"So, you mean to tell me that you don't remember your name? And you have no idea how you wound up in the barrow?" Safiya asked once the two of them had settled down to make camp. The stranger had promptly collapsed upon the bedroll Safiya laid out for her, and that seemed to be the extent of her helpfulness, as the rest was left to the wizard. The bear god and his party had been harrowing, and she had sustained a few injuries – but with her combat style, Safiya ventured to wonder how she even kept all of her limbs intact. The girl shook her head.
"No, I don't," she said. "I don't remember a name. Or... anything. I remember a lot of rocks falling from somewhere, but that's it."
"Perhaps one hit your head," Safiya suggested. She didn't imagine the girl might catch onto the passive aggressiveness in that statement. But she wasn't entirely surprised; she had suspected there was very little identity to go on since the barrow. "Or someone cursed you. Either way, hopefully Lienna can give us some answers when we meet her. Is there something I can call you until then?"
After a long pause, the girl answered. "Cal. I think. Call me Cal."
"Very well. Why Cal?"
"It's sort of familiar," she said, twisting to glimpse the stream nearby. The night was cold, as Rashemen's temperature was hardly forgiving. Winter would be upon anyone unfortunate enough to remain there and then the snow would be miserable. Safiya missed the dry heat of Thay. She had not been in Rashemen for more than a day and she was already homesick. "Where are you from?"
It took her a moment to realize that Cal had asked her a question. She hadn't been expecting any attention. The girl had made her way to the stream and was washing the scrapes and cuts she had obtained from the battle.
"I've spent my life at the Academy of Shapers and Binders... studying magic for as long as I can remember. The Academy is far south of here. This is actually my first time beyond the lands of Thay. Between my students and my own magical research, I don't have much time for travel," Safiya explained. "Most people think Red Wizards are all disciples of some occult school – but there are actually hundreds of academies. I teach transmutive and transformative magic at my mother's academy – my specialty."
It was something of a relief to know that she wouldn't be scrutinized based on the Red Wizards' reputation. "Who is Lienna?"
"An associate of my mother... or so I've gathered. I've never met her – or even heard of her, until I was tasked to bring you to her," Safiya said, all too aware of how hopeless the situation looked from afar. Or up close. "Whoever she is, hopefully she'll be able to grant us some answers. I sent a pair of servants to find her... and they have yet to return..."
"Servants?"
"Homunculi - sentient creatures crafted by my magics," Safiya said and Kaji perked up.
"Sort of like me - only they're not as smart. Or as good looking," he said, flitting near Cal. She glanced him over with a skeptical look. Safiya chuckled.
"Much like Kaji - only these were more primitive creations. It would not surprise me if they got lost on the way."
"What can you tell me about... wherever we are?" Cal asked, gesturing to their surroundings.
"Rashemen's cold winters and unforgiving landscape have crafted a folk that are... well, amusingly enough, cold and unforgiving. They are especially distrusting of Red Wizards," Safiya said. "But this is my first encounter with these lands - what little I know is based on rumors of crazed barbarians and the masked witches that rule them."
The conversation dwindled after that; Cal washed her injuries, Safiya threw together a quick recipe for the road and the three of them ate before retiring to bed. The night was long and fraught with insomnia and strange intervals of dream among nightmare. The voices were especially loud, weaving between excite and anxiety, speculation and relief. Imagery of the wall was frequently summoned when she shut her eyes, and was left with a strange vertigo of distinct emotion. A determined sort of indignation and the oily residue of fear met with an obscure feeling, so strong that the wizard had awoken to tears rolling down the bridge of her nose. A feeling of warmth surrounded by a deep cold, a feeling so extreme that it was scalding. At one point in the night she had been stirred by the sound of someone retching, but returned quickly to sleep. The horizon fringed with dawn, crimson bleeding through the shadows of the woodland as Safiya slipped back into unconsciousness as though it were the arms of a long, lost lover.
It had been raining for several hours into the afternoon by the time they had arrived in Mulsantir, and the olive robes Safiya had changed into were utterly soaked. Cal was in no better state, her padded armor weighed down whilst wet and her pale hair stuck to her face. The both of them were eager to dry off and warm up, and after receiving direction from a local merchant mired outside the gates, they were practically running to the Veil theatre. Mention of angry spirits made the wizard nervous; of course they had not successfully 'killed,' the bear god, but Safiya had at least hoped they might get in, meet with Lienna and get out as soon as possible. They did not need anymore distractions on their journey. The locals hardly noticed them as they quickly splashed through the muddied paths and quickly sought out their destination. Near the town square, it was a clearly established theatre, embellished with trappings of costume and occult. They ascended the steps and threw open the heavy doors.
Within, the shadows converged upon them and there was a brief moment in which relief turned to start and confusion. "Safiya!"
The doors swung shut behind them, shuddering loudly as Safiya placed two and two together. She recognized the voice, and...
"The daughter of Nefris, here? I should have recognized those two homunculi as your handiwork..." the voice continued. Dim red light flared to life like an ember, revealing a Red Wizard center stage. Safiya scowled at him, recognizing him as a student from the academy – but otherwise there was no reason she could fathom why he'd be there.
"What are you doing here? And what did you do to Ispet and Sefi?"
The wizard onstage chuckled. "We caught them nosing around the theatre... the gnolls toyed with them a while, before dismembering them... your primitive little creations are no more."
Safiya felt a fierce and sudden anger rise within her, but Cal reacted first. She drew her sword and began to advance.
"Explain yourself, wizard!" she shouted. It was a voice that, at first glance, Safiya wouldn't have expected from someone of such a small frame. It was clearly the girl's voice, but the command it held surprised her. The Veil was a theatre, and designed to employ the use of an echo – and the effect was not lost on the boy she addressed. He recoiled.
"I – I mean – we... uh... he wanted Lienna dead – said it was part of the plan to overthrow Headmistriss Nefris!"
"What? Who ordered you here?" Safiya shouted at him.
"It... it was Araman. Surely you must have known, Safiya. Or was your mother so blind that she never saw the signs..."
She felt fury roil within her, threatening to lead her to act on impulse. Cal glanced to her, then returned to the boy.
"Are you so easily fooled?" she asked, nearing the stage before halting. "You're only a pawn. If you were sent so far and in such a small number to stage a coup... clearly your master doesn't expect you to return."
The boy onstage stared at her, beginning to stammer something but she interrupted him, gesturing to Safiya. "You're up against a wizard thrice your skill and a warrior. And you're on your own. I don't suppose you were paid in advance..."
"Perhaps you're right... I'm not throwing my life away for this... for Araman's vendetta. Let the others deal with you..." he began and Cal lunged onto the stage. The boy dodged the sweep of her sword, falling over himself as he leaped from the stage. He ran for the entrance and Safiya's glare seemed to stop him in place. He glanced back and forth between the two girls, the color draining from his complexion.
"Get out of here, before I change my mind and incinerate you," Safiya hissed, gesturing to the door. The boy bolted.
"A more timely entrance I've never seen, in forty years of theatre!" a woman's voice exclaimed from the darkness. The girls jumped in surprise, and turned to see a dwarf woman and her comrades lingering at the side of the Veil. Cal climbed off the stage as the woman ran to her, and Safiya quickly followed. She recognized from the very minimal description that this woman was Magda – an associate of the associate. "Lienna told us you'd be coming, though she said nothing of slaying Red Wizards, nor of saving our lives! The Red Wizard wasn't alone; there's more of them and they followed Lienna into the back room."
Cal immediately turned, but Magda grabbed her wrist. "Wait! Lienna is no ordinary theatre matron. She has a secret – a shadow door that leads to a... a reflection of the Veil. She's fled through the shadow door, I'm sure of it. Still... such tricks will not stop the Red Wizards, not for long."
She turned Cal's hand over and shoved something into it. The girl opened her hand, revealing a small black stone with white marking intricately painted across it. "As long as you've got the stone, the shadow door will open for you and you'll be able to go through."
"It swallows the light and reflects none," Cal observed, knitting her brow.
"Yes... it's from that other realm, beyond the door. Like attracts like, I guess," Magda explained, as though she had hardly a clue as to what it was, herself. "Bring it to a weak spot between the two worlds and the door opens. At least, that's what Lienna told me. Quickly now, through the door at the back of the stage."
They moved quickly, darting up the stage and twisting into the threshold of the back. Mid-stride, the voices converged and one split apart from another – there was mingled whispering between the two and one of them settled. Not now... Safiya stumbled and winced as a shriek soared through her head, temporarily scrambling her own thoughts.
"Safiya?" she heard Cal's voice, though she could not react. A ringing was growing louder and louder through her ears, and her skin felt as though it had begun to sear and peel.
"No, it's... something's not right, I – I told them, not now..." she muttered, trying to combine words into a sentence that might disguise her plight and placate her ally's worry, but the shriek rose to an inhuman peak. "My head!"
"Safiya," Cal said again, sounding concerned. She met the wizard's side and Safiya tried to turn from her.
"There's a ringing in my ears, and... my skin – it's burning," she said, holding either side of her skull. "No, please don't!"
"Don't what? What's going on?"
"I," Safiya said as the noise began to waver and settle, "I thought you were trying to help – I was going to say don't bother. The pain is... subsiding."
Cal stared at her with those unsettling eyes, clearly unconvinced.
"I'm fine, really."
"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but I need to know if you're going to be alright," Cal said, frowning at her. Safiya was unsure if her concern was genuine or if it was borne from mistrust. She couldn't quite blame her either way.
"I wanted to... I mean... thank you - for your concern, that is. But I suppose I owe you an explanation," she said hesitantly, not particularly wishing to relinquish this secret, but knowing it would eventually drain Cal of her ability to trust in her judgment. "I sometimes hear voices that are, well, not quite my own. Though this is only the second time that the voices have been accompanied by pain. I keep hoping to find some logic to the whispers but... they just come and go without reason."
There was a brief pause as Cal observed her. "What do they say?"
"They sound human... familiar, almost. Quite often, the voices are more of a distant haze. But sometimes, whole words come across. During my apprenticeship, I read from the wrong scroll and, not knowing what I was doing, nearly incinerated myself. Before I could finish the chant, a voice in my head cried out and broke my concentration. It saved my life," Safiya said, hoping the right message was getting through. It may have been a mark of madness to trust in anything that wasn't quite there, but it had also proven quite helpful. "But I've... rambled far too long. We may not have much time..."
They stepped into the bedroom and were immediately assaulted by a gnoll. Safiya nimbly leaped out of the way, but Cal was too slow, and the axe's dull blade bit angrily into her shoulder. She fell with the force of the attack, rolling across the floor as Safiya shouted an incantation. The creature howled as flame burst out across its body, hungrily devouring fur before delving into its flesh. It ran itself into the ground, snarling with pain before quieting as the fire went to work on several vital organs. Cal rose, holding her wounded shoulder and glancing towards the bedside mirror. She and Safiya shared a look before lunging towards it. At once, darkness bloomed in a single blast; a yawning void twisting inside out from the very sparse light offered within the room.
"Look at this," Safiya mused, staring at it in wonder. The rippling within was lighter – pallid, stripped of color and shimmering like murky water.
"Let's go," Cal nodded to her and the girls stepped through the portal. They stepped into a plane of battle; there was no color in this realm, but only the shades of light and darkness. The immediate attack was supplied by a Red Wizard, summoning creatures – two erinyes, their voluptuous, beautiful bodies bound in black leather, each sprouting a pair of dark wings. Safiya and Cal managed to fell the creatures easily enough, moving to silence the Red Wizard.
"We're lucky that the length of your amnesia doesn't extend to your training – whatever training you've received. I've never encountered a style like yours before," Safiya said as they carried on through the muted, shadowy rooms.
"I only do what feels natural," Cal responded and Safiya was somewhat alarmed by the confession.
"You don't remember any rules of swordplay?"
She shrugged, as though rules were of no consequence in her mind. "I don't know the first thing about swordplay. It's all reflex – I just... wield the sword. Everything else happens on more or less its own."
Safiya sighed as Cal pushed open the bedroom door. "Well, we're lucky that muscle memory isn't afflicted by amnesia."
They entered the following room – so strikingly similar to the one with the gnoll, and yet.. different. It was flipped, a mirrored, black and white image. There was a table in the middle of the room, a terribly morbid bit of imagery. What looked to be blood set into the woodwork – and lingered at the leather cuffs attached to its surface. Was it an operating table? What kind of woman was this Lienna? Cal seemed particularly struck by the gruesome scene; she stared at the table, eyes wide and brow set with a sort of fascinated horror.
"Cal?" Safiya asked, watching as the girl massaged one of her gloved wrists. She ignored her and moved closer to the table, digitigrade as if sneaking past it, but nearing to turn and squint at it. "What is it?"
"This table is... familiar," she finally settled, struggling with the final word. She reached out and smoothed her fingers over the table, across the bloodstains and suddenly grimaced, her other hand soaring to grip at her chest, where her wound had been. She paused, narrowing her eyes until they shut, recoiling though leaving her hands in place. Safiya was perplexed by the behavior and Cal's hand eventually withdrew and fell from the table as she took several steps back.
"You paused... did you see something? A vision – or recollection, perhaps?" Safiya asked.
"I... don't know. A memory, I think. But it's.. confusing. Two women were standing over me, and one of them... pulled a shard of something silver from my chest," Cal said, letting her hand linger over the scar before removing it. "She said it was, 'for love.'"
That would certainly explain the wound, though it rose about fifty other questions. "In the Plane of Shadow, memories are closer to the surface of the mind. Such visions are not uncommon, especially when a memory is strong... or suppressed."
Cal paused as if contemplating this for a fleeting moment before turning on a heel and walking towards the door to the stage. Safiya quickly followed, meeting her side as she opened it and walked onstage.
"Safiya? What are you doing here?" a man's voice echoed out from the bales of hay used to seat an audience. The girls peered down at three Red Wizards, flanked by erinyes.
"I thought I smelled incompetence..." Safiya remarked snidely. Cal glanced to her.
"Is it common for rival Wizards to follow you around?"
"When I left trying to find you, certain... overly ambitious wizards were trying to force my mother out of power. I'm not sure why they're here..." Safiya explained, her voice tapering off as she glimpsed him, as if waiting for him to offer up the answer. However, he did not. "This is Khai Khmun, one of the most worthless piles of sputum to ever wear the red robes of Thay. Khai is a sniveling sycophant. My only rivals are magicians of worth. He's also a junior instructor at my mother's academy. What he's doing straying so far from his mentor's leash, I don't know..."
"All that's changing... Araman rewards his allies well. With Lienna dead I've earned a promotion," Khai explained with a grin and turned, gesturing behind him. A human skeleton – blackened and sprawled across the floor lie among ashes – what must have once been her clothing. "It's a shame the old hag didn't put up much of a fight. She destroyed herself in a blaze of fire... must've known she couldn't best me."
"I needed to talk – to – Lienna," Cal spat out each word, every syllable becoming darker as she spoke until they were very nearly a growl. Safiya glanced to her, surprised by the sudden vehemence. She was furious with Khai and disheartened – for a number of reasons – to see Lienna dead, but Cal seemed much more than that. She removed her greatsword from its holster, glaring down at the wizard. "You've made a fatal mistake, Khai."
Khai turned to her, and the color – what little there was left within the plane of shadows – drained as his eyes widened.
"You... Araman warned me of you! Safiya, why would you travel with this... thing?" he asked, glancing to her. There was a note of genuine fear in his voice – a note that Safiya savored. She didn't know what he was talking about, but was pleased for leverage in the encounter.
"Have we met?" Cal asked, cracking her neck and readying her sword. Khai swallowed nervously.
"I want no trouble from you – stand aside!" he cried, gesturing as if to somehow propel her out of sight and out of mind. Cal took a step froward instead and Khai lunged backwards. "My quarrel is with Safiya! I doubt she'll put up nearly as much of a fight as Lienna... or her mother."
"My... mother? Khai Khmun, you had best be mocking me... if you raised your hand against my mother, I will extract a thousand screams from your wretched hide!" Safiya shouted, following Cal's suite and brandishing her staff. Cal may have intimidated him and the other hounds of Araman, but Khai wasn't going to escape. Safiya would flay him for even suggesting that he had harmed her mother. Khai grinned up at her.
"Oh, she had no idea it was coming. She used every last cantrip she knew but... her loyal allies - her daughter, even - never arrived to save her."
"You enjoy giving others reasons to kill you, don't you?" Cal cut him off, and something in her voice suggested that she was overcome with anger – likely just as much as Safiya. But there was something distinctly different in it. Something icy. "Do you want to stop now, while you'll know it will be quick? Or would you prefer to secure yourself a slow, agonizing death? Safiya – which do you think we should give him?"
"I think you're onto something with that slow bit."
"Maybe I'll rip out his spine and beat him with it."
"And I'll be sure to castrate him first."
"W-wait!" Khai said, glancing between the girls. "I... you see - the coup was Araman's idea - he... he - I don't know why Lienna was involved but after the headmistress, she was next and then Safiya and - !"
Safiya scowled at him, absolutely repulsed by his cowardice and his character in tandem. "And to think you once claimed to care for me..."
Khai steadied himself, regaining whatever balance he struggled to maintain. "Lienna was wise to destroy herself rather than face me. I'll let you both meditate on that – give you the option to kill yourselves – or one another – rather than have it be done by my hand. I will not be mercifu -,"
Cal's temper had finally met its end, and she interrupted him with an outraged cry before leaping from the stage, sword drawn to plunge into him. Safiya immediately began to call out her spells, bombarding the rival wizards with offensive after offensive as Cal wove around, sword calling up flurries of hay from the bales just as surely as it stole blood into the air. It was not uncommon for Red Wizards to turn against one another. Actually, it was far less common for them to work together and cooperate than it was for them to kill each other, almost at random. It was all a power play, a struggle against wit as much as it was a struggle for sheer survival. From an intellectual standpoint, you could be ruined just as easily as your throat could be slit in your sleep. Safiya had seen others challenge her mother in the past, and fail miserably – Nefris was something of a force to be reckoned with in her own right. The fact that multiple wizards had agreed to work together – all for selfish reason, but reason all the same – spoke much of Araman's influence. She had been expecting this, but the source was somewhat... unexpected.
"I always assumed Khai's ambition would get him killed... but I never thought it would be by my hand," Safiya mused as she collected herself, staring at his bloodied corpse as it lie on the floor. Cal had collapsed against one of the few intact bales of hay, her sword lying on the ground beside her. The wizard quickly stepped from the stage. "Healing isn't really my specialty, but I can offer some assistance – do you need it?"
But Cal shook her head. "I'm not hurt – not badly, anyways. Just tired."
"Tired? Well, that's not too surprising. You did just scatter about thirty pieces of wizard and demon across the room," Safiya remarked and sat beside her on the hay.
"I'm sorry. That was your fight. I just... couldn't stop myself," she said between heavy breaths, wiping sweat from her brow. "About... your mother..."
"I can only hope Khai was lying to unsettle me... I wish he was not granted the pleasure of seeing us so angry, but..."
"It's not like he'll live to tell the tale."
Safiya smiled, but it waned quickly. "I just... worry. I'm running out of trustworthy people in my life... if he was telling the truth I... I should never have left the Academy when I did. My mother, Nefris - she has the respect of the other wizards, but not their love..."
"Don't worry mistress, you still have me! I'm family. Sort of," Kaji chimed in, tugging affectionately at the sleeve of her dark robes. Safiya glanced down to him and smiled. There was something to be said about the only trustworthy people in ones life being created by ones own hand. Cal was staring at her, and eventually her normally stoic expression softened.
"I'm sorry," she said, followed by an uncomfortable silence. "If you need to return home, I understand."
It was a kind offer, one that Safiya hadn't expected. "Thank you... but I promised my mother I'd look after you. If those were her... her last orders – well, I'd like to honor them. Had the situation been reversed - had someone harmed me, her wrath would have been... merciless. I will grieve for my mother by finding Araman... and crushing him."
"Who is he?"
"Araman is a common enough name in Thay, but... there is an Araman at the Academy of Shapers and Binders," Safiya said, recounting the man. His betrayal had been unexpected, not because of any standing loyalties, but because he seemed so utterly inconsequential otherwise. "He's a senior instructor. Quiet, soft-spoken, and shockingly adept at magic. I've met him, but we've rarely traded words - he stays hidden in the library most of the time."
"And he lead this coup against your mother?"
"Hmmmm... a reclusive, yet polite old man who kept to himself at an academy full of ruthless, aggressive magicians..." Safiya thought aloud, and now it was a little suspicious. She had not thought much of the man, but she supposed the rumor to distrust the quiet ones held fast in any circumstance. "Yes, he sounds guilty enough. Had he been vocal about his hatred for my mother, she'd have anticipated it and stopped him long ago. At least Khai is dead, and Lienna avenged. I appreciate your assistance in killing that wretch."
"I could hardly help it," Cal reiterated, seeming to collect herself. "He destroyed valuable information... and what he said about your mother, well..."
Safiya nodded, beginning to place two and two together about the stranger. "So... you know nothing of swordplay – either because of your amnesia or because you received no formal training... you're nearly unstoppable in combat when you're enraged... and afterwards you're terribly fatigued."
Cal stared at her, nonplussed.
"Do you suppose you're a barbarian?"
"A barbarian?" Cal repeated, knitting her brow. "You mean like a berserker? Well, I don't know..."
"You don't quite fit the image, but then I suppose there have been stranger combinations. You're only wearing light armor, yet you wield a greatsword – from what I've studied, berserkers prefer heavy-handed weaponry but enter battle without fear of mortal wounds, and don't like to be weighed down by heavy armor," Safiya explained, gesturing to the girl's attire and weapon. "I've seen you struggle with that sword only while you're not fighting, and you seem to enter some sort of frenzy in battle. You said you couldn't help but attack Khai?"
"I was furious," Cal said. "Something just came over me and I couldn't stop it."
"It's certainly reminiscent," Safiya said before rising. "I suppose it doesn't really matter, but I was curious all the same. With Lienna dead, I think our best course of action would be to speak to Magda and the other actors – there is a chance she had confided in one of them."