Author's Photosynthesis-Obsessed Note: Here you go. The beginning of the journey. Boring chapter, I know, but well, I must make the suspense hold. You know what I am going to ask now, don't you: Please read and review. I said read and review, instead of Read. And. Review, because I want you to read-and-review, those two done one after the other but most importantly, both must be done. You got that, right?

Chapter Fifteen

Journey's Beginning

'If you kill the emperor for me, you will get the thousand.'

Arach was so stunned that she didn't say anything for several minutes.

'A team of my finest hand-men will help you, but you will kill because I have been told that you had extraordinary killing skills, and some strange, unknown weapons.'

Arach had never realized how much she was being told about before. The hell, this man knew certainly things he shouldn't.

'You see, this Kingdom is falling into ruins. The emperor is in his beautiful castle, eating delicious meals, and sleeping in beds of satin and feathers, while others are crouching in misery. It has to change. But we can't raise anyone else to power unless he is dead. This is where you're going to help me.'

Arach remained a few moments thinking calculatingly. She did not care about the emperor, or StonePort's measly state, nor did she care about other's life or projects; she was selfish, and the only thing she was seeing in this proposition was the thousand she would get in exchange of a single Assassination. It was a hope beyond all hope; it was something gleaming in the dark path of her life. She ravenously grabbed hold of the opportunity; she said:

'I will do this.'

'Very well; the matter is settled. But you can't just go, stick a knife in his ribs and go back as if nothing was. You and the men I will give you for help will have to raise plans. Meanwhile, I will, of course, disappear…'

'Of course,' Arach said sarcastically.

'You will be able to meet them at my castle, not far from the imperial one. You will be my guest of honor, and you will have rooms and a status as any other guest, so that you will not be far from the Emperor. If you agree, we can set on road right now.'

'As you wish, I am coming, but I want to tell you that I would rather work alone,' said Arach, who really did want to work alone.

'I am sorry, but that shall be impossible,' said Thunderion, rising from his chair, and smoothing his rich cloaks of elegant dark fawn colors, 'So, we'd better be on our way.'

'Wait. I must do something first,' said Arach, 'I will meet you at the end of the Main Path'

'May it be so. See you later.'

'Yeah, yeah…'

Arach stormed away from the Dancing Tree, bumping into peoples as she ran, and not caring to apologize. She ran straight to the Alchematoria, slammed the door open and shut, and climbed all the way up to the top of the tower, in the room at the far end of the corridor. She opened the heavy wooden door with the same key she used for the main one, and stepped in. it was the room were the Alchematorians kept all their poisons, remedy, cures, heals, sleeping and zombie powders, and many else that even themselves didn't know about. Arach went straight at the end of the room, took one of the many leather bags of all size; a narrow, frayed one with a long shoulder strap. She then made the turn of the room, picking here there little bottles, bags, or jars, stuffing them all in the bag, until it finally was clinking full. Then, she pulled away her coat, hanged the bag around her chest, and pulled the coat back on, closing it so that nobody could see what was behind.

Tossing her hair away from her eyes, she stormed down the tower, and zoomed off it. She bumped an old man away from her path, and hurtled down it, and stopped dead in front of Thunderion, at the end of the Main Path. He was sitting on a tall, strong white horse, and his hood was pulled over his face; he also had a sword at his flank, and he was curbing another horse, a savage black one. Arach, panting, said:

'I haven't been to long?'

'No,' he replied, passing her over the bridle, 'You were fast and swift.'

Arach, ignoring the two leather straps, stuffed both her hands in the horse's mane, and hauled herself on its back. The horse held strangely still, and didn't rear up, as it had done with many trained knights.

'What's his name?' she asked, sitting up, and taking the bridles in her gloved hands.

'Ebony,' he merely said, and they set off.

The beginning of the journey was without any problems. Thunderion seemed to possess a certain reputation in the surroundings and he used it shamelessly. They rode all the night, then had a halt in a poky inn, were the inn-keeper gave them some bread and cheese, dried meat and fruits, and a bottle of cider for the road. They set of again after that, and rode off in one go, stopping just one time to silently eat the inn-keeper's food. They stopped in another dingy cottage for the night and set off again in the very early morning, as the sun chased the mists towards the sea to let a better road for the travelers.

As they were getting further and further away from StonePorts to the Light-less Woods which they had to cross to reach the Imperial city, the landscape became wider and more empty and desolated. Scavengers were flying slowly in the grey sky, crying their glum cries of death and carrion. The soil itself was dry and the grass that was growing out of it had a sick air about it, falling over the floor, and more pale grey of color than green. There was, apart from the vultures in the sky, no sign of life on these deserted fields, and they had to hold on with the food they had got from the last inn in which they had rested. They rode all day and slept at night when the thick mist covered the floor and hid their view, sleeping on the hard floor without feeling rested at all.

When after three days they finally reached the Light-Less forest, Arach's whole body was bruised and aching, and she felt as if she would never take another step in her life, so exhausted she was after these long days of silent riding and un-refreshing sleeps. She fell from Ebony's back on the cold hard grown, her nose in the dry, unhealthy grass, and closed her narrow eyes. She wanted very much to fell into blessed sleep, but she sat down again, feeling ashamed in front of Thunderion, who had tied both the horses to a tall, solitary tree next to them which seemed to point the beginning of the very well known, infinitely beautiful and grim Light-Less Woods. The Lord was already gathering small twigs and dry branches to make a fire, and she would have like to help him, show him she was strong and willing, but she really couldn't move, she stood sitting there, looking up at him helplessly with her heavy-lidded, black-circled eyes.

'You sleep a bit, then I will wake you up so that we may eat; then you will guard while I sleep,' he said at her, piling the wood, and fumbling through his cloak looking for matches.

Arach sighed deeply, leaned back on the floor, curling into a tight ball in the wide coat, placing her bag of poison and rug bottles over her free side so that she may not break them and she slept, and closed her eyes. Numb with the cold and humidity of the mist, shivering despite herself, Arach fell asleep while Thunderion was roasting some meat, looking at her with a look of pity, for this little kid who had killed so much people, and thought she knew everything of life when she had not even passed the gates to her own true life.

He woke her up several hours later, when the night had totally fallen, dark and heavy like doom, and the mists were entirely covering them of its silvery, treacherous webs of gossamer silks. The dim silhouette of the tree was standing like a dark pillar, the strange noises of the night beasts of these popularly dangerous woods just next were echoing in the fog. Arach awoke and sat up feeling number than ever, the cold dampness penetrating her coat, her tunic, her corset, her chemise, her skin; and she felt as if her heart had been plunged into a bucket of icy water. Breathing heavily, and pulled both her gloved hands over the fire, and sniffed the delicious scent of the roasting meat.

'Here,' said Thunderion's voice next to her.

She started. He was sitting beside her, but she hadn't been able to see him through the thick mist. In fact, the only thing she could see was the fire. She grabbed the smoking piece of meat he had stuck under her nose, and bite into it life a wolf in the throat of a fat goat. Thunderion studied her as she ate, his eyes narrowed against the fog's thick white veils.

'You're good at murdering, but are you as good at fighting for your life?' he suddenly enquired.

Arach, shrugging, swallowed her meat, and grumbled in undertones:

'I have already fought my way through many an ambuscade…'

'Ah, because your murders were not as effective as most of the time?'

'No. Because I was on a ship, and was attacked by pirates hidden in the mist. And I don't murder, I assassinate. Murder is a rude word for such a gracefully beautiful art.'

He didn't ask her what she was doing on the sea, and it was as well for him, she would probably have killed him on the spot as a punishment for nosiness.

'What will you do when the Emperor will be dead?' she asked suddenly, unable to stop herself.

'I'll try to forge a more brilliant situation for these lands. And you?'

'I'll probably go away from here.'

It was true. If she was to kill the emperor, she would go away, because StonePort would change and she didn't wanted to be there to see the changes. She wanted to live in the city she had adopted as her home, and StonePort without murder, misery and mist wouldn't be StonePort anymore. She would have to go away. Not in the GreenLands, certainly not. Her desire and main hope was to buy a ship with the reward, and become a pirate in the misty seas. That would really please her. A harsh and rash life of corsair, rivalry between the other pirates, loyalty to her crew, treasures to fight for, a whole life of commend, death, storms and wealth. This was her idea of luxury, and if ever she had loved the delicious life of a GreenLands' Landlord then she had forgotten all about it, or more likely had buried it away from her.

When they had finished eating, Thunderion passed her over a long, slender sword, in case of, and went to sleep. He didn't look like he was afraid that she would kill him, even if in the depths of his heart, he was. An excellent knight, talented and invincible in duels, he would not be able to resist a dagger in his back. He was the kind of man that loathed treachery; he and his family had always lived according to the Hope and Honor rules. One of the main rules was 'Never strike in the back, Honor forbids it.' This was why he ought to hate the girl. But at eighteen, he mostly found it pitiful. He wondered why was she so wild against everyone, enemy at the point of taking assassination as her art, and locking herself all days long in this dark Alchematoria. Was there a man in her life? Or a dead relative? Or a woman rival? He couldn't guess, and her hostility increased his confusion; how could a girl like that could ever have any lover, family, or love at all? He finally fell asleep, thinking about this secret kid he ached with pity for.

Arach was lying on her back, her eyes focused over her, trying to pierce the fog to see the menacing starry azure sky. She could see nothing, and it exasperated her. The mist was something she loved very much, because of its invincibility. Whatever you did, you couldn't submit the mist to your desire; you could strike it with the sharpest blade, it would ignore you. You could curse it with the most terrible words; it would stay dumb to them. Even the Art of Potions hadn't found a way to chase it. Arach knew that in one of the Alchematoria's laboratory a master was looking for a way, but the only thing he had found was that it was easier to see through the mist with light. Something anybody would have found as easily as saying 'I want money.'

Arach's eyes, again, started to feel heavy, and she jerked up. She yawned, and sighed, and started to fumble in her pockets, looking for something to divert herself and give her something to think about. She found some empty bottles, bandages, a dead butterfly in a little glass box, a flask of strong cider, a string of safety pins, a stone someone had given her, and that was suppose to have unknown magical skills, a few little leathered books, a bunch of keys, a bouquet of dead leaves mixed with feathers, the long, black iron necklace hanged with a silver and ruby spider from the Spider's Web dynasty, several strange flowers, mushrooms, a matchbox full of matches and ladybugs, a quill and a bottle of ink, a tiny Thunderbolt Lantern and a star-and-moon silver and ruby brooch. Arach's first interest was in the bunch of keys. There were some old keys to houses she had had to snuggle in to do her dirty jobs, and that were of no use, there were some keys to secret doors in the Alchematoria, there was also the key to her bedroom in the shabby inn were she slept back at StonePort, some keys she didn't even know where they were coming from. Then she started to flick through the books: one was about magic spells and jinxes, but she hadn't study Mystics, and she was unable to read the symbols. One was about all the weapons that existed in the world; swords, axes, bows, crossbows, spears, spikes, arrows, sabers, bodkins, daggers, knifes, machetes, javelins, lances, stilettos, broadswords…All with drawings, explanations, techniques of use, a true, very useful encyclopedia. The third book was like the weapons', but about herbs, potions, cures, medicines, poisons, flowers, leaves, and all the botany things. The last one was a little book with all the maps, the armories of all the families, thousand of addresses, notes she had written all over the place; a mess, but a useful mess. Arach, after spending nearly a hour reading the books, looking at the pictures and writing notes with the quill, felt bored, and stuffed all of them back in some pocket or another. The she started to interest herself to moon-and-star brooch: she didn't know where she had found it, but it, really was a beautiful piece of art. Really beautifully carved, with a ruby shining at the center of the star, which was standing in the crescent, it seemed to glow in the mist. Arach sighed, and pulled it back in a pocket, and took something else out of it. She drew it higher, closer to her eyes. It was the Spider necklace. The spider was even more magnificent that the carvings of the brooch, and its eyes were of tiny ruby. The chain seemed rude in comparison of it, ornate with elegant but harsh spider-runes. Arach was irritated by this symbol of her noble rank; she stuffed the jewel back in her pocket, and crossed her arms over her chest, feeling annoyed, and cold and uncomfortable. She hadn't even had a night in StonePort, she had just drop by there and go back on her way that the destiny seemed to be pleased to make longer each time she thought she was at an end. It suddenly occurred to her that from the day she had met Frostrosé, she had not one time sleep alone in a bedroom. She had either sleep in the same room as Hawkke on the gleaming Stick , or in his castle, or in Drymarchon's bed, or in the same cabin as fifteen other sailors on the Sea Demon…And now, she was sitting in the middle of the night next to a man she hardly knew, and who was sleeping like a cat. She felt even more irritated, and turned obstinately her back on him and the fire, stuffing her shin in her arms on her knees, and loosing her eyes in the hazes.

She could feel she was slowly falling asleep, and couldn't do anything about it. The cold was entering each part of her thin body, and she was dazed by it, unable to fight it. It was when she heard the long, deep screams of wolfs, and their harsh, too close growls that she stepped into life again. Appearing in the little circle of light caused by the fire, three, four, five wolfs had appeared, looking hungrily at the two humans before them. Arach jumped on her feet, and grinning wildly, she brandished her abruptly unsheathed sword, her yell echoing all through the forest:

'Ah, finally some action!'

And she threw herself on the nearest wolf.

Author's Exhausted After-Note: Oof, finally the end of this boring chapter. I think I am going to fall asleep for a good hundred years, and wait for some charming prince to come and kiss me awake. (I know, I know: the charming princes, like the handsome hunters, are all gone from earth but one can dream, can't one…) Just review. Even if you're choking over waves after waves of strangling yawns of boredom. For my sake :dramatic sight of Me falling upon my knees and lifting hopeful, pleading eyes to the Reader:

Post Memoris: just went to take a look at fanfic, and noticed that this damned web-site took my e-mail address off. We'll have to be cunning then, won't we? So, my e-mail address is: sorrowandshadow got that? Then there is the and then there is Ok? So write at sorrowandshadow write! In the name of doom and Lady Darkstar, queen of the curses!