Post by stephena on Mar 6, 2024 16:19:39 GMT
Sorrel was pacing. Which wasn’t easy. The pilgrim’s cells at the temple were designed for a few nights stay en route to wherever the pilgrims were heading. They were not designed for a warrior with an unnaturally large collection of weapons and a practical interest in divine magic.
Those parts of the once white walls that weren’t concealed by longbows, shortbows, hand crossbows, scimitars, rapiers, shortswords, daggers, quivers, bucklers and the like - all carefully mounted, hung or racked – were seared, melted, stained or warped by misplaced bolts of radiance, lightning, fire or acid. The floor had barely enough room for the bed, desk and increasingly unstable bookcase, there to house a passing travelers’ devotional texts rather than the collected library of a trainee priest and student of martial history.
Everything teetered.
Sorrel paced very slowly.
She was irritable, itchy, impatient and ill at ease. She had been feeling this way for weeks… or was it months? Time passed so slowly these days.
And then the timid knock came at the door.
A dark cloud passed briefly across the small window set high in the wall and it seemed as if a wisp of its darkness reached out towards her, like a cold hand stretching from the East until the wind picked up and beams of sunlight burst into the chamber again.
She opened her door and saw a nervous acolyte, head bowed, too scared to meet her eyes.
“Ma’am, a box came for you, it is with your sisters, but it bears your name. I was charged with bringing you the news. I did not mean to disturb you.”
Then the robed figure turned and fled.
“Wait…” Sorrel’s cry was in vain as she saw the figure disappear around a distant corner.
Out of habit, she threw on her belt, bow and scabbard then stepped into the corridor, suddenly cold and certain.
--
Lyra was shouting. Vega was trying to calm her, and Aries was sulking. Sorrel would have thought all was as it should be if it weren’t for the box.
Plain it was, a deep shade of brown where the wood had been stained and polished, but etched into its darkest heart was the symbol, marked out in ebony like the devil’s own night, of the Hand.
The sign of the House.
She felt Aries watching her as she drew two fine stiletto knives and ran them around the edge, searching for pressure points or hidden blades. Then she flicked the lid off with one knife and peered carefully in, her head high enough to avoid any spring traps.
On a bed of black velvet there lay a severed hand clutching a scroll of parchment.
Her sisters, she realized, were silent.
The hand had been severed around seven centimeters below the wrist, she noted. It was the hand of a male presenting human with wrinkled, older skin and ancient rope scars and callouses. Judging by the tattoo it was her father’s hand. The paper it clutched was expensive, but not excessively so. The handwriting was neat but a little flowery and the ink was from one of five, maybe six shops in Baldur’s Gate.
She pierced the paper with a blade and lifted it from her father’s severed hand, unrolling it carefully.
“Cowardice doesn't become you, Darkfire. You can't hide them forever. Come face me and we'll settle this, if you think the Dark College taught you anything at all.”
Below it, map co-ordinates and a signature which she didn’t need to read.
Yhsa.
Or rather, Specialist Yhsa. The mouthy but admittedly hot tiefling with all the knives.
Her sisters pressed against her, staring down into the box.
“What is that?” Aries whispered.
“Our father’s severed hand,” Sorrel’s eyes skimmed the note again. “And a note with…”
Before she could finish, Lyra’s howl echoed through the stone walls of the temple. Sorrel span round to see her sister curled up on the floor, convulsing, screaming, her eyes rolling back into her head.
“Is she OK? What is it?” Sorrel turned to Aries.
“It is our father’s severed hand in a box!” Vega shouted in fury as she knelt to help Lyra.
Sorrel nodded slowly. “Right… right… I should probably have broken that a little more slowly…”
“You think?” Aries met her eyes scornfully.
--
Velania’s soothing voice had wrought a subtle magic on Lyra. Her breathing slowed and her eyes half closed.
“Perhaps take her to her chamber?” Velania rested her hand on Vega’s shoulder and the girl smiled gratefully.
Sorrel met Aries eyes. For once, there seemed to be something other than resentment there.
“Is it a threat, a message, a challenge? Do you want to contact your father?” Velania spoke softly.
Sorrel turned. “All three. And yes, there’s a sound tactical advantage in knowing my father’s health and whereabouts. She won’t be expecting us to know.”
“And you must be worried…?” Velania frowned.
Sorrel shrugged. “The last time I touched that hand I was shaking it farewell as I boarded the coach taking me to the mercenary company he had sold me into. We weren’t close.”
The silence was deafening.
“Well, I’ll try then,” Velania reached into the box and took up the crinkled limb as if it were a newborn child, newly emerged into the chaos of the world from the safety of a mother’s womb. She cradled it softly, whispering words in a strange tongue, asking questions of the world beyond worlds and, by the way her brow grew stern and heavy, receiving no answer.
“I can find nothing,” she said finally. “He may be shielded.”
“Or dead,” Sorrel reached for the note again, hearing Aries stifle a gasp. “We must put a team together. These are professionals and they have the advantage of choosing the ground. We need brute force, and Beets is perfect. She is doughty with a lot of heart. I am increasingly impressed by her, and she will be a powerful asset. And there will be fuckery of an almost fey level. If I could find Marto and persuade him… But we are lacking a mage.”
There was a flicker at the corner of her vision. She turned and Aries was gone.
“I believe Marto is in Hill Borrow,” Velania said gently.
--
Aries returned with a faintly irritated elf who introduced themselves as the Arcanist Calla Prim.
Sorrel eyed her for a moment.
“How are you at explosive violence?”
“I don’t do fireballs, if that’s what you mean. I preferred very targeted, very painful precision attacks.”
Sorrel gaped. “Now that’s what I call a mage. How is it that I’ve been in Kantas for four years and we haven’t met? What have you got?”
“Whatever you need if you can give me four hours to prepare.”
Lyra drifted into the room and gazed at Calla, her eyes brimming with emotion. “You have had a very hard week,” she reached out as if to stroke Calla’s cheek and for a moment it looked as if Calla was trembling.
“I have to go to Hill Borrow,” Sorrel cut in hastily. “Can you be ready when I return.”
Calla nodded.
“Aries, could you find Beets,” Sorrel struggled into her battered armour chest piece. “Tell her I need her. Tell her… just make it clear that we really want her. Be… you know… nice…”
--
Marto’s room was perfect. The bright spring sunshine gave the whole place a feeling of light and peace. Sorrel could see he was eating. Her stomach rumbled a little. She hadn’t yet had breakfast. For a moment she hesitated. Marto looked content. The first time Sorrel had approached him in Daring Heights and recruited him for what seemed like a simple job, they literally descended into Hell, and that wasn’t even the worst part of it.
All the same, if she wanted a warrior at her back, Marto was the best.
She pushed open the door and gave a crooked smile. “You ever heard of the moon?”
Marto’s mouth fell open, then he dropped his food and leaped to his feet. They hugged, briefly but with the intensity of comrades who had… well, who had been to Hell and back together.
“I need you Marto,” Sorrel said simply. “Would you come with me? I mean, last time was a nightmare…”
Marto had suffered more than violence when they had taken on Shar’s five fiends. His heart and soul had been on the line and he had suffered more than anyone – except, perhaps, Zola.
Before Marto could reply, Sorrel felt something brush past her leg. She was briefly puzzled. Her tracking skills must be way off today, she’d picked up no scent of animal… and then she looked down.
It was a dog made of oak wood rubbing its ear up against her boot.
She raised an eyebrow at Marto.
“Fionn,” Marto’s was casual. “Magical, obviously. My squire and pet. No trouble in combat. And just off to get my handaxe.”
Fionn scuttled off and Sorrel relaxed.
Marto was on the team. She felt safer already.
--
Aries was staring at her, eyes uncertain, hopeful, resentful, excited. “You really want me to come?”
“I would be proud to have you march with me,” Sorrel placed her head on her heart. “Your weapons – what enchantments are imbued into them?”
“I have nothing but steel,” Aries looked nervous for the first time since she’d kicked her way into Sorrel’s life. The ranger shrugged her fey touched yew bow from her back and handed it over.
“You will need this. Training is over.”
--
They had been walking for hours, dusk had fallen and the road gleamed in the starlight. Sorrel’s blood sang eagerly as her feet ate up the dusty miles. Action. At last. A way to understand this riddle.
Then the clouds parted, and the moon shone through, the eye of the goddess falling for a moment on the Sunset Spines. Sorrel saw a glimmer as a tall tower caught the light. It rose out of the snowy peaks and something glinted in the moonbeams at the top.
“It’s an observatory,” Velania was following Sorrel’s gaze. “That’s the Tower of the Moon – Minas Ithil. It’s sacred to all the worshippers of the moon. It's friendly and safe there.” She gave a brief, hungry smile. “And full of hot drow.”
Sorrel rubbed her eyes. For a second it seemed she’d caught the symbol that Lyra had drawn when they first stepped off the ship, seven eternities ago. The dark fire crest, three stars and the cloak covering them. The sisters and Sorrel protecting them.
Her family. Her responsibility. Her duty.
Aries was at her shoulder. “That is the next step. Can you see the goddess calling?”
Sorrel felt very small and unprepared. She knew how to fight in alleyways and battlefields, how to infiltrate castles and camps, hit a target soundlessly and withdraw. She was skilled at close protection. But her sisters and the gods and the House and and and…
She felt as if throughout her life, people had been preparing her for something – that they all secretly knew what it was, but no-one had thought to tell her. It was as if she were a tool fashioned for her task. Her parents and the docks of Baldurs Gate, her training at the House, Selune’s embrace, Callimar’s instruction, the Jackal’s intervention, the endless heartbreak and the careful reconstruction was all just forging and tempering the metal to ensure it did not break when it was called upon. It was all part of the same story that she had been trying to understand her whole life.
This symbol was the last clue, after which she might know her purpose and be tested.
She looked at Aries and nodded. “I can see her…”
Then she slipped her old bow from her shoulders and muttered a few words of power, drawing out the acids from its tightly knit fibres. If you swallowed a hunk of yew no bigger than an egg, you would die slowly, vomiting and weak as the taxines reached your heart. These bitter poisons she drew forth with her enchantment, so that their power infused the bow and the arrows it discharged.
Just in time. For Velania cried out that she saw their foe, the white skinned tiefling, sitting on a boulder less than half a mile away.
Sorrel followed her gaze and saw Yhsa perched in the perfect spot for an ambush, the dense forest touching the edge of the road but breaking into a small clearing around three outcrops of rock.
It had everything – a good field of fire into the kill zone, cover and concealment, protective obstacles, concealed withdrawal routes and the forest obstructing any flanking attack. Of the three ambush formations – linear, L and V shaped – the road argued for the linear position. The assault would come on the long axis of the kill zone, ideal for flanking fire.
Sorrel tried to evaluate their tactical position. The trees would be filled with – with what? Archers? Mages? Yhsa didn’t seem like she’d deploy cavalry and the space was too small for even a detachment of skirmishers to reach more than a trot. If she sent out flankers, they would be spread too thin and the tress would break their formation. Scouting would be ineffective. These were House trained, after all. They’d presumably been tracking them since Daring Heights.
As she fretted, Velania placed her hand on her shoulder. “Why not just approach her?”
Sorrel nodded. A frontal approach kept the team in covering fire range and concentration of force was probably the only viable option. She had read the Clausewitz operational doctrine, but frankly, this was Kantas. Steaming in was inevitable. But perhaps there was something else on Yhsa’s mind. She should at least try negotiating first.
She walked a few feet ahead of the party as they arranged themselves for battle, looked up a Yhsa and nodded briefly.
“Specialist…”
“Your mother owed a debt to the house,” Yhsa’s voice dripped venom. “She signed it over to your name. I have come to kill you, take your sister, travel to Daring Heights and take the other two.”
Not so much on the negotiation then.
Sorrel dropped her shoulder, and bladed her body, her hands a blur as she nocked an arrow, but by the time she drew back the string, Yhsa had simply vanished. Dark college magic. Sorrel knew that trick. She sent arrows to the right, to the left and straight into the spot Yhsa had last been seen. It was a triple bluff off-chance ploy – vanish but don’t move.
She hit two targets but had no idea what they were.
Suddenly, invisible figures were amongst them, and crossbow bolts flew from the trees. The party was assailed on all sides.
Beets leaped to the high ground, then cried out as an invisible foe struck home.
Marto’s familiar Gwenäel, a red robin with a breast like fire, darted back and forth, Marto following and fighting wherever resistance was felt, but this was groping in the dark.
Velania called out to the goddess, spread great wings of celestial power and soared into the air, hovering above Sorrel and Aries like a guardian angel, crying out ‘she is not yours, you shall not have her.’
Calla summoned a mechanical figure that towered above them, its arms and legs erratic but with bolts of arcane power running up and down. It reached out and plucked a tree as if were a daffodil, sending a black clad figure plummeting to the ground then brining the trunk down on the dazed assassin’s skull.
Aries swallowed, caught Sorrel’s eye, pulled back her bow string and shot into the trees.
There were assassins falling, fighting and dying all around the clearing, but for each that fell two others would appear.
Beets raged, crashing weapons, talons and jaws into their skin. Marto fought faster and harder than Sorrel had ever seen. Aries threw aside her bow and grabbed a masked figure, locking their arms with a wrestlers grasp.
But still the bolts flew and spellfire crackled.
Velania was hit, badly.
Sorrel had taken a few bolts but saw the wounds on her comrades and worried for them until she felt soft lips on hers and a blade sliding into her guts as Yhsa’s laughed and fled, unseeable, unknowable… or… wait… she wracked her memory for an incantation learned at Callimar’s feet that she had never used but which… yes! The words dispelled illusions, enchantments and the tools of the arcane. She threw all her power and blood into the spell and suddenly she could see Yhsa, who snarled and dashed across the tree line, seeking cover.
Sorrel’s eyes followed her as she plucked another arrow from her quiver, but Yhsa was House trained so moved fast, low and with a keen eye on cover.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sorrel caught Calla casting something on the assassin Aries was grappling which caused him to stiffen, paralysed.
She breathed out. Aries was safe.
And then suddenly Yhsa leaped from the treeline and had a dagger at Aries throat.
There was a long, slow pulse of silence as the moment froze, fixed like a tableau of one of Sorrel’s nightmares.
Yhsa broke the silence with a hoarse cry. “I don’t want this one, I want the other one. The visions one.”
Sorrel searched her mind in fear, remembered an old Callimar trick, bundled her own fear and threw it at Yhsa who blinked, shook her head then laughed scornfully. Sorrel sensed a strong arcane deflection and wondered who this Specialist really was.
As she wrestled, a crossbow bolt flew from the high branches of a tree towards Aries. Marto blocked it but shards of poisoned wood flew past and pierced Aries skin.
Sorrel felt panic welling up and then heard Velania’s calm soothing voice in her head. She looked up and saw her friend’s wings stretched out in the moonlight, her radiant beauty dumbfounding to behold.
She understood, met Aries eyes and nodded. “Trust Velania. It will save Lyra,” she called out.
Angelic arms reached through the night and fingers brushed Aries skin. Then both Velania and Aries winked out. One moment they were there, the next, nothing.
Yhsa screamed in fury and started forward as Calla growled ancient words of banishment which flew through the glade and seemed to clothe Yhsa in stone as they spread and grew. For a brief second, it was as if a statue of the Specialist stood in the clearing, then the stone shape shuddered and fell away leaving Yhsa standing, cocky and grim.
Sorrel noticed a soft green glow fading around her left hand and glimpsed a golden ring with a green beetle before Yhsa broke and ran, heading for Sorrel with a desperate grin, her venom blade poised to strike.
Sorrel was hurt and her mind was half on her sisters. Yhsa was fast, cunning and deadly. As her blade sliced forward, Sorrel touched the mithril pin shaped like the mighty Thunder Gates of Vorsthold that sat over her heart, a gift from the soldiers of that city after Sorrel’s part in the ferocious defence against the Ilithid armies.
A wall of force sprang from the pin and blocked Yhsa’s attack. The tielfling’s face sagged, and a deep weariness seemed to sweep over her. Staring hard into Sorrel’s eyes she raised her blade to her throat and sliced her veins open.
Sorrel raised one eyebrow, holding her gaze. “Are you really the best they’ve got?” she sneered.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to me,” Yhsa gasped. “He will never run the House, he will never escape the Dark College, the Beetle is coming for him.”
Then she spoke no more.
--
Some died, some fled.
As they searched the bodies, Sorrel found House paraphernalia and an awful lot of spell components.
It made her pause.
The College of Persuasion used magic, sure, but only in the way it used poisons, blades, racks, sex and conversation. An option. But not the most effective one.
And then something clicked about the way Yhsa scoffed at her about Callimar. The only people who scorned the College of Persuasion so profoundly were the College of Discovery – the dark mages. The necromancers and soul stealers. The ones who danced with demons.
There were few people in the House… she paused, smiled. Few people in the known universe who could challenge Callimar if he wanted to be Master of the House. In fact, there was probably only one person powerful enough to challenge – Mdm Sylviane Mallioch aka Mallioch the Beetle, Dean of the College of Discovery and the kind of person who made liches feel a little uncomfortable if they met her gaze.
But why would Mallioch want her sisters?
What role could a child conduit of Selúne in a power struggle over control of the world’s deadliest private military company?
Clearly it was something to do with challenging Callimar’s claim, or Yhsa wouldn’t have wanted to take Lyra but…
And then another thought dawned. Perhaps Callimar had not come when she asked for a reason. She had nursed her hurt like every good abandoned child constantly let down by father figures, but perhaps… perhaps this time was different. If she wasn’t careful she might even start cutting Callimar and the Jackal some slack.
She scratched her chin reflectively. Why had she thought of the Jackal just then?
Calla’s voice broke into her reverie. “Would you mind if I took the bodies?”
Sorrel focused her gaze and shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”
She paused. “Listen, Calla, thank you for saving my sister. That was impressive spell slinging. I feel bad you’ve just got a few stiff, so let me recompense you for your time. I have 600 gold here.”
“No, that’s fine,” Calla smiled. “Let’s just say you owe me a favour.”
For some reason Sorrel shivered.
Concerning The House
Founded by the first Master Alo-Eddelin in the back streets of Calimport offering exquisite services to discerning clientele, the House has grown to a particular size and now inhabits a particular valley in a particular place.
(It is unwise to know too many details about the House and should you accidentally acquire knowledge it is better to keep it to yourself or, possibly, consider a mind wipe.)
The 12 colleges (see below) each occupy their own palace, the 13th college (see below) occupies its own demi-plane and the vast mountain fortress of steel and iron with sheer walls, high battlements, endless bastions and black, immeasurably strong towers of adamant known as the Palace of Love overwatches them all.
The Palace of Love hosts the garrison, deployment units, the Council chambers and the Master’s rooms, although the Masters usually prefer to spend their time in a terracotta villa in a quiet orchard nearby. Their chamber is used for receiving clients and executing sub-ordinates, ideally at the same time.
Whilst the Council exerts supreme authority, the Master in practice controls everything. This is for a number of reasons. The heads of the college tend to be enthusiasts in a particular field while the Masters tend to be duplicitous, devious, amoral, intensely political and excellent after dinner speakers. Council members have many administrative tasks, while the Master devotes all their time to dominating others, devising impenetrable stratagems and marketing. And finally, to become the head of a College you only have to overthrow the incredibly powerful incumbent. To become Master, you typically have to defeat the 13 Council members on a daily basis whilst talking with crowds or walking with Kings and have none of them notice the poison you’ve slipped into their wine until at least three hours after you’ve left.
Few people are qualified for this role and fewer still want it as, despite the competitive pay package and healthcare including dental, most of them are dead - the list of prospective applicants being regularly culled by the tiny pool of qualified, ambitious and incredibly careful sociopaths who remain in the running.
Those who are both still alive and who still show an interest in becoming Master are the kind of people you do not want to even be aware of under any circumstances.
Indeed, it is widely believed that shortly after the third Master’s soul arrived at the gates of Hell, Asmodeus was forced to create a little-known Tenth Circle just to get these people off the books and restore a little peace and quiet to Pandemonium.
The 12 Colleges
[REDACTED]
The four [REDACTED] overseen by the [REDACTED]
The College of Persuasion – [REDACTED] and torture – also known as the Dark College
The College of Protection – [REDACTED] – also known as the [REDACTED]
The College of Discovery – [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] – also known as the Silent [REDACTED]
The College of Wisdom – [REDACTED] – also [REDACTED]
The two Colleges of Care receive [REDACTED].
The [REDACTED]
The [REDACTED]
The five [REDACTED]
The 13th College has [REDACTED]
The training [REDACTED]
In fact, now we come to think of it, the rest of this document is redacted. And we know where you live.
Those parts of the once white walls that weren’t concealed by longbows, shortbows, hand crossbows, scimitars, rapiers, shortswords, daggers, quivers, bucklers and the like - all carefully mounted, hung or racked – were seared, melted, stained or warped by misplaced bolts of radiance, lightning, fire or acid. The floor had barely enough room for the bed, desk and increasingly unstable bookcase, there to house a passing travelers’ devotional texts rather than the collected library of a trainee priest and student of martial history.
Everything teetered.
Sorrel paced very slowly.
She was irritable, itchy, impatient and ill at ease. She had been feeling this way for weeks… or was it months? Time passed so slowly these days.
And then the timid knock came at the door.
A dark cloud passed briefly across the small window set high in the wall and it seemed as if a wisp of its darkness reached out towards her, like a cold hand stretching from the East until the wind picked up and beams of sunlight burst into the chamber again.
She opened her door and saw a nervous acolyte, head bowed, too scared to meet her eyes.
“Ma’am, a box came for you, it is with your sisters, but it bears your name. I was charged with bringing you the news. I did not mean to disturb you.”
Then the robed figure turned and fled.
“Wait…” Sorrel’s cry was in vain as she saw the figure disappear around a distant corner.
Out of habit, she threw on her belt, bow and scabbard then stepped into the corridor, suddenly cold and certain.
--
Lyra was shouting. Vega was trying to calm her, and Aries was sulking. Sorrel would have thought all was as it should be if it weren’t for the box.
Plain it was, a deep shade of brown where the wood had been stained and polished, but etched into its darkest heart was the symbol, marked out in ebony like the devil’s own night, of the Hand.
The sign of the House.
She felt Aries watching her as she drew two fine stiletto knives and ran them around the edge, searching for pressure points or hidden blades. Then she flicked the lid off with one knife and peered carefully in, her head high enough to avoid any spring traps.
On a bed of black velvet there lay a severed hand clutching a scroll of parchment.
Her sisters, she realized, were silent.
The hand had been severed around seven centimeters below the wrist, she noted. It was the hand of a male presenting human with wrinkled, older skin and ancient rope scars and callouses. Judging by the tattoo it was her father’s hand. The paper it clutched was expensive, but not excessively so. The handwriting was neat but a little flowery and the ink was from one of five, maybe six shops in Baldur’s Gate.
She pierced the paper with a blade and lifted it from her father’s severed hand, unrolling it carefully.
“Cowardice doesn't become you, Darkfire. You can't hide them forever. Come face me and we'll settle this, if you think the Dark College taught you anything at all.”
Below it, map co-ordinates and a signature which she didn’t need to read.
Yhsa.
Or rather, Specialist Yhsa. The mouthy but admittedly hot tiefling with all the knives.
Her sisters pressed against her, staring down into the box.
“What is that?” Aries whispered.
“Our father’s severed hand,” Sorrel’s eyes skimmed the note again. “And a note with…”
Before she could finish, Lyra’s howl echoed through the stone walls of the temple. Sorrel span round to see her sister curled up on the floor, convulsing, screaming, her eyes rolling back into her head.
“Is she OK? What is it?” Sorrel turned to Aries.
“It is our father’s severed hand in a box!” Vega shouted in fury as she knelt to help Lyra.
Sorrel nodded slowly. “Right… right… I should probably have broken that a little more slowly…”
“You think?” Aries met her eyes scornfully.
--
Velania’s soothing voice had wrought a subtle magic on Lyra. Her breathing slowed and her eyes half closed.
“Perhaps take her to her chamber?” Velania rested her hand on Vega’s shoulder and the girl smiled gratefully.
Sorrel met Aries eyes. For once, there seemed to be something other than resentment there.
“Is it a threat, a message, a challenge? Do you want to contact your father?” Velania spoke softly.
Sorrel turned. “All three. And yes, there’s a sound tactical advantage in knowing my father’s health and whereabouts. She won’t be expecting us to know.”
“And you must be worried…?” Velania frowned.
Sorrel shrugged. “The last time I touched that hand I was shaking it farewell as I boarded the coach taking me to the mercenary company he had sold me into. We weren’t close.”
The silence was deafening.
“Well, I’ll try then,” Velania reached into the box and took up the crinkled limb as if it were a newborn child, newly emerged into the chaos of the world from the safety of a mother’s womb. She cradled it softly, whispering words in a strange tongue, asking questions of the world beyond worlds and, by the way her brow grew stern and heavy, receiving no answer.
“I can find nothing,” she said finally. “He may be shielded.”
“Or dead,” Sorrel reached for the note again, hearing Aries stifle a gasp. “We must put a team together. These are professionals and they have the advantage of choosing the ground. We need brute force, and Beets is perfect. She is doughty with a lot of heart. I am increasingly impressed by her, and she will be a powerful asset. And there will be fuckery of an almost fey level. If I could find Marto and persuade him… But we are lacking a mage.”
There was a flicker at the corner of her vision. She turned and Aries was gone.
“I believe Marto is in Hill Borrow,” Velania said gently.
--
Aries returned with a faintly irritated elf who introduced themselves as the Arcanist Calla Prim.
Sorrel eyed her for a moment.
“How are you at explosive violence?”
“I don’t do fireballs, if that’s what you mean. I preferred very targeted, very painful precision attacks.”
Sorrel gaped. “Now that’s what I call a mage. How is it that I’ve been in Kantas for four years and we haven’t met? What have you got?”
“Whatever you need if you can give me four hours to prepare.”
Lyra drifted into the room and gazed at Calla, her eyes brimming with emotion. “You have had a very hard week,” she reached out as if to stroke Calla’s cheek and for a moment it looked as if Calla was trembling.
“I have to go to Hill Borrow,” Sorrel cut in hastily. “Can you be ready when I return.”
Calla nodded.
“Aries, could you find Beets,” Sorrel struggled into her battered armour chest piece. “Tell her I need her. Tell her… just make it clear that we really want her. Be… you know… nice…”
--
Marto’s room was perfect. The bright spring sunshine gave the whole place a feeling of light and peace. Sorrel could see he was eating. Her stomach rumbled a little. She hadn’t yet had breakfast. For a moment she hesitated. Marto looked content. The first time Sorrel had approached him in Daring Heights and recruited him for what seemed like a simple job, they literally descended into Hell, and that wasn’t even the worst part of it.
All the same, if she wanted a warrior at her back, Marto was the best.
She pushed open the door and gave a crooked smile. “You ever heard of the moon?”
Marto’s mouth fell open, then he dropped his food and leaped to his feet. They hugged, briefly but with the intensity of comrades who had… well, who had been to Hell and back together.
“I need you Marto,” Sorrel said simply. “Would you come with me? I mean, last time was a nightmare…”
Marto had suffered more than violence when they had taken on Shar’s five fiends. His heart and soul had been on the line and he had suffered more than anyone – except, perhaps, Zola.
Before Marto could reply, Sorrel felt something brush past her leg. She was briefly puzzled. Her tracking skills must be way off today, she’d picked up no scent of animal… and then she looked down.
It was a dog made of oak wood rubbing its ear up against her boot.
She raised an eyebrow at Marto.
“Fionn,” Marto’s was casual. “Magical, obviously. My squire and pet. No trouble in combat. And just off to get my handaxe.”
Fionn scuttled off and Sorrel relaxed.
Marto was on the team. She felt safer already.
--
Aries was staring at her, eyes uncertain, hopeful, resentful, excited. “You really want me to come?”
“I would be proud to have you march with me,” Sorrel placed her head on her heart. “Your weapons – what enchantments are imbued into them?”
“I have nothing but steel,” Aries looked nervous for the first time since she’d kicked her way into Sorrel’s life. The ranger shrugged her fey touched yew bow from her back and handed it over.
“You will need this. Training is over.”
--
They had been walking for hours, dusk had fallen and the road gleamed in the starlight. Sorrel’s blood sang eagerly as her feet ate up the dusty miles. Action. At last. A way to understand this riddle.
Then the clouds parted, and the moon shone through, the eye of the goddess falling for a moment on the Sunset Spines. Sorrel saw a glimmer as a tall tower caught the light. It rose out of the snowy peaks and something glinted in the moonbeams at the top.
“It’s an observatory,” Velania was following Sorrel’s gaze. “That’s the Tower of the Moon – Minas Ithil. It’s sacred to all the worshippers of the moon. It's friendly and safe there.” She gave a brief, hungry smile. “And full of hot drow.”
Sorrel rubbed her eyes. For a second it seemed she’d caught the symbol that Lyra had drawn when they first stepped off the ship, seven eternities ago. The dark fire crest, three stars and the cloak covering them. The sisters and Sorrel protecting them.
Her family. Her responsibility. Her duty.
Aries was at her shoulder. “That is the next step. Can you see the goddess calling?”
Sorrel felt very small and unprepared. She knew how to fight in alleyways and battlefields, how to infiltrate castles and camps, hit a target soundlessly and withdraw. She was skilled at close protection. But her sisters and the gods and the House and and and…
She felt as if throughout her life, people had been preparing her for something – that they all secretly knew what it was, but no-one had thought to tell her. It was as if she were a tool fashioned for her task. Her parents and the docks of Baldurs Gate, her training at the House, Selune’s embrace, Callimar’s instruction, the Jackal’s intervention, the endless heartbreak and the careful reconstruction was all just forging and tempering the metal to ensure it did not break when it was called upon. It was all part of the same story that she had been trying to understand her whole life.
This symbol was the last clue, after which she might know her purpose and be tested.
She looked at Aries and nodded. “I can see her…”
Then she slipped her old bow from her shoulders and muttered a few words of power, drawing out the acids from its tightly knit fibres. If you swallowed a hunk of yew no bigger than an egg, you would die slowly, vomiting and weak as the taxines reached your heart. These bitter poisons she drew forth with her enchantment, so that their power infused the bow and the arrows it discharged.
Just in time. For Velania cried out that she saw their foe, the white skinned tiefling, sitting on a boulder less than half a mile away.
Sorrel followed her gaze and saw Yhsa perched in the perfect spot for an ambush, the dense forest touching the edge of the road but breaking into a small clearing around three outcrops of rock.
It had everything – a good field of fire into the kill zone, cover and concealment, protective obstacles, concealed withdrawal routes and the forest obstructing any flanking attack. Of the three ambush formations – linear, L and V shaped – the road argued for the linear position. The assault would come on the long axis of the kill zone, ideal for flanking fire.
Sorrel tried to evaluate their tactical position. The trees would be filled with – with what? Archers? Mages? Yhsa didn’t seem like she’d deploy cavalry and the space was too small for even a detachment of skirmishers to reach more than a trot. If she sent out flankers, they would be spread too thin and the tress would break their formation. Scouting would be ineffective. These were House trained, after all. They’d presumably been tracking them since Daring Heights.
As she fretted, Velania placed her hand on her shoulder. “Why not just approach her?”
Sorrel nodded. A frontal approach kept the team in covering fire range and concentration of force was probably the only viable option. She had read the Clausewitz operational doctrine, but frankly, this was Kantas. Steaming in was inevitable. But perhaps there was something else on Yhsa’s mind. She should at least try negotiating first.
She walked a few feet ahead of the party as they arranged themselves for battle, looked up a Yhsa and nodded briefly.
“Specialist…”
“Your mother owed a debt to the house,” Yhsa’s voice dripped venom. “She signed it over to your name. I have come to kill you, take your sister, travel to Daring Heights and take the other two.”
Not so much on the negotiation then.
Sorrel dropped her shoulder, and bladed her body, her hands a blur as she nocked an arrow, but by the time she drew back the string, Yhsa had simply vanished. Dark college magic. Sorrel knew that trick. She sent arrows to the right, to the left and straight into the spot Yhsa had last been seen. It was a triple bluff off-chance ploy – vanish but don’t move.
She hit two targets but had no idea what they were.
Suddenly, invisible figures were amongst them, and crossbow bolts flew from the trees. The party was assailed on all sides.
Beets leaped to the high ground, then cried out as an invisible foe struck home.
Marto’s familiar Gwenäel, a red robin with a breast like fire, darted back and forth, Marto following and fighting wherever resistance was felt, but this was groping in the dark.
Velania called out to the goddess, spread great wings of celestial power and soared into the air, hovering above Sorrel and Aries like a guardian angel, crying out ‘she is not yours, you shall not have her.’
Calla summoned a mechanical figure that towered above them, its arms and legs erratic but with bolts of arcane power running up and down. It reached out and plucked a tree as if were a daffodil, sending a black clad figure plummeting to the ground then brining the trunk down on the dazed assassin’s skull.
Aries swallowed, caught Sorrel’s eye, pulled back her bow string and shot into the trees.
There were assassins falling, fighting and dying all around the clearing, but for each that fell two others would appear.
Beets raged, crashing weapons, talons and jaws into their skin. Marto fought faster and harder than Sorrel had ever seen. Aries threw aside her bow and grabbed a masked figure, locking their arms with a wrestlers grasp.
But still the bolts flew and spellfire crackled.
Velania was hit, badly.
Sorrel had taken a few bolts but saw the wounds on her comrades and worried for them until she felt soft lips on hers and a blade sliding into her guts as Yhsa’s laughed and fled, unseeable, unknowable… or… wait… she wracked her memory for an incantation learned at Callimar’s feet that she had never used but which… yes! The words dispelled illusions, enchantments and the tools of the arcane. She threw all her power and blood into the spell and suddenly she could see Yhsa, who snarled and dashed across the tree line, seeking cover.
Sorrel’s eyes followed her as she plucked another arrow from her quiver, but Yhsa was House trained so moved fast, low and with a keen eye on cover.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sorrel caught Calla casting something on the assassin Aries was grappling which caused him to stiffen, paralysed.
She breathed out. Aries was safe.
And then suddenly Yhsa leaped from the treeline and had a dagger at Aries throat.
There was a long, slow pulse of silence as the moment froze, fixed like a tableau of one of Sorrel’s nightmares.
Yhsa broke the silence with a hoarse cry. “I don’t want this one, I want the other one. The visions one.”
Sorrel searched her mind in fear, remembered an old Callimar trick, bundled her own fear and threw it at Yhsa who blinked, shook her head then laughed scornfully. Sorrel sensed a strong arcane deflection and wondered who this Specialist really was.
As she wrestled, a crossbow bolt flew from the high branches of a tree towards Aries. Marto blocked it but shards of poisoned wood flew past and pierced Aries skin.
Sorrel felt panic welling up and then heard Velania’s calm soothing voice in her head. She looked up and saw her friend’s wings stretched out in the moonlight, her radiant beauty dumbfounding to behold.
She understood, met Aries eyes and nodded. “Trust Velania. It will save Lyra,” she called out.
Angelic arms reached through the night and fingers brushed Aries skin. Then both Velania and Aries winked out. One moment they were there, the next, nothing.
Yhsa screamed in fury and started forward as Calla growled ancient words of banishment which flew through the glade and seemed to clothe Yhsa in stone as they spread and grew. For a brief second, it was as if a statue of the Specialist stood in the clearing, then the stone shape shuddered and fell away leaving Yhsa standing, cocky and grim.
Sorrel noticed a soft green glow fading around her left hand and glimpsed a golden ring with a green beetle before Yhsa broke and ran, heading for Sorrel with a desperate grin, her venom blade poised to strike.
Sorrel was hurt and her mind was half on her sisters. Yhsa was fast, cunning and deadly. As her blade sliced forward, Sorrel touched the mithril pin shaped like the mighty Thunder Gates of Vorsthold that sat over her heart, a gift from the soldiers of that city after Sorrel’s part in the ferocious defence against the Ilithid armies.
A wall of force sprang from the pin and blocked Yhsa’s attack. The tielfling’s face sagged, and a deep weariness seemed to sweep over her. Staring hard into Sorrel’s eyes she raised her blade to her throat and sliced her veins open.
Sorrel raised one eyebrow, holding her gaze. “Are you really the best they’ve got?” she sneered.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to me,” Yhsa gasped. “He will never run the House, he will never escape the Dark College, the Beetle is coming for him.”
Then she spoke no more.
--
Some died, some fled.
As they searched the bodies, Sorrel found House paraphernalia and an awful lot of spell components.
It made her pause.
The College of Persuasion used magic, sure, but only in the way it used poisons, blades, racks, sex and conversation. An option. But not the most effective one.
And then something clicked about the way Yhsa scoffed at her about Callimar. The only people who scorned the College of Persuasion so profoundly were the College of Discovery – the dark mages. The necromancers and soul stealers. The ones who danced with demons.
There were few people in the House… she paused, smiled. Few people in the known universe who could challenge Callimar if he wanted to be Master of the House. In fact, there was probably only one person powerful enough to challenge – Mdm Sylviane Mallioch aka Mallioch the Beetle, Dean of the College of Discovery and the kind of person who made liches feel a little uncomfortable if they met her gaze.
But why would Mallioch want her sisters?
What role could a child conduit of Selúne in a power struggle over control of the world’s deadliest private military company?
Clearly it was something to do with challenging Callimar’s claim, or Yhsa wouldn’t have wanted to take Lyra but…
And then another thought dawned. Perhaps Callimar had not come when she asked for a reason. She had nursed her hurt like every good abandoned child constantly let down by father figures, but perhaps… perhaps this time was different. If she wasn’t careful she might even start cutting Callimar and the Jackal some slack.
She scratched her chin reflectively. Why had she thought of the Jackal just then?
Calla’s voice broke into her reverie. “Would you mind if I took the bodies?”
Sorrel focused her gaze and shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”
She paused. “Listen, Calla, thank you for saving my sister. That was impressive spell slinging. I feel bad you’ve just got a few stiff, so let me recompense you for your time. I have 600 gold here.”
“No, that’s fine,” Calla smiled. “Let’s just say you owe me a favour.”
For some reason Sorrel shivered.
Concerning The House
Founded by the first Master Alo-Eddelin in the back streets of Calimport offering exquisite services to discerning clientele, the House has grown to a particular size and now inhabits a particular valley in a particular place.
(It is unwise to know too many details about the House and should you accidentally acquire knowledge it is better to keep it to yourself or, possibly, consider a mind wipe.)
The 12 colleges (see below) each occupy their own palace, the 13th college (see below) occupies its own demi-plane and the vast mountain fortress of steel and iron with sheer walls, high battlements, endless bastions and black, immeasurably strong towers of adamant known as the Palace of Love overwatches them all.
The Palace of Love hosts the garrison, deployment units, the Council chambers and the Master’s rooms, although the Masters usually prefer to spend their time in a terracotta villa in a quiet orchard nearby. Their chamber is used for receiving clients and executing sub-ordinates, ideally at the same time.
Whilst the Council exerts supreme authority, the Master in practice controls everything. This is for a number of reasons. The heads of the college tend to be enthusiasts in a particular field while the Masters tend to be duplicitous, devious, amoral, intensely political and excellent after dinner speakers. Council members have many administrative tasks, while the Master devotes all their time to dominating others, devising impenetrable stratagems and marketing. And finally, to become the head of a College you only have to overthrow the incredibly powerful incumbent. To become Master, you typically have to defeat the 13 Council members on a daily basis whilst talking with crowds or walking with Kings and have none of them notice the poison you’ve slipped into their wine until at least three hours after you’ve left.
Few people are qualified for this role and fewer still want it as, despite the competitive pay package and healthcare including dental, most of them are dead - the list of prospective applicants being regularly culled by the tiny pool of qualified, ambitious and incredibly careful sociopaths who remain in the running.
Those who are both still alive and who still show an interest in becoming Master are the kind of people you do not want to even be aware of under any circumstances.
Indeed, it is widely believed that shortly after the third Master’s soul arrived at the gates of Hell, Asmodeus was forced to create a little-known Tenth Circle just to get these people off the books and restore a little peace and quiet to Pandemonium.
The 12 Colleges
[REDACTED]
The four [REDACTED] overseen by the [REDACTED]
The College of Persuasion – [REDACTED] and torture – also known as the Dark College
The College of Protection – [REDACTED] – also known as the [REDACTED]
The College of Discovery – [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] – also known as the Silent [REDACTED]
The College of Wisdom – [REDACTED] – also [REDACTED]
The two Colleges of Care receive [REDACTED].
The [REDACTED]
The [REDACTED]
The five [REDACTED]
The 13th College has [REDACTED]
The training [REDACTED]
In fact, now we come to think of it, the rest of this document is redacted. And we know where you live.