Silence - Chapter 14

5/5 last one for today.


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"This is the best we can do?" Cal asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You wanted out of sight, what better place than the Dust?" Yan said, scratching at his goatee. His bald head shone in the early morning sunlight, reminding Cal of the wretched heat to come that afternoon. "No one will come bug us here. They'd rather not get their heels too muddy."

Cal tilted her head in acknowledgement and pushed open the door ahead of her. The corrugated iron creaked like a pensioner's joints, and a veritable rain of rust crackled off it's surface, but at least it opened. Inside, the warehouse was wide open—some might even say cavernous—though it looked like there were a few sectioned off areas in the rear.

"Walls have some holes, and the roof leaks, but all that can be patched up easy enough," Portia said in consideration. She put her hands on her hips as she and others followed Cal into the building. "This is...not the worst."

"Your words are like honey on my heart, dear," Yan said with a broad smile. Portia snorted and turned back to the others.

"I think it's—I don't think that's the right saying," Kelgan said, stroking his beard in thought.

"Looks like there's space for me to set up shop too. Could do some good here in the Dust while we're at it," she suggested.

"Hm," Cal said noncommittally. She walked in a slow circle amid the dust and scattered leaf debris that dominated the space. After the Tribunal's judgement, their group had been cut loose from the Guild and left to fend for themselves. Some of the survivors were allowed to stay on, and those that had fallen ill during the return trip were still being given medical attention by the Healer's Ward. All of Cal's closest friends and allies however were sent packing with only the armor and weapons on their backs. There was little else to do but rally together and figure out their next step. "I'd rather not get the Guild's attention, Portia," Cal said, and the pixie-haired woman scowled.

"Blight the Guild and their attention," Evie said. Her young voice was thick with a bitter vitriol that was so familiar to Cal; it was the same poison that coursed in her veins, after all. "Why should we listen to them at all?"

"Because they control this city, kid," Harn grunted as he walked into the warehouse. "You gonna burn down the house you're still livin' in?"

"Maybe," Evie grumbled.

It had been two weeks since the sentencing, two very long weeks that Cal had spent talking to Elders and fighting to get her people out of "observation," whatever that was. Since then, they'd moved to a tiny inn in the depths of the Dust Quarter, the poorest of the four sections in Haarwatch, until Yan had made this discovery.

"It's larger than the Owlshade Inn, at least," Cal allowed. Yan puffed up his chest and looked between Portia and Kelgan. "But it needs work. Work we aren't gonna be around to appreciate later. You know the plan: we do some hunts, run some board tasks, earn enough silver to take the first caravan outta town. That's a couple months, at most, so make the fixes we need but no more than that. Yeah?"

Her crew—friends the lot of them—gave her a variety of salutes and nods before scattering into the open space. Yan, Trendle, and Vivianne followed Portia into the back area, presumably to find space for her "shop" despite Cal's objections. She merely rolled her eyes; the Dust could do worse than a healer setting up in the worst area of town. Bodie, Karp, Kelgan, and Harn all started shifting debris from the central area, their Strength and Endurance making short work of it all. Evie...she lingered near the door, staring back into the haze that had started to build outside.

"Why are we running, Callie?" she asked without turning.

"You'd rather fight?" Cal asked. She had dreaded this question from the start.

"Of course I'd rather fight," Evie said. Yet the heat Cal had expected was absent. The girl just sounded tired. "Maggie...she would've fought. She started hating the Guild, by the time—"

"Maggie did fight, that's why were were able to get outta the Foglands at all." Cal walked closer and lifted a hand to put on Evie's shoulder. She hesitated though and dropped it. "But there's a time to fight, and a time to retreat and gather your strength. Going against the Guild might ease my anger, but it won't bring her back, Evie."

"We could try!" Evie said, spinning to face her. There were tears in her green eyes. "We could do more than sit back and take their punishments! They stripped her, Callie! They took everything she'd ever worked for, and wouldn't even let us have a funeral. They wouldn't even let us take her body."

Evie's voice fell to a whisper at the end, but a blaze of prickling fire had already burned across Cal's neck and scalp. Pain gathered in her throat, an ache she'd been repressing for weeks now.

"We'd die before we made it through the second floor of the Eyrie, kid," Cal said softly. This time her hand rested gently against Evie's shoulder. "I know, I tried, the day she was taken away from us. Silver Rankers pushed me back, four of them." She sighed, heavy and exhausted. "They don't let us go, even in death. Silver meant she could opt out, but now Mags had no rights."

"So they just get to boil her down for her Essence Draughts? And that's it? End of story?" Evie wiped at her eyes furiously, as if she were mad at them for leaking.

"We have to make the best of what we have. What Magda gave to us. That's you, me, Harn, everybody she sacrificed her life for. My job is to make that sacrifice worth it, to keep you safe. Cause we all know she'd come back from the grave to kill me if anything happened to you."

A ghost of a smile flitted across the girl's face, and Cal caught her glancing at her neckline. Cal reached down at lifted her triangular locket, twin to the one Mags had given her a long time ago. That she'd only just returned, right before she died. Cal ignored the burning in her eyes and squeezed Evie's shoulder, once.

"We have our memories, yeah? Can't take that away from us."

"Let em try." Evie bared her teeth. Cal felt a sad, hysterical laugh bubble up, but she held it back.

"For now, we get stronger. Focus on developing your core. Harn told me you're close to the Visualization Stage," Cal smiled gently and pulled Evie into a hug. The girl stiffened slightly before melting into the embrace. "You get there and you'll get to come with us on hunts. Sound square?"

"Square," Evie sniffed.

"Alright. Let's go check on this ruin, then."


* * *


Atar studied the tome before him, tracing the shapes inked on the page with his left pointer finger, while his right etched them in the air before him. Orange Mana flared, lingering just long enough to complete a simple sigil, though Atar refused to activate them. The Elder's study was not the place for such hazardous experimentation.

No, the mage was merely getting acquainted with the sigaldry in the books before him, as he had been doing for the past fortnight. Elder Teine had provided Atar with a number of books—twenty nine, to be exact—calling all of them required reading. Only then, he was told, would he be considered educated enough in the bare fundamentals. He was working his way through the twenty-eighth at the moment, and it was both tedious and faintly humiliating to be reviewing the basics of his favored art.

Atar considered protesting—he had studied sigaldry extensively under his Master—but he ultimately kept quiet and accepted his new lot in life. He was no longer a prized pupil, and had once again started at the bottom of the social hierarchy. In fact, there were a large number of apprentices under the Elder. They ranged in rank from Tin to Bronze, with the more advanced Guilders having a far greater involvement with the Elder's works. A fact that made Atar seethe with jealousy.

"Move aside, Untempered swine, you are in my way."

Atar looked up incredulously to find a slight woman in an ornate dress embroidered with thread of gold and draped with a crimson stole of such exquisite make that only a fool would not recognize her station. A minor noble, by his eye, one dressed to impress others in a way that had little to do with aptitude and much to do with the depths of her pocket. Her face was small and pointed, and her eyes too big. No Vessilia with her dark beauty, but attractive nonetheless. She stared at him with those too-large eyes, unblinking.

"Well?"

"Well, what?" Atar asked.

The girl huffed a breath. "Pathless take you—move. This is my favorite seat."

Atar looked around him, noting the abundance of seating in the Elder's study. It was a massive hall, filled to the brim with books and plush armchairs and beautifully appointed desks, all designed to study the fascinating knowledge held within. While large enough for dozens of apprentices to work within, was still restricted to a chosen few, and at the moment only Atar was present. "I am an apprentice just as yourself. There are plenty of seats to take that are not currently occupied, Miss...?"

"Miss?! Listen, you Tin Rank child, I am Lilian Knacht, first daughter of the Ore Lord, Octavius Knacht. Apprentice Tier and Iron Rank member of the Protector's Guild. My father has bought people for less than the cost of your pathetic battlerobes." The girl flicked a hand and curled her lip. "So shoo, you are not welcome near me."

Atar's olive complexion reddened the longer the girl spoke. By the end of her little speech a vein was throbbing visibly along his neck and his jaw clenched so hard he was liable to break a tooth. Never had he been so disrespected! Not even that hooligan Felix had dared to speak to him in such a way! Just as he opened up his mouth to lambaste the idiot girl child, he was interrupted, yet again.

"Lilian, knock it off," said a genteel voice from across the room. A man followed after it, one with dark brown hair, expertly slicked back into fine waves above his slightly pointed face. He wore a doublet and trousers whose make, much as the girl-child's, suggested minor nobility. They were devoid of thread of gold and instead only formed to his slender body in a way accentuated by the dark blue half cape over a single shoulder. A silver-hilted rapier poked from his left hip, likely an ornamental weapon of some design. "You've already been warned off for frightening the new apprentices. Don't let it happen again."

The girl-child turned meek, though Atar knew her fangs were merely hidden. "Of course, cousin Alister. I was simply explaining to this...desert boy that he had sat in our spot. The light, you see, is perfect here for perusing the Elder's exquisite collection."

"Naturally. But there are chairs aplenty for all of us," her cousin said. Alister, apparently. "Let's simply sit and introduce ourselves properly."

Alister was older than his cousin, though the resemblance was unmistakable once it was called out. They both shared the same pointed nose and slender chin, even if his eyes were a touch smaller than the girl-child's. On her they were strange, a doll's eye on a Human, but on him they were...not unappealing.

"Sit? Blind gods, yes," muttered a third voice, this one gruffer. A boy stepped around a leather armchair, roughly the same age as Lilian, perhaps seventeen or eighteen summers and built like a plowman. He flopped down into the nearest one, letting his bulk skip the chair backward. "My legs are aching after all that formwork."

"That is because you wield earth Mana like someone doing manual labor," Lilian said in snide derision. She folded herself neatly in a chair flanking her cousin and glared daggers at Atar again. "Why exactly, are you still here, Tin Rank?"

Atar bristled. "The study is open to all of Elder Teine's apprentices, bar none."

"My cousin is...impatient," Alister drawled in his urbane accent. "But she has a certain aversion to manners."The girl-child drew in a sharp breath that made Atar smile. Alister smiled back. "I heard her introduction, so I shall follow. I am Alister Knacht, first-born son of Albert Knackt. My associate here is Dabney DeLane, second-born son of Rodric DeLane."

"A pleasure," Atar managed, meeting Alister's handshake with his own. He was right. Minor nobility within Haarwatch, which meant they were country bumpkins compared to the true world shakers from the Interior. He felt a measure of confidence suffuse his limbs. "I am Atar V'as, former apprentice of Sig'nyh Kel'lyv, Grandmaster of the Desert's Fire."

Alister whistled. "Grandmaster, you say? And you're in Haarwatch?" The young noble gave him a considering look. "Please don't be offended by my asking but, why?"

Atar turned his grimace into a thin smile. "To advance my knowledge, my Master sent me to apprentice under Elder Teine. He had a great many good things to say about the Elder's prowess."

"He certainly is quite remarkable," Alister agreed.

The thick lout snapped his fingers and leaned forward. "Now I remember! Atar V'as! You came back with from the Foglands!"

Lilian gasped and Alister's attention sharpened. "Truly?" he asked.

Atar shrugged helplessly, the book in front of him a scant barrier from their inquisitive stares. "It is true."

"Fascinating," Alister said, his eyes sparkling. "I do believe we sat at the right table, today."