Author's Note: I am republishing this here from my blog at .com. The blog actually has several more chapters already available, and I have been updating it daily since it began about a week ago, so that's something. The reason why I use the blog instead of as my primary platform for updates is mostly that the blog allows picture support and I use occasional screenshots from the game as illustrations. I'll be keeping both updated, though, so check whichever one works better for you.
Baron Egan woke up early as a general rule. Lilith was not Baron Egan. On this particular day, Egan had decided to visit the Roblis Estate, which meant that the Roblis' two kitchen slaves had to be up early to prepare breakfast early for Egan's visit. Lilith wasn't a kitchen slave. The head slave had to be up in order to supervise the kitchen slaves. Lilith wasn't the head slave either. If the head slave was going to be up, he was damn well going to make sure that every other slave would be up, standing around doing nothing with their heads bowed in an ostentatious display of conspicuous consumption when the Baron arrived. And that's why Lilith was trying not to fall asleep on her feet when it was barely even light out and the Baron was taking breakfast with Sir and Lady Roblis and their eldest son, along with a half-dozen other slaves who had absolutely nothing to do for another hour, which was when the day usually began.
In an effort to keep herself awake, Lilith was concentrating very carefully on what the nobles were saying. "It's the Royalists, you know," Baron Egan said in his deep, voice. "They're hardly better than bandits themselves, you know, trying to drive the kingdom into the gutter for the sake of their barbaric ways." Lilith had long ago learned to avoid voicing her disagreement, especially not in the company of an esteemed guest like the Baron. She'd like as not be beheaded for being that bold. But she made a mental note to make sure the whole Roblis family paid for their disdain when she took her place in the Lunatic Court.
"I couldn't agree more," Sir Roblis said, "as if we haven't got enough problems with the Charr coming down south. Have you heard?"
"Oh, yes," Egan said, "the warband that broke through the frontlines, you mean? Headed south to the Wall. They'll fair about as well as all the others, of course."
"Oh, of course," Sir Roblis said, "to be honest I'm more worried about that devourers' nest. I've heard tell that a new breed is growing there, lethally poisonous."
"Hm, Duke Gaban should look into it," Baron Egan said, "if he's not too busy feeding his slaves to the beasts. He spends so much time up there just listening to the screams of the ones who displease him. Honestly, it's so very…Well, Lunatic."
"Oh, isn't it?" Lady Roblis spoke now, "what I wouldn't give to have so many slaves I could fritter them away on blood sport," she said the last words with clear disdain. The Lady was mostly silent as the men discussed politics, but quieter still was Sir Roblis' eldest child Edwin, a fifteen-year old boy who was doing a poor job of hiding the fact that he was ogling one of the larger-breasted slaves. As in every noble family, his parents disapproved of the notion of his being intimate with mere slaves, and as with every noble family his youthful vigor demanded immediate satisfaction rather than properly courting noble women who had the luxury of rejecting of him. Getting away with as much slave intimacy as possible without letting the parents find out was essentially an unofficial coming-of-age rite for noble boys. Lilith had escaped his attentions so far, as it seemed Edwin preferred older girls and she was only a year his senior. This was surely a blessing from a sympathetic Lunatic, Lilith thought, shielding one who was truly a noble from the harsher depravities of living as a slave.
"It does keep the slave population down," Sir Roblis continued on, "and I have suspected for some time that at least a few of those bandits are runaways."
"So it does, so it does," Egan said, "but there are much faster ways to get rid of excess slaves. A good beheading will do the trick much faster."
"I agree," Sir Roblis responded, "he could at least do us the favor of recovering the corpses, such that the monks at Ashford could examine the body. Perhaps find a way to cure that poison!"
"That poison seems to have you fearful," Egan said. Lilith knew something had Sir Roblis on edge for the past week solid, and she had the scars to prove it. The sooner someone or other dealt with this poison, the better.
"Oh, it's because of the time at the river when a rogue devourer attacked him. He was hardly more than a boy and it caught him unarmed and unarmored, oh, you should have seen the look on his face!" Lady Roblis said.
"M'lady, please, the Baron is hardly appropriate company for such talk," Sir Roblis said, but Baron Egan just laughed.
"Father, mother," Edwin said, speaking for the first time, "may I please be excused? I should like to be about my training." Edwin was hardly interested in training most days, preferring to drink with his friends, but it seemed preferable to him to enduring conversation between adults he was not permitted to insult.
"Edwin, we have company," Sir Roblis said.
"Oh, let him go," Egan insisted, "I will have more than enough time to get to know the boy before he takes over the estate, I'm sure. Unless you plan to hunt that devourer yourself, that is," he finished with a grin.
Sir Roblis forced a small smile at the joke, and said "very well, you are excused, Edwin."
"Thank you, father," the boy said, and rose to leave. He grabbed his plate and handed it off to the slave he'd been eyeing, and then made a poor show of stumbling into her, spilling the leftovers all over the both of them. "Gods be damned!" he said, a bit too angry as the porcelain plate shattered on the ground. "You'll learn to keep track of where your feet are," the boy began, but Sir Roblis cut him off.
"You get to the training field if you're so eager," Roblis said, "and quit making a scene in front of company." He turned towards Donnel and said "see about getting that plate replaced," and then returned to his conversation.
Donnel nodded to Sir Roblis and then scanned the waiting slaves. His gaze fell on Lilith, who quickly swallowed down a few of the plague locusts that had started crawling up her throat, suppressing a shudder. Letting a few of the bugs that crawled around inside her out of her mouth in the middle of dinner might be seen as something of a faux pax and she was already on thin ice from her delayed return the previous week, when Verata had showed her how to command the tiny creatures in the first place. Donnel handed her a small money pouch, wordless so as not to disturb the conversation, but the command was straightforward enough, and Lilith was glad of a reason to be anywhere else but sitting around doing nothing. She nodded to Donnel, and quietly slipped away from the room.
It was a general rule of the Roblis household that you did not buy anything from Ascalon City that you could get in Ashford. While it was true that the Roblis' were one of the families, much like the de Magi, who had grown wealthy under Adelbern's reign, but nevertheless Sir Roblis insisted that they hadn't gotten that way by frittering money away and refused to spend more than was absolutely necessary. Lilith did not especially mind. Trips to Ashford gave her time to herself, and besides, if Verata was going to find her again, surely it would be out here, on the same road he'd found her the first time.
Verata never had come for her, but there was something else Lilith looked forward to. Sarah de Luma tended the shrine, where wounded and weary nobles would be healed by the will of the king. Sarah herself was just another noble whose attention Lilith hoped to avoid, but her daughter Gwen had a flute that she loved to play. Lilith herself had played the flute before. It was one of the hobbies her parents had approved of, and for that she had come to resent it a bit. She had since come to see this as more than a bit silly. Why should she care what some money-grubbing businessmen should think of her hobbies? She didn't care when they disapproved of her dabbling in the dark arts, why should she care when they did approve of her playing the flute? It was all a bit late for this sort of self-awareness now, but she'd remember when she was a noble again.
There was no flute music today, though. Lilith "accidentally" spilled the contents of the coin pouch, bending over to pick them up while looking towards the shrine. There was Sarah, manning her post as she did every day. Gwen was often out of sight, up a tree somewhere, and she'd sit in a branch and play her music. But not today. Maybe she was sick, or had some other business to attend? Sometimes Gwen wasn't there with her mother. Lilith certainly wasn't about to ask Sarah where she was. She had enough troubles without going looking for more.
But there was Gwen now, not playing but moping. Lilith glanced back down towards the ground, gathering up the coins. Gwen was most likely worrying over something trivial, as ten year olds do. By this time tomorrow she'd be back to playing her flute. Lilith would hear her the next time she was sent to Ashford. Possibly Gwen would be playing by the time she came back. The sensible thing to do was certainly to just ignore it. Gwen wasn't her problem.
So why was she walking towards the girl, instead of away?
"What's wrong?" Lilith asked, crouching down besides the girl.
Gwen looked towards her, inching backwards, her eyes widening slightly. "Who are you?" she asked.
"A friend," Lilith said, "why don't you tell me what's wrong? Maybe I can help."
"I don't need a slave's help," Gwen said.
"I-I'm, that's not," Lilith begin, and then composed herself. "Can you keep a secret?" she asked. Gwen nodded, her expression still suspicious. "I'm not really a slave. I'm a Royalist witch disguised as a slave, so no one notices me coming or going. I'm on an important mission now, but I can always make time to lend a hand to good little Lunatics. You are a Lunatic, aren't you?"
"Of course!" Gwen said, "the de Luna family have supported Prince Rurik since the day he was born!" Lilith smiled. She'd known the answer in advance, of course, the political allegiances of most of the noble families being fairly common knowledge amongst the nobility, which she had been a member of hardly more than a year before. And would be again someday soon.
"Then tell me what's wrong," Lilith said, "have you been teased by some boy who'd be better off as a frog?"
"No, it's…It's my flute," Gwen said, "I was playing near the river, and some skale came out of the water and ran at me, and I ran away and dropped it, and they're still there and I can't get it back."
"That won't be hard. Follow me," Lilith said, and stood. Gwen hesitated. "Don't be scared," Lilith said, "we'll just be going to the river to get your flute. I need you to show me where it was you dropped it, is all."
Gwen hesitated a bit longer, but then said "okay," and got up. Lilith said "I'll need to get my wand first," and turned and began walking to where she had it hidden in the reeds at the riverbank. She hoped this didn't take long, now that her sense was beginning to catch up with the rest of her. She was already on thin ice from her delayed return the previous week, when Verata had taught her. But surely, if she took care of this quickly, and rushed the rest of the errand, it would hardly be noticed she was late. If she slipped in five minutes or ten minutes later than usual, she might be punished, but it wouldn't be considered unusual.
By the time she had arrived at her wand's hiding place, she was short on breath from having broken into a run about halfway there. Gwen could barely keep up on her short legs. All of Lilith's doubts seemed easier to quiet once she felt the thorned wood of the wand again. This was power, dark power, the power she was meant for. So long as she wielded this, Lilith thought, surely nothing could go too horribly wrong. "Now where'd you leave your flute?" Lilith asked.
The skale were spread thin when Lilith arrived, but as she waded into the river they began to cluster up, hissing at her and baring their teeth. She could feel the power of death flowing through her and into the wand, the burst of dark energy slamming into a skale with a shriek. There was no sign of any wound, for the magic did not pierce the flesh like an arrow might. Instead, it enervated, draining the very life from the creature. The pack charged, and Lilith called up the swarm inside her. Out from her mouth, ears, and nostrils the plague locusts swarmed, tiny pestilent insects climbing out of her tear ducts and across her eyes before flying towards the enemy. Her ragged clothes writhed as the creatures crawled from her teats and groin, and from beneath her fingernails still more came, flying to the skale and devouring those in lead of the pack. They stripped flesh from bone at an amazing pace, leaving only a few ragged clumps clinging to their bodies as their rancid husks fell into the river.
Most turned to flee, but one pounced upon her, bowling her to the ground and submerging her head. Its jaws found purchase on her shoulders, while its claws scraped at her chest, but her wand arm was unharmed. A single blast from the wand and the creature reared back, Lilith erupting from the river and wrapping her hands around its shoulders. Fangs slid from her lips and she bit down into the creature, her own wounds sealing themselves up as she drank deep from the creature's jugular. Finally, she dropped the dry corpse into the river. A few rivulets of blood trailed down her legs to be swept away in the current below.
Lilith recalled with a start that she was in a hurry. She had no idea how long she'd zoned out, but the sun seemed to be in the same position so it couldn't have been too long. Gwen stood and stared from her position near the bank. Lilith pulled her feet from the sucking mud and onto the banks of the river. "Did you find your flute?" Lilith asked. Gwen still just stared, and muttered something. Lilith snapped her fingers in front of Gwen, and said "hey, are you in there?" Gwen blinked and looked up towards her. "Don't worry, it's over. Did you find your flute?"
"Oh, it's…It's around here somewhere," Gwen said, climbing down the bank and into the river.
A minute or two later, Gwen shrieked and backed away, her searching feet having stumbled across not the flute, but one of the skale corpses in the river. "Don't worry," Lilith said, "it's dead. It can't hurt you." Gwen swallowed and nodded, wading away from the corpse as she continued searching. Lilith's own feet curled around something thin and round, and she thought she could feel the holes in it, too. Pulling it from foot to hand, the current washing the mud away, she found the flute…Or rather, half of it.
"It's broken?" Gwen asked.
"Looks like," Lilith said.
"It was all for nothing?" Gwen asked again, "the flute is broken?"
"It was good practice," Lilith said, "and more importantly, revenge. Show them to mess with the de Luma, right?"
It was the first time Lilith had seen Gwen smile up close. "Right," she said. Gwen looked at her a moment, and looked back towards the dead skale. "They're not so scary once they've stopped moving," she said, and then began wading out of the river.
