"Linus…"
A light hum filled the air as the think cane struck the boy's hands. The impact of the whipping was enough to leave deep red welts, but unlike before, the boy did not scream, holler, or stamp his feet, he simply stared straight ahead, allowing tears to fall freely but keeping himself from shouting in pain.
"Linus!"
A strike, harder than the ones before, caused the stick to snap on the boy's hands. He, in the midst of breathing out, almost let a sound, but he kept in his voice, his throat caching. The boy, Linus Wilkons, kept silent, even as his instructor smacked his hands, even as all of his toys and presents and favorite things were burned, snatched, crushed, or otherwise taken from him. Even as his father shouted at him and his mother begged.
"Linus, tell them that you were lying, that the brat Ronny kidnapped you, that he found the Ra'zac through filthy slum smugglers." His father repeated this ever since his son had been returned to him. Lord Wilkons was a pragmatic but paranoid man, he had spies everywhere, and it wasn't too difficult to find out what exactly his son and the other children said. He cared little for the other children however, the only child testimony that would be allowed would be the one from his son. He had seen how Lord Rembrant had lost his station due to the confessions of his son Yacob, he could not afford the same things happening to him. At first, he had simply commanded his son to obey, but his stubbornness led to this situation. "Linus…" Lord Wilkons massaged his temple. "You're being a naughty child you know, openly defying your father like this? Those slum rats have poisoned you, especially that whore-child Ronny, when this is over, he will never see the light of day again."
"Leave him alone!" Linus finally shouted, voice cracking, "I know what you did to his parents!"
The private tutor raised his broken stick, but Lord Wilkons raised his hand to stop him. He walked up to the young boy and smashed his fist into the child's face. "You will go to the kingdom's investigator, and confess that you were lying, that Ronny and his ilk are the sole perpetrators, and that you were kidnapped, AM, I, CLEAR?"
"NO!" Ronney shouted back indignantly. He flinched as his father raised his fist.
"Bradley!" A soft voice shouted. They turned to see Lady Mirtle Wilkons, Linus's mother and Lord Wilkins's wife. "Please! He is just a boy!" She hugged her son, causing him to tremble.
"Mama…" Linus's lips trembled as his mother turned to glare at their father. Unfortunately for the boy, her glare was not one of admonition on his behalf.
Idiot, Mirtle conveyed via a mental message. If and when the kingdom sends a group to investigate our household, wounds on Linus's face will be questioned. You should know that. Myrtle was a woman as pragmatic as her husband, she had no love nor hatred for him, and he had no love or hatred for her, they were married to each other for familial convenience and simply did their duty when the time arose. They found they had similar tastes and values, thus their relationship remained stable. Linus's birth was also relatively timed, they needed to produce an heir and would have likely continued until they birthed a son, but both parties were happy that Linus was their firstborn. He had been groomed to appreciate the gifts of nobility and the responsibility it entailed, but it seemed that they had overlooked the chance that their son would be lonely without any close peers.
If he confesses against us- Bradley attempted to begin.
No, if he confesses against you, Mirtle corrected, I'm not the one who agreed to your scheme, as it is, it will still be a child's testimony, it can easily be argued that he was influenced and fed false information, but if you continue to be strong-handed like this you'll ruin us both!
Their argument would have continued if not for a procession of Knights led by the dwarven rider and a kingdom Mage Investigator with large round glasses and ear length brown hair. "Lord Bradley Wilkins, Lady Mirtle Wilkins, I, along with dragon rider Vulcan, have a warrant to search your estate, please assist us."
Lord Wilkin's face grew red as he began to angrily bluster out, "what?! Why! Under whose orders do you dare barge into a noble's home, don't you know who I-" he was cut off by Vulcan, who shoved a document with the royal seal stamped on.
"We got this early in the morning, just for you." The dwarf said sarcastically, "You should feel honored." He scanned the room, eyes landing on Linus. The boy, despite having a bruise on his face and welts in his hand, only showed emotion via the tears in his eyes. The dwarf grunted, half in respect to the child's will; half in disgust at his parents. "Is abusing children that entertaining?" Vulcan asked, "you couldn't wait to find another poor child to torture anymore so you turned on your own son?"
"Lord Vulcan!" It was Lady Mirtle who spoke. "You speak out of turn! A parent is given the right to discipline their child as they see fit, surely you don't mean to say all dwarven children are well behaved and are thus free from punishment!"
"Oh? Not at all," Vulcan shrugged, "I spoke out of turn then, forgive me. Just, aaahh…." He acted as if he was in deep thought, "what exactly did Linus do to be punished?"
"You must forgive me, but the domain of parenting, and the rules broken and punishments dealt, are handled between the parent and child, I feel that even the great riders of old had no control in that? Or are you the type to take children to see if they are capable of hatching the egg, parental concern or not?"
Vulcan grit his teeth but continued to smile despite Mirtle's insult. "No, most would consider it an honor, and it was an agreement between the child and their parents to allow them to be exposed to the egg. Our youngest human rider keeps in regular communication with his parents, and once his dragon is of age, one of the elders will escort him to spend time with his family for as little as a few days to as long as a year." Vulcan shook his head, "nurturing a child and showing them the correct steps is more effective than simply punishing their mistakes, again, what did the child do wrong?"
At this point, the investigator waived his hand and knights began walking into the various rooms.
"Why you-" Bradley attempted to stand in their way but the Investigator reached him first.
"If you continue to get in our way, I will have to detain you." He smiles, "So please, do continue."
The nobles clammed their mouths but glared at the knights and mages, who continued to ignore them.
…
"Goose, you said this would be worth our while, why'd you drag us to see that brat that works for Gurant?"
Inside the abandoned barracks Uglauw and his posse used to reside, the men and women brought by Goose, the homeless drunk who often took advantage of Faris's kindness, sat or stood. Tartarus had ordered that Goose bring him at least three names and addresses, but was impressed as he counted a total of 20 people here. He turned to the vagabond, "You did better than I expected." He took out a silver coin, dropping it in Goose's hands.
Goose smiled toothlessly, "thank you, sir! I thought you'd want as many people as possible!" He bowed low and backed up, though not without attracting the ire of many of the people brought here.
"Hey! You asked Goose to gather us, then you pay him? What does a brat like you want?!" A middle-aged woman glared at Tartarus, her flared nostrils and creased forehead gave the impression of a mother scolding her child as she approached the boy. "I ought to beat you then drag your sorry arse to your parents!" Tartarus merely cocked his head and gave a wry smile. The woman cocked back her fist and launched it at him, only for it to stop inches from his face. The people gasped, backing up and falling over in terror.
"M-mage?!" One of them screamed.
Tartarus finally chose to speak, "Now that I have your attention, here are the rules. Goose got you because you're at the bottom of society, overlooked, thrown out, treated like garbage, I don't care much for the status of anyone above or below me, but I believe people already used to losing will likely be more diligent than arrogant winners." He smiled and tossed out dozens of copper coins, smirking as he saw the people watching the coins fall and land. "I have a simple request for your first mission, and the copper coins are a deposit. It's a cold day, get yourself a jacket, some warm food, or whatever else you desire, but, I need you to find out where large amounts of cats gather, I'll give you two days to gather as much information as you can. Anyone who finds information on at least one troupe of cats numbering 5 or more will receive a silver piece, the people who discover the most will get more rewards depending on the diligence and accuracy of their searches." He laughed, "and liars will be punished."
"You, you want us to look for cats?!" One of the men bent down to pick up some coins, "Look kid, I don't care if you have the money to waste, or if you're a mage, there are enough of us that you better had over your- hhhiiiieeeeee?!" He backed up as Tartarus closed in on him.
Tartarus cocked his head again, "I don't think you understand, this isn't a request, this is an order, you're all nobodies, do you have a family to advocate for you? I can kill you all now, and you'll have no choice because you aren't leaving until you say some specific words for me, if you don't say those words, I'll slay you now. The man glared, then attempted to catch Tartarus with a wild haymaker, Tartarus reposed with an elbow to the groin, then a spinning kick to the back of the head, knocking the man out. He turned to look at the others, who began to look like they were going to run, but as they turned to leave, he launched knives at some ropes, causing the gates to fall around them, trapping them inside. "We'll be going at this one at a time." Tartarus smiled, but there was no warmth. "It will be hard, it's a different language after all, but I'll coach you with the words." He smirked…
…
"It's kinda strange isn't it?" One guard said.
"Yeah, all of a sudden some of those slum rats approached guards, they were all panicked and screaming 'I was bewitched by a blue-eyed-finch'!" The guard shook his head, "they seemed crazy, or drunk. Remember how one of them just collapsed then stood up, asking us if we've seen any cats?"
The guards clamped their mouths shut as an entourage of Knights and Mages led by Vulcan and the Head Investigator approached the building they guarded.
"S-salutations!" One of the guards shouted, saluting smartly. He rang a bell at the head of the gate. Soon after, the massive gates began to swing open. The knights and mages began to walk in.
"Are your investigations always so… tiresome?" Vulcan asked.
"Protocol requires action, our movements were against nobles, minor nobles, but nobles, given the last actions of Rembrant…" He shrugged, "It's best to make things as transparent as possible, besides." The investigator smiled, "we found everything we needed."
When they had arrived in the manor of Lord Wilkins, the Knights and Mages had little luck finding anything suspicious within the manor, Lord Wilkins collected rare artifacts, a few of them magical in nature, but none were dangerous or suspicious. That was at least until one of the two Apprentice Knights, Manny, made a discovery.
...
"...Hm?" Manny looked at the scuff marks on the floor. He and Vern, under the request of Cynthia, began investigating the leads they had gathered from her. The store they investigated that sold the replica urgal arrows was very compliant after they received official backing from the Investigator. After tracking down almost every sale, they were able to narrow down the search to fifteen nobles. It would be difficult for them to investigate all of them at the same time, not without alerting whichever noble may be responsible, so when they learned of the suspicious circumstances regarding Linus Wilkins from Cynthia, who had spoken to Faris for a bit after the third day of The Great Games, they had the noble house to investigate. The Investigator and the rider Vulcan were not surprised to hear the name Wilkins but were intrigued by the connection between the noble and the urgal bows, as well as the other 14 noble families that purchased the bow. They hoped to find out if the Wilkins household had something to do with the attack on the urgals and the assassination of the dwarven traitor and his two guards.
The search had been disappointing thus far. Lord Wilkins had been flustered at their intrusion, but he and his men led the knights and mages throughout the entirety of the household with no issue. Due to his status as a noble, both he, his wife, and top aides had naturally shielded minds, and while they had a warrant to investigate the home, they did not have a warrant and did not get permission from Lord Wilkins to search the minds of him, his wife, or his retainers.
"You have searched my house many times over, it's been several hours now, must we continue on like this?" Lord Wilkins finally questioned the knights and mages. "I feel like this is targeting, I am not a powerful noble, but I belong to one of the three great families!"
Vern raised an eyebrow at Lord Wilkin's display and tapped Manny, who pulled his attention away from the scuffs on the floor.
"Oh? The… three great families? Those are the major noble houses that survived Galbatorix's takeover. They joined Galbatorix when he took the throne, then joined the Varden and Nasuada when Galbatorix was defeated, they're very wealthy and hold large amounts of land and men and were instrumental in the reconstruction and peacetime, Vern. Why're you so interested in that stuff?" Vern shook his head, he pointed past the Lord, Manny looked at the blank white wall. "It's… just a wall?" Vern rolled his eyes and walked towards the wall.
"What? You!" Lord Wilkins had been especially insulted with the fact two children, neither of them even nobles, were tagging along with the knights and mages and investigating his manor, seeing the taller one approach him irritated him. But before he could begin reprimanding the child, they walked past him towards the far wall. "Wait! Stop!" He shouted in desperation, "I just had those walls repainted! If you damage them, I'll-!"
"I'll pay for the damages." Vulcan interrupted, placing a hand on his shoulder. "We were given the warrant to search every inch of your Manor, and you have thus far been very helpful. Unless of course, you mean to tell me that you have been hiding something from us when I asked you if we've searched every room in your manor."
"No! Of course not, I-" Lord Wilkins was interrupted by an audible click and creak, as Vern found a secret pressure plate on the wall. As the tall youth pushed into it, the wall near Manny began to creak as a hidden door revealed itself. He backed away from the scuffed section of the floor, watching as the door scraped over the floor.
"Well, how mysterious." The investigator smiled, "You had a secret passage installed in your home without your knowledge, how terrible."
"Uh…"
"Of course," Vulcan smiled, "else, you'd be lying to me wouldn't you?"
The knights and mages began walking into the room.
As Vulcan and the Investigator walked in, their eyes raised in astonishment. Behind the secret door were several documents, ceremonial candles, daggers, and robes, in front of all of them was a blood-red wall and a painting of the mountains of Helgrind.
Arresting Lord Wilkins wasn't all too difficult, after the discovery of the shrine to Helgrind, his wife began screaming at him and he simply backed into the wall, stunned and in silence. The Knights and Mages checked for traps and began to collect any documents, when they were collected, the rest of the room was left untouched, but wards were placed around to protect it and keep it from being tampered with, a focused team would arrive later to pick up larger bits of evidence.
Manny and Vern followed the entourage to one of their guardhouses.
"You boys have done well." Vulcan stated, "I couldn't feel that room despite spreading my mind with magic, and I couldn't find that trap door, with magic or my sight, how did you know?"
Vern was silent, he then turned to Manny and made some gestures.
"Sorry sir, Vern is mute, he," He looked at Vern, "he states that he noticed the paint was thinner in that area compared to the rest of the wall." Manny spoke again, "I noticed that there were scuffs and scratches on the floor in an arc, this would only be possible with a heavy and large door, so I would have searched the wall, but I don't know if I could have found the pressure plate."
The Investigator smiled, "You two are quite skilled, once your squad graduates, there could be a place for you in my department."
"Bah, before we continue such niceties, let's get down to business." Vulcan pounded the table, "We have proof that Lord Wilkins was associated with the Priests of Helgrind, all we need is a confession from him or his wife, and we'll be able to determine the truth!"
"You already have an idea I see?" The Investigator asked.
"The Scarlet Heart of course!" Vulcan announced, "They've attempted several terrorist attacks, sowing distrust between first urgals and knurlan then knurlans and humans would be right up their alley!"
"It does make reasonable sense." The Investigator nodded.
"It makes total sense!" Vulcan reiterated, "The children were in the midst of being attacked and kidnapped by the enhanced children, the Scarlet Heart is truly entangled in these foul affairs…"
…
Ilirea, for all of its wonder, and for all the time humans have lived in it, still held many secrets. The elves had done much to recount as much as they could, historical evidence and geographical locations recorded in historical documents, biographies, diaries, folk stories, and even poems, much of the city was unearthed, both figuratively and literally, by the help of the elves and dwarven architects. Unfortunately for them, the secret city within Ilirea had been unknown to all, even to Galbatorix and his regime, a secret that had died with the deaths of Vrael and the elven king, a secret that was so old, the few elves privy to the information were either dead, long forgotten, or so deep within their own affairs that they paid no attention to the rest of the world, that the one who discovered it one day had at first thought themselves trapped in a parallel mirror world.
Alalëa Sundavr, or Alalëa's Shadow, was an underground city about half the size of Ilirea, it mirrored the old construction style of the great city, down to the castle that stood over the massive center. Within the city, one's source of light would come from giant humanoid mushrooms the size of children that toddled through the streets. How these creatures moved, their origin and their source of light were all mysteries, but the humans that traversed these streets cared little for the answer, the mushrooms were docile unless threatened, and little was gained from attacking the strange organisms, equally, they paid humans no mind, so long as they were not bothered.
Minstrel shivered, the city reflected the temperature outside, it was cold when Ilirea was cold, and warm when Ilirea was warm, with winter right upon them, a slight chill had permeated the streets of this underground world. Darkness, illuminated only by the faint glows of the odd mushroom creatures, surrounded him as he made his way forward, all his senses except sight and sound were muted, allowing him to barely see where he was going and barely make out the padded footsteps behind him. Eventually, he was joined by 15 other hooded figures.
"Hey, it's the garbage shorty." One of them spoke pounding Minstrel's back. As he staggered forward the young man laughed.
"Ugh! Shut it, James!" Minstrels turned back, anger in his face, but he froze fearfully as he saw the other hooded figures surround him.
"I don't have to take orders from failures," the first hooded figure who spoke said ominously.
They were interrupted by the clanging of large bells, calling all of these figures towards the center of the city.
"Literally saved by the bell, useless one." The man called James chuckled, patting Minstrel's shoulder.
Minstrel clenched his fists, but calmed himself, he couldn't afford to make trouble with James, and they both knew it.
As they began to gather together in the center of the town, the few dozen became one hundred, then one thousand. The field of people, all covered in dark robes and hoods, stood silently, swaying or shifting only slightly as they awaited their caller. Minstrel had experienced this feeling once before, his mind slowly blanking out.
"Thank you for arriving." A dark, sonorous voice rang out. "That you all could make it is of great fortune, both to you and to our glorious goals."
Minstrel hadn't been able to put into words how he received his orders when Tartarus asked him. But in letting Tartarus into his mind, the shade was able to determine what happened when they entered the city. A spell, a massive, powerful, intricate spell designed to place all of the "workers" into a state of subliminal messaging. It likely only responded to those who had already been subjected to a previous spell, a spell of servitude, but even then, it allowed these members to gather together, hear the same message in person, yet receive secret orders through implicit impressions. Their leader, the man with the deep voice, could call out to everyone 'good tidings come, the stag approaches at noon!', and to Minstrel it could mean: 'there are 3 noblemen approaching town tomorrow, tail them, ascertain their needs, and assassinate them', all the while, knowledge of only the man's outward speaking would be registered in their minds, and the idea to assassinate the noblemen would be interpreted as a spontaneous decision.
"My brothers, one of us has been lost to the sins and vices of lesser sadness. This tragedy can happen to any of us, but fortunately, I see that blessings are with the rest of you. Take hark, and seek joy amongst yourselves, for there are festivities amongst you." The figure began pointing at different sections of the crowd. "As the lark rises, so too must the songbirds, prepare the trumpets. The fish must be caught by the snare, take heed of the nets, if they lack integrity, they will be broken. Our joyous day is nearly upon us, thank you, and you may be dismissed."
As if the spell was broken, Minstrel and the others snapped to attention, looking up however, they saw that their leader was gone.
"Aish, I hate having to go through this." A loud voice called out, "Don't you hate it too, Minstrel?" A fist slammed into Minstrel's back, forcing him to the floor, he rushed to get up, only to face James, smirking as he leaned over. "You're lucky," he whispered, "I'm going to clean up your mess and take care of that piece of trash you couldn't throw out."
Minstrel glared at James as he turned to leave, only a few of the people brought had the willpower to speak after being summoned and spoken too, despite his distaste, he had to admit that James was a better mage than him. As for his orders, however, Minstrel looked down, they had been the same since he had returned with his failure.
Lay low for now, if you encounter Faris Ser at an opportune moment, kill him and report yourself as a member of the Scarlet Heart then 'disapear'.
He and a few others had been given the task of eliminating every dwarf and urgal still in the lodging between the Catch-Tooth tribe and Vrenshgrrn tribe during Vulcan's absence. Their goal was to make their deaths look like the two groups had gotten into a fight. Unfortunately, part of the goal included collecting the keepsake of their dwarven liaison, who had been assasinated for silencing purposes. While they had stolen the keepsake, they had failed to assasinate a witness, and even had to retreat without accomplishing even part of their goals. Due to the intervention of Faris Ser, tensions between the Urgals and Dwarves did not rise to the levels required to spark an all out battle. All other members of Minstrel's team were slaughtered, but he was left alive because of two reasons, he was a mage, and he was a student, this would mean that his disappearance could have led to problems. When Faris had showed up before him, he had thought that it was truly his lucky day, but to his surprise, he was defeated by a supposed cripple, and forced to swear an oath to him in the ancient language. When Faris forced his mind into Minstrel's to save the werecat, he also was able to immediately ascertain the nature of Minstrel's relationship to this no-named orginization he belonged to, and gleaned the rules of their meetings.
"It probably only works on those who've sworn the oath, the spell is too complex and energy consuming otherwise. If they had this much power, they'd have no need for so many agents and such secretive meetings, and if this was the Scarlet Heart, the rate of children disappearing would have stayed consistent or would have risen, given the fact that prick Mandel is still alive." 'Faris', had said, musing to himself, he had ordered Minstrel to act as normal, and report whenever he could about his meetings and missions, Minstrel was prepared to do that as soon as he left the underground city and the prying eyes of the others, but, much like the others leaving the city at the moment, Minstrel ignored the animals. If he had looked up and around, he would have noticed the rats scurrying away wasn't only because of human movement, but from the dozens of cats hanging off the walls and shudders.
Like clockwork, the cats began filing out of the city, the maze of walls and ceilings were nothing but simple obstacles for the creatures, filing out by following the smell of the outside world. These cats made their way back to their master, one of their kings, or in this case, queens, a large being much like them but able to turn into the two legged ones, this great being in question had a pelt that resembled the soot of coal fire dropping on fresh snow, a color that prepared them for the coming winter, and to this queen they returned, submitting their memories to her.
...
"Where's Faris?!"
Martha looked confused as she faced the young man before her, "Calm down Mr…."
"Bergan, Bergan Briarson." Bergan introduced himself, "I was the mage who escorted Faris and Venka to this city a year ago, but that's not important!" He looked around, "He missed all of his events today, the student duels, archery competition, and 100 meter sprint."
Martha held her hand to her mouth, "he told me he was leaving this morning… could he be in danger?!"
Bergan clenched his fist but pounded his chest, "no, not as long as I am here…" He turned to leave, "I apologize for bothering you."
...