She's Beautiful
Meril brought his silver sword down in a flashing arc. The wraith released one last unearthly howl before dissipating in a flame of green leaving only dust in its wake. Meril kneeled down to examine the remnants. The specter had left behind handfuls of glowing dust.
"Specter dust, I can use this to make some more Petri's Philter," he said.
Meril summoned a small sack from his satchel and a brush. Carefully he brushed the specter dust into the bag, taking care not to waste a single speck before tying the bag off and dropping it back in his satchel with the brush.
He got up and peered back into the tunnel from which he had just escaped. There were more wraiths in the back, still howling like the damned souls they were. They made no motion to come forward. "Good, looks like for the most part they don't like the sunlight."
Meril would have liked to cut more of them down, specter dust was worth quite a bit to alchemists. Still, there were at least a dozen ghosts back there, and Meril had barely escaped with his life. He'd rather have not pushed his luck. Meril turned his back to the tunnel to observe where he had exited. He was standing in front of a canal under what appeared to be a bridge. He could hear the sounds of people overhead wondering what the source of the explosion they just heard was. He looked at the metal grate that he had just blown through. It was made of rusty corrugated iron, so it splintered fairly easily on contact with his grapeshot bomb.
"Using a bomb might have been overkill. I could probably have blown this apart with a blast of aard." He sighed, "There was someone here when I threw the bomb. A Halfling I think. Fuck, what if I killed him?
Meril searched the area for any sign of the Halfling. "My grapeshot bomb only has a blast radius of about five feet but the shrapnel inside can fly as far as twenty. Halfling's on average weigh about sixty pounds. It doesn't take much to knock them over. He must have fallen into the canal."
Meril looked into the canal for any sign of the Halfling, but there was none to be found, just a stream of soiled canal water. He peered straight down at the water. Gazing into his muddled rippling reflection as he contemplated his next action. Just then his medallion twitched. Just a small twitch, if he had not been trained to be aware of its every motion he might have missed it, but instead, he reflexively thrust his hand into the water. He half-expected to encounter another water hag, but instead, his hands clasped around what felt like cloth. He grabbed a hold of it and pulled it up. What emerged from the water seemed rather mundane.
It was a coin purse. A simple coin purse. He examined it more closely. No matter how he turned it, it was just an ordinary leather drawstring pouch. No markings or sigils anywhere. Yet when he brought the purse close to his medallion the dragon's head jerked again.
"There must be a magical object inside. Probably not that strong since the medallion's reaction is minimal." He undid the strings holding the purse closed and looked inside. The bag was filled with coins.
"There are coins from various kingdoms in here, if this purse belongs to that Halfling, then he must be well traveled. Then again, this is Novigrad, traders and travelers from all over the world come here. And considering the fact that today is the coronation there are more visitors than ever. He's probably a merchant of some kind. Oh, what's this?"
As he picked through the purse Meril noticed a gold ring amongst the coins. He picked the ring up, his medallion reacted immediately to it. "A magic ring? Wonder what it does."
He took off the glove on his left hand and slipped the ring onto his index finger. It slipped on fairly easily, fitting just a bit tightly. For a brief second the ring glowed faintly, the dragon's head vibrated in response, and then as quickly as the glow came it faded.
"Hmm, there must be some sort of magic word or ceremony required to activate its power."
Meril slipped the ring off and put it back in the purse. Then he quickly pocketed the purse in his satchel. "I'll keep a hold of this for now."
He observed the canal again. "The canal's current flows south towards the Gate of the Hierarch. The current is moderately strong, at the very least strong enough to carry a Halfling away. It's possible that my explosion knocked him out, he fell in, then the canal carried him away. If I follow the canal I should be able to catch up with him."
Meril walked out from under the bridge and went south with the flow of the current. The wet marshy soil squelched under his boots as he walked. As he walked out from under the bridge he finally noticed the sizeable crowd that had gathered around it. He heard the voices of people yelling demanding to know what the explosion was. "Looks like I caused a bit of a ruckus."
Meril ignored the crowds and kept walking. He had been walking for about ten minutes when he came upon a small boat that was paddling upstream. The boatswain at the helm was a thick heavyset man, with a brutish face and a garishly harsh scruffy brown beard. Meril noticed that the boat contained crates of fruit. When the boatswain saw Meril he called out to him. "Oi, boyo, what's with the hair? Your ma fuck a rosebush or something," he laughed.
Meril wanted to reach for his sword but controlled his urge. Instead, he asked in a constrained polite voice, "My good man, I'm looking for a Halfling. You wouldn't by chance happened to have seen one floating down this river have you?"
The boatswain immediately went silent. Meril noticed the subtle way in which his eyebrows went up when he mentioned the Halfling. As quickly as the surprise came it passed replaced with a sour look. "Ah, who cares if some pointy-eared midget drowns? They're not no good to anyone anyway."
"So you have seen him?" Meril asked.
"Bugger off!" the boatswain spat as he continued to row upstream.
Meril followed the boatswain up the river. He raised his hand up and weaved his fingers in the sign of axii. "Tell me where the Halfling is," he ordered.
The boatswain dropped his paddle into the canal and it quickly began flowing downstream. The boatswain stood there dazed and silent. "He's resisting, he must really not want to talk."
Meril made the sign again, this time he cast significantly more force into it. "Tell me where the Halfling is," he said calmly.
"I saw 'im," the boatswain answered. "Little bugger tried to hitch a ride on me barge. I gave him the boot first but he wouldn't let go, so I had to whack 'im with me paddle."
"You did what!?" Meril shouted shocked.
"I whacked 'im with me paddle," the boatswain responded dazedly.
"Why?" Meril asked.
"Why not? Those nonhuman dregs are parasites. The less of them there are the better," the boatswain replied with a bit more force. It was clear the effect of the sign was starting to wear off.
"Which way did he go?" Meril asked.
"Went floating downstream. No doubt stiff as a board by now. Good riddance," the boatswain laughed.
Meril clenched his fists before raising it up and weaving the sign of aard. The force erupted from his hand rippling through the water and knocking the boatswain overboard along with his boat and all its contents. Meril immediately began running downstream. Within minutes he was just under the bridge that connected the Gate of the Hierarch to the outskirts of Novigrad. He went right under the bridge until he finally got to the point where the canal opened up to the river on the south side of the city. "Dammit! He could be anywhere by now. He probably drowned, fuck!"
Meril kicked the ground in frustration and walked up from the riverside into the shantytown just outside the Gate of the Hierarch. Meril heard that up until a few years ago this was a district for Novigrad's poor and nonhuman population but when the Nilfgaardian's decided to build part of the arch in this district the place flushed with gold. It still mostly had the look of a shantytown on the outskirts of the city with many poorly built hovels and huts littering the space. But towards the center, some proper inns, boarding, and shops could be seen. The construction workers and Nilfgaardian soldiers who guarded them obviously needed supplies and the merchants of Novigrad were all too happy to provide. At the rate things were going it seemed this shantytown would be in prime condition to be a proper district in a few years.
Meril turned his attention to the giant red arch that was responsible for this new prosperity. It was a ginormous structure, made of a red sandstone, and it spanned from the edge of the shantytown over to the other side of the river. The Nilfgaardian's were extremely tight-lipped about why it was being built and the workers who put the stones in place and carved the runes into it did not know for what purpose they did so. Looking at it up close though Meril quickly realized the arches purpose.
"Those runes indicate spacial bending and specific coordinates. This is a portal! Fuck, this is insanely big! Kenmis had portals set up all over the school, but they were door sized. This! This is insane! How are they planning to power something like this? Wait a minute, what's that?"
Meril cupped his hands around his eyes to focus his vision. By narrowing the light that went into his eyes he could see twice the normal distance, in doing so he could spot the robed figures standing on the platform at the very top of the arch. Meril counted three bodies standing together in a circle around a big spire in the center of the platform.
"Judging by their clothing they must be mages. Wait a minute. Is this how the princess plans to arrive? Nobility from both the South and North have been flocking to Novigrad and today is supposed to be the day of her coronation, but there has been no word of her ever having left Nilfgaard. Come to think about it. There were rumors circulating about mages appearing at the construction site late at night. They must have been working on the magical aspects of this thing. Still, it doesn't make sense. I've heard that Princess Cirilla is a powerful sorceress. If she wanted to travel by portal she could just make one of her own. Why go to all the trouble of creating a structure like this?"
The sky above the arch suddenly darkened, almost as if to answer the very question that burned in Meril's mind. Dark clouds began to swirl around the spire that stuck out at the very top of the arch. Suddenly, a single bolt of green lightning pierced the sky and struck the spire. The dragon at Meril's neck began to thrash wildly as the arch lit up with magical energy. The runes glowed in a brilliant emerald hue and dead center of the arch where once there was empty space there was now a swirling green portal.
The wind kicked up, catching everyone in the vicinity off guard. A laundress hanging sheets on the clothesline suddenly lost her bearings and her sheets blew away. Others reflexively shielded their heads from the sudden gust. Everyone stopped and stared at the portal. For a moment all was silent except for the howling of the wind, and then…trumpets. The sounds of loud boisterous trumpets spilled forth from the portal. The sound alone indicated the power of the instruments. These were horns meant to announce the arrival of a ruler.
Then it came forward as if emerging from a dark tunnel. A Grand Imperial Flagship painted Nilfgaardian black with ornate gold working spreading across the ship's hull. The prow of the ship emerged first, then its bow, then its mast was visible. Meril expected to see the golden sun emblazoned on the mainsail, instead, there was a bird. A blue bird with twin tails, a swallow.
As soon as the entire length of the ship emerged another ship followed behind it. This looked much plainer in comparison to the first, being primarily solid black with no deviation or embroidery, but it was clearly much sturdier. This one was a proper warship. As soon as the second ship was out an identical ship followed it.
"It's her! It's the princess!" Meril heard someone in the crowd say.
Meril's attention immediately jerked back to the ship in front. Standing proudly at the prow of the helm was an ashen-haired woman in a long flowing black gown. The midday sun shined brilliantly on her pale skin and highlighted the scar under her left eye.
Somewhere Meril could hear the crowd start to boo and jeer. They hurled slur after slur at her. Cries of "witch" and "whore" abounded. But somehow, even though he was in the middle of it all, the crowd's shouts felt distant and diffused. For a moment all he could do was stand transfixed and silent as the ships passed by. The princess at the prow scanned the crowd, taking in the reception, and then her gaze passed on to him and for a brief moment their eyes were locked and Meril could see deep into her bright emerald eyes. "She's beautiful."
And just as quickly as the moment came, it was broken by the first flinging of horse manure.
A/N: Happy New Year everyone. I had planned to make this chapter much longer but that last line seemed so good I just couldn't help but want to stop here. Anyway, I'm really grateful for the support I've gotten at the early stages of this fanfic. I've got a lot of arcs planned out with a lot of really cool ideas and themes to explore and I'm looking forward to sharing with you. Please, leave your comments and reviews telling me what you think so far. I love to hear your opinions and engaging with other people in the fandom is one of the best parts of doing this.