Wheee! The smelly people at work finally turned the radio off, so now I can think again!
Chapter 7 - Corruption
Lucien fell to his knees, gasping for breath; a hand on the floor to steady himself, but to no avail. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings; they assaulted him in waves, his perceptions seeming to spread like a cup of water spilled on the ground.
He heard people chatting, birds singing, the ocean, wind in the trees; a panther was hunting a rabbit, a child escaped through a window; he tasted earth, water, blood. He felt his consciousness stretch, it reached each corner of the land; an owl swooped for a mouse, a great bonfire burned surrounded by yelling people, guards changed their shift. He perceived buildings, wine, cloth, leaves, axes, salt, laughter, howls, tears, urine, faeces. Then it all froze, in a second that seemed to stretch on and on, then shattered. Shattered like a mirror… seven years bad luck… the shards falling like rain… tearing through the air, the leaves, the flesh. Then darkness.
xox
Lucien opened his eyes. Or were they already open? Yes, they must have been, because there in front of him he saw the gates of the city he had left the previous night. But now the first rays of dawn were cast over the walls, glinting off the spears.
"Where's he been?" one of the guards asked the other.
"Mind your own damn business," growled Lucien. He had what he would bet was the worst hangover in history, and he had no patience for banal questions.
Questions… Spoken… With words…
His thumping mind worked slowly through the implications.
Words I understood…
His eyes widened. "You there," he pointed at the guard who had spoken, but was now looking dumbstruck, "What is your name and position?"
Me? He mouthed, pointing to himself. Lucien nodded impatiently, and the guard spoke. "My name is Lorotho Maydin, I am a dawn shift gatekeeper."
Satisfied he understood each word; Lucien strolled off, much to the amazement of the two guards. Finding a secluded spot, he scaled the town wall and slipped into the city.
When he arrived back at his quarters, he found the woman who he had spoken with before looking about his room anxiously. Apparently he had been missed.
xox
Anton Filius stirred the teaspoon in his cup nervously as the woman seated opposite to him placed a thick roll of parchment on the coffee table separating them. Somehow a single coffee table didn't seem enough, and he felt very exposed sitting near this mysterious woman. The Orrery clanked and clunked into operation, that weird sense of motion assaulting him, as it powered up. The shock of being lead into the Orrery by his friend, Raith, to find two settees (one with a dangerous looking woman relaxing on it) and a table set with tea and biscuits had still not fully worn off.
Raith Revan eyed the parchment with interest, as the Archmage picked it up and began to examine it. Was this single scroll the reason he had been initiated into the Dark Brotherhood? It was an unpleasant feeling, thinking that the Listener's only interest in him was his connection to the Archmage. Unconciously, he ran his finger along the scabbard of the dagger She had given him; a beautiful ebony dagger.
Murmuring to himself as he read, the Archmage scanned down the parchment, eyebrows raised.
"This is the incantation for a teleportation spell," he surmised.
Loria's expression was stony. "I did not take the trouble to arrange this meeting simply to hear you state the obvious." Anton blanched at the coldness in her voice. "Please Archmage, tell me something I do not already know; for your own sake if not for mine."
The mage squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "The script is ancient; Velothi, if I'm not mistaken," he glanced up, and seeing the irritated twitch of the woman's mouth, he continued quickly. "The coordinates in the heavens to which it refers are here," he pointed to a small constellation to the far right of the room, "here and here," he pointed out two more points in the Orrery's ceiling.
"That would make it –"
"East southeast of Argonia, on the same latitude as Pyandonea, and in the middle of the Padomeic Ocean," the Archmage finished. Seeing the woman's stricken expression, he continued hastily, "if these coordinates are anything to go by, the creator of this spell must have believed there was a landmass in this area, roughly the size of Pyandonea."
"Can you recreate the magicka in that scroll?" she asked.
"No. I do not see any way you can reignite the magicka in that scroll. It would take one with greater power than I, or, perhaps, any mortal."
A smile crept its way onto Loria's dusky features, "That won't be a problem for me, actually."
xox
Lucien ran a soft cloth down the length of the Ebony Blade. Forged from the essence of a Daedric Lord, its wicked edge was eternally sharp; no rock, nor bone or armour could blunt its razor sharp edge. It had been a reward to his Silencer from the Daedric Prince Mephala, a reward for the murder of two innocent people. Those same murders observed by the Night Mother. Strange, thought Lucien, that she should be recruited to the Dark Brotherhood because of a task she performed for the patron of the hated Morag Tong. And yet it seemed so right. Lucien had half expected the Webspinner to take back the Ebony Blade after Loria had given it to him.
The assassin put down both blade and cloth, and picked up a piece of parchment on a nearby desk. He skimmed through its contents once more, and, satisfied with what he had written, put it into a drawer, which he then locked.
Feeling like his old self again, now that he had control of his situation, not to mention a plan, Lucien rested for the remainder of the afternoon; then at dusk, he prepared to set out from the city once more.
With Kushiel's guidance, Lucien did not need to retrace his steps to find his way back to Nerfernis' tomb. He took a path that winded slightly around the mountain, avoiding a ravine to the east, following the straightest path possible back to the pyramid rising out of the jungle.
By the following midnight, Lucien had arrived back at the city with a satchel brimming with looted articles from the tomb.
He fetched the scroll that he had written from his desk, and glanced over it one final time to ensure it could be passed off as an authentic item from the tomb. Then he went back out into the streets. With the help of a few late night strollers, Lucien obtained the name of a pawnbroker with a big mouth and a small brain, and made a beeline.
Pulling down his hood so that it thoroughly obscured his features, he knocked twice on the wooden door. After a short wait, it opened a crack, through which Lucien could see a pair of beady little eyes.
"What do you want, stranger?" the pawnbroker's raspy voice cut through the dark.
"I have some goods you may be interested in," Lucien replied, keeping his tone carefully neutral and relatively unthreatening.
"Come back tomorrow –" the man began.
"I do not wish to come back tomorrow," Lucien interrupted firmly. "These are ancient artefacts, unique and valuable, from a tomb deep in the jungle."
This seemed to catch the man's attention. "Tomb robbing is a serious crime…" he muttered. "You'd better come in."
The door creaked open, revealing a musty, dank hallway. The stone floor was covered in a layer of dirt that ascended near the walls, leaving only a well trodden trail through the building that was relatively dirt free. Though it was dark, Lucien could see dark smears all over the walls, and there was a rancid smell like rotting meat emanating from somewhere deeper in the house. A large shaggy black dog materialised out of one doorway, bringing a foul smell of its own to the mix. The pawnbroker barked something unintelligible at it, and it slunk off at once.
When they reached a larger, better lit room with a vast stone counter in the middle, the man gestured to the table, and Lucien deposited his wares. The pawnbroker fell upon the satchel, examining its contents, muttering to himself. He pulled out some jewellery, a cracked mirror, a statuette, a book, and a number of scrolls. After eyeing them all over, he turned to his customer. "Five hundred juits," he offered.
Kushiel had opened his eyes to many things, but the value of currency was beyond the knowledge of the land, and so Lucien had no idea how much a juit was worth, so he improvised. "Those goods are worth at least half as much again."
"Ha! Haha, you jest, my friend, surely!" the pawnbroker laughed, but seeing Lucien's mouth set in a thin, impatient line he said "six hundred and twenty. That is a fair price, no?"
"No." Lucien replied. "But make it six seven five and we have a deal."
The other man seemed to deliberate on this a while, before holding out his hand, "deal."
Lucien shook his hand, and received a pouch of coins, which he checked. Then he turned and left the hovel. "A pleasure doing business with you, my friend!" called the pawnbroker. "Remember me if you happen across any other lost treasures!"
Lucien smiled as he vanished into the dark. With the scroll now in the loud mouth's possession, it would not be long before its forged contents made its way to the ears of the entire city's underground. Then they would all know exactly what to do to arrange a secret murder.