She coughed again. She looked really pale.

“So what if you do? It’s not like you have any proof.” He looked at the cloth. It was a bit dirty. Just like him, he supposed.

“Maybe I do? Maybe I came across a certain satchel a week ago? Maybe it contained some Etrian black zalach, and a sizeable letter of credit written to your establishment?” She smiled wanly.

“That was you?! You… you thief!” Pered was getting red in the face. This short, meddling Olman girl…

“No more than you, buttercup. I know you deal in more than just zalach. You sell all kiiinds of weird herbs, to the right buyers.”

“Even if that was the case, I would never betray a business contract.” He looked down his nose at the woman.

“They call themselves the Sons of Husk. They recently took over that old townhouse, previously owned by the old Lorian couple, next to Lantern Street — why do they even call it that? The street was dead dark.” Oleander digressed a bit.

“You wouldn’t understand. You’re a foreigner.”

“The Huskies are Olmani too,” she said with a singsong drawl.

The merchant of many strange goods, sweating in the afternoon sun, glared at the cheeky girl for a moment.

“Never let it be said I would stand by and watch my city be tarnished by some cultist filth,” Pered changed his tune quickly enough.

Oleander always knew how to find the right leverage.

“Now, tell me where they run their business?”