Told In Stone Chapter 15: Yega

The manor belonged to a spinster, last in the line of a prominent family who had gifted her entire estate to Wikkan. Now it was in the possession of Master Quell. The mysterious figure that had given her more power than she could ever imagine. She didn’t even know his true name, but what did that matter? That he was using this house freely proved that even the Wikkan bowed to his wishes. How high did his influence spread? All the way to the Wikkan Seat?

The heavy wooden doors stood ajar, the entrance hall silent, the large heath full of cold ashes. She forged a minor working, holding the grey power of the Arcane close to her fingertips, her eyes tracking the shadows. The bust of a hook nosed woman lay smashed on the marble floor, her remaining eye giving a last bitter rebuke.

Long hallways held curious antiques covered in a fine layer of dust, glimpses though open doorways revealed cold, darkened rooms hanging with somber paintings.

Haunted sounds crept through the empty hallways. Voices talking, and a soft sobbing. The sounds led her to a cathedral-like atrium, crowned with a towering dome of metal and glass. A blight had taken the array of plants that had once thrived here. Dark fronds hung over the pathway and the smell of rot and decay hung in the air, dead insects crunched underfoot.

The voices were clear now and she recognised the wheedling nasal tone of Isan Wane, the other was a deep sonorous voice that caused her heart to hammer in her breast. What a fool she was, a woman of forty-five summers that behaved like a girl of half that age in his presence.

“Antonietta, welcome,” her master said, as she stepped into the central space of the atrium.

“Master Quell,” she said, with a deep bow.

He stood before a blackened, gnarled tree that had given bloom to dark flowers. He held one of the blooms in his fingers, gently twisting the stem, it was almost violet in the centre. Today he was elvish, tall and lithe of stature with high sharp cheekbones and copper skin. Last time he had been a Northman, broad of shoulder with wide strong hands.

Antonietta pulled herself back to the present. “Wane,” she said, giving a curt nod to the other occupant of the room.

Isan Wane lounged in a heavy chair, his lizard like tongue flicking across his mouth as he appraised her. Even his gaze felt like a violation. Before he was excised from the Arcanum they called him the needle, or more likely he gave himself the moniker. He liked to get under peoples skin.

Antonietta took one of the two remaining chairs, avoiding looking to the empty one. She had heard Sumner Nixton was dead, though she heard many things and in her estimation he was almost impossible to kill. She suspected he was alive and hiding in one of his deeper holes.

“What progress have you made, Antonietta?” Quell asked.

She controlled her breathing, radiating what confidence she could. “The most recent tests have been promising, master. The procedure is survivable, now we will work on the binding. The last Leybound we captured were weak, only recently bound. Hemler believes that they need to have mastered their Arcane leyline before we can bind them. With more Leybound we will succeed.”

A silence followed these words, and a droplet of sweat rolled down her back. She had other news for her master, but not now. Not in front of Isan Wane. Perhaps never, some things were best withheld, power nurtured. And such power it was she could scarcely believe she hadn’t seen it before.

“Perhaps you should let the Cetic whip you instead of himself?” Wane said with a nasty chuckle.

Antoinetta kept her eyes on Quell. Isan Wane was a worm, and when she had succeeded, she would crush him. “Foral-nar will continue to comply, but he was no match for the Warcaster.”

Master Quell held the flower to his nose momentarily. “A half company of Leybound have been dispatched to the Echo. They will pass close to the Cetic sept in days.”

A half company meant at least thirty leybound, more than she could have hoped for. She would have the breakthrough she needed inside a month, long before Isan Wane. “I will instruct Foral-nar to apprehend them. They will be no match for the Cetic once they are inside.” Her words tripped over each other in their haste to get out, but she fell silent as Quell raised a gloved hand.

“The Leybound will travel with three Erudoran Arcanists, a Warcaster and the future king of the Faelen. Take the Leybound and kill the others, but Prince Gwilhelm must reach his destination at Fallow. Do you understand?”

An unnecessary complication but Antoinette kept her mouth shut. It was manageable for such rewards. “I understand.”

Quell approached, and held out the small flower. “I am pleased with your efforts, I know you will not fail me.”

Tears welled in her eyes as she took the bloom with a trembling hand. “Thank you, master Quell,” she whispered.

Isan Wane fidgeted in his chair before interrupting. “Master. If you are ready I will make my presentation. I believe you will find it pleasing.”

Quell took the third seat and gestured for Isan Wane to continue. The skinny arcanist left up and loped toward a doorway. He had lost a foot in some childhood mishap and the heavy wooden foot he wore scraped slightly with every step.

He disappeared through the doorway and reappeared a moment later ushering a young boy wearing household livery. The boys once white leggings were dirty and ripped, and his handsome green and gold tailcoat was so stained so badly it almost appeared black. His face was smeared with dirt and tears and his eyes flickered into the shadows of the room with a fear that was palpable.

Antonietta shrank back in her chair as the second figure appeared. She was at least seven feet tall and wore a tattered black robe. Her features were that of a woman, but no woman had skin like a cracked porcelain mask, the expression blank, with only a thin slit for her mouth.

She had never seen a Yega, but she knew enough about them to want to create a working and hurl it at the creature. The Wikkan claimed to have hunted them all down, but there would always be a darker hole in the abyss to hide in. It was said that if any saw their true features under the mask it would cause an instant death.

The Yega tugged on a length of dirty rope in her hand the other end of which was tied around the neck of a third figure that shuffled from the doorway. The Wikkan’s eyes were milky pools, her black hair hanging lank around her gaunt face. Her bare feet were filthy and cracked and she wrung her hands unceasingly. She hobbled forward, like her legs had been broken and set poorly. A Warcaster, presumably. A Wikkan with the blood of a Yega in her veins, now little more than a living key to transport the Yega to and from the abyss.

If Wane had taken such a dangerous ally to further his work it must mean he was close to a successful binding. Master Quell wore an expression of polite attentiveness. Wanes success would be her undoing. Quell would certainly give Wane control of her work, and the rewards.

“Master Quell. This boy has been successfully bound to a Wikkan leyline,” Wane announced.

Quell nodded his head slowly. “Show me.”

“Go on then, boy. Show him what you can do,” Wane snapped.

The boy shook his head, his face screwing up and fresh tears springing to his eyes. A strangled moan came from his lips and Wane slapped him so hard that he stumbled and fell on his backside.

“Use the leyline, you little bastard,” Wane snapped.

The boys high pitched moaning dropped a few octaves and he leaned forward and vomited dark green ichor over the flagstones. The thick, inky substance dribbled down his chin and when he looked up, his eyes were completely black.

The Yega hissed and even Isan Wane looked shocked, before he cleared his throat. “Now, form a witch bolt,” he commanded.

The boy remained on the floor, and looked at his hands as if he had never seen them before, then he smeered them in the dark vomit, giggling slightly.

“Impressive, you’ve ruined a perfectly good valet,” Antonietta remarked.

The ichor on the boys hands began to crawl up his arms and he panicked. “No,no,no,no,” he mumbled, trying in vein to rub the dark green tar from his skin, desperate to stop the tide that was consuming him.

“You have disappointed me, Isan,” Quell said over the sound of the boys panic.

“My Lord, if you will give me a moment.” Isan Wane summoned an Arcane working to his hands and flung it at the boy.

The grey light flared in the chamber and Antoinietta felt the power from where she sat. The working was unknown to her and jelousy rose in her throat like bile at the thought that Quell had favoured Isan Wane over her. But despite the power, when the light faded, the boy was standing, now completely consumed by the ichor. With a series of cracks, his bones broke and his limbs elongated, the long fingers ending in sharp, tattered nails. He coughed, flecks of black liquid flying from his mouth.

With a snarl, the boy whipped around and focussed on them. Antonetta scrambled out of her chair and backed away while Master Quell remained seated, his head slightly tilted as he appraised the apparition.

“Master,” Antonietta cautioned.

The apparition took two more unsteady steps forward and Master Quell spoke several words in a harsh tongue. At his command, the Yega struck, seizing the boy, her bony hands sinking into his body up to the wrists.

The boy screamed and shook violently, striking out at the Yega, but she forced him to his knees and his form shrank. Sickly green ichor flooding from him into a dark pool that seeped across the flagstones that reflected no light. In moments the boy lay on the floor, shivering, the Yega standing over him. He looked up at her, his black eyes blinking, and she grasped his head in her hands and ripped it off with barely any strain in her long arms.

Quell broke the silence, his voice cold. “Return to your work, Antonietta. Remember, the Faelen Prince must reach Fallow.”

Quells words snapped Antonietta out of the horror she had just witnessed. “Yes, master Quell,” she stammered, hurrying out of the chamber and into the manor.

She was halfway down the corridor when she heard the first of Isan Wane’s high pitched screams.