Tallah

“Where are we going?” Quistis heard Vial’s hushed question to Barlo. Sound carried well in the narrow stone corridors. It made for a whispering, unnerving trip.

They made a long procession through the innards of the fortress. Falor and Quistis had the lead, Rumi and Aidan made up the centre, and Barlo brought up the rear with Vial. It was a long descent from the high tower of their office to the depths under the Hearth’s ever-burning flame.

Falor’s mood was foul.

The High Lord of Valen had sat in on their meeting, called in by Falor himself. He disliked the pinch-faced man but the Empress’s orders were to obey and respect Valen’s will in all matters that concerned the city. That unfortunately meant obeying High Lord Diogron, an unpleasant, portly man who spoke in a high-pitched, nasal voice. He was plagued by a bad habit of fidgeting incessantly. It made him annoying thrice over.

Falor had called Diogron in and had to wait three full days on his pleasure. With the festival less than a tenday away, the fat bastard showing up was nothing short of a miracle.

The meeting did not go well.

“Commander Falor, if there is reason to suspect these two nobodies might be dangerous, why are you not apprehending them?”

“With all due respect, Your Highness, there is no real reason for us to arrest two adventurers for simply walking about. They haven’t done anything to upset the peace,” Falor replied. “Also, the sorceress is heir to a powerful trading company from Calabran. It wouldn’t be wise—”

“A pox on wisdom.” Diogron harrumphed and angrily paced the room, throwing indiscriminate glares at anyone meeting his eye. “I was here, Commander, when Cinder nearly burned this city to the ground. I was sick for weeks after you chased her off. I lost a daughter to her evil. That incident cannot be allowed to repeat.”

“There is no need for alarm—”

“Either you arrest them or I will have my men do it. Am I understood?”

High Lord Diogron’s normally red face threatened to turn purple. He waggled a finger at Falor as if brandishing a sword and threatening to stab him with it. The Lord Commander put a calming hand over the High Lord’s and spoke as level as he could manage.

“We have taken steps to ensure nothing like the incident can ever happen again, Lord Diogron. You have my word on my honour that everything is under control. If—and I stress this—if these two women are somehow connected to Cinder, we will find out and we will take measures. For now it’s best that we observe.” He gestured to Aidan and Vial, who skulked by the door and passed a lit cigarette between them. “These men are making certain we know their every move through your city. Our eyes have been on them since Winter set in.”

Diogron pulled his hand away and huffed. He wore purple robes richly embroidered and hung with gemstones, the official dress for Valen’s opulent ruling Council. Gems clinked angrily as he paced the room.

“Why are you fretting, man? If they are connected, let us force her to come out of hiding and protect her allies. We both know she will. It is that witch’s single saving grace.”

Falor smiled and looked to Quistis for help.

“Lord, you know as well as we do that it wouldn’t be wise to force a confrontation with someone of her potential,” she said, as placating as she could manage. “It needs to be well planned and perfectly executed. If they aren’t connected and it turns into a fiasco for us then it will only send the sorceress deeper to ground.”

Again, he wasn’t impressed. Moreover, now he rallied on her, crystal blue eyes pinning her with hateful intensity. Quistis was reminded of just how much the people of Valen lost on that day, six Winters prior, and how much they still hated the memory of Cinder. Her own presence and the entire Storm Guard contingent was an appeasement act from the Empress towards an ally who had been deeply wronged by one of her agents gone rogue. That, and the Empire’s coffers financing more than half of the rebuilding effort.

Lord Diogron walked up to her, almost snarling furious. He leaned over her work desk and spoke close enough that she could smell the flowery waft of his breath. True enough, Hearth’s Flame still afflicted many around the city. It had taken the lives of three potent channellers to stabilise the Illum Hearth and avoid Salmek’s fate altogether, but ill effects still lingered.

Diogron was rotting from within. Spittle flew when he talked.

“The Lord Commander has bested her once. I am certain he can do it again, for good this time. She either comes out and dies the worthless death she is destined to, or she goes away. Either outcome suits me perfectly well.”

“With all due respect, High Lord,” Falor said, trying to pry the Lord’s gaze away from her, “Cinder is not one to be taken lightly. I wish to avoid, if at all possible, another confrontation with her without my veteran mage killers at my side. They are occupied somewhere else currently.”

“But you are vastly more powerful than she is, man. You are Catharina’s own blood! Why all this hand wringing and secrecy? Let us get it all over with and finally close this shameful chapter in the Empire’s illustrious history.”

Now he was appealing to Falor’s pride. The man wasn’t stupid, but right then he spoke from the heart, not the head. News of Cinder’s survival and return had caused a stir around the Council’s round table and none were more unnerved than the High Lord himself.

Even he was aware, in spite of his outburst, of just how destructive a battle between Falor and Cinder would be if she were allowed to clash fairly with him. After the incident at the Hearth she had cut a bloody path through half of Valen in her escape. Six years later and the damage she’d caused was still not completely accounted for, much less repaired.

“Cinder goes straight for the throat as you well know, Your Highness. It is my interest, as protector of this fairest of cities, to avoid unnecessary loss of life.” He held up a hand to stave off more protests from Diogron. “I do have a plan in place and two more puzzling pieces that I need to fit together. Once that is done, I will inform you of my further actions. I insist on your patience and on your support for what follows.”

More yelling and veiled threats followed. It ate up a good chunk of their morning but Falor had finally managed to get his point across. And after a private conference she had not been allowed to attend, Falor had walked out of the Council’s chambers with a grim smile on his lips.

Which begged the question.

“Where are we going?” she echoed Vial’s question as they descended further and further into the bowels of Valen.

“To check the Vault, of course,” he said. “And I need all of you to find what I’m looking for.”

“And that is?”

“I have no idea.”

Well, that’s maddeningly unhelpful.

An edge to his voice and a weight to his every step. Sparks of electricity danced in the air around him and discharged into the metal railings of the stair wells they were descending. She pulled her hand away. Vial let out a curse behind.

“Do you think there’s something missing that we don’t know of?”

“It’s just a feeling, Quis. It’s been in the back of my mind since Rumi found me in Aztroa. Aidan got me thinking.”

“But nothing else was missing from the inventory aside from the mask. We checked. I personally double-checked.”

“When you’re absolutely certain, it’s still best to check one more time. Rumi will look into some things for my curiosity’s sake. We need to keep in mind that Cinder knew the Vault well before she turned traitor. She’d likely been planning her theft for years in advance. If she expected to survive her raid then we should reconsider her motives and plans.”

Something occurred to Quistis as they descended deeper, one set of stairs following another, ever screwing down into the bedrock.

“Have you informed Her Majesty about this?”

That got a dark chuckle out of Falor.

“Like I could keep it from her after rushing my diplomatic mission. She would be very grateful if I were to arrange a meeting with the crazed pyromancer if I manage to find her. Apparently there are some things my mother would like to ask her.”

“Like why she deserted and murdered her entire Cell in the process?”

“I expect so, yes. It won’t be a nice conversation I believe.”

“And are we going to oblige?” Quistis expected she already knew the answer but it was a long trip down to the Vault and the stair wells had a whispering draft that unnerved her. Her people whispering behind were only adding to the uneasiness.

“My mother has a knack for setting impossible tasks for me to achieve.” He chuckled grimly. “I expect Cinder will want to properly settle her score with me. She never left a humiliation unanswered. I really can’t see how I’d manage to subdue her without killing her.” He let out a long, despondent sigh. “I still need to try though.”

Cinder and Empress Catharina together in a room sounded a perfect formula for a calamity. Thankfully, Falor hadn’t inherited his mother’s volatile nature. His efforts to minimise damage those six Winters prior had likely been the only edge that allowed Cinder’s escape. They had thought her dead, fallen in the Alchemist’s Quarter all-consuming fire as it nearly devoured Valen whole. The smell of charred wood on every breeze blowing down from the mountains was a constant reminder.

Quistis thought on the likelihood of Cinder answering any of Falor’s questions. The Daughter and Mother Moons had a better chance of moving backwards in the night sky.

“Taking her alive seems unlikely, but what if we do manage? What do we do with her then?”

It took some time for the Lord Commander to answer. They walked in companionable silence, listening to Aidan’s mutterings to Vial about the superiority of Rian tobacco compared to the more exotic varieties brought in from the Dominion. Sprite lamps guided their path, flaring up to life when they approached, dimming back to near nothing after they passed. The Enginarium were getting more and more creative by the passing season.

Quistis sneezed and the echoes took a long time to settle. She caught sight of one of the many guards hidden through side passages and in secret compartments, checking in on the noise with crossbow in hand. He saluted and melted back into the dark.

“I’m going to have her Blanked,” Falor said just as the silence started fraying at the edges. He spoke only for her ears, voice low enough that it wouldn’t carry to those behind. “If there’s anything left of her mind, I’ll hand her over to my mother. Seems fitting.”

There was no wind in the maze of tunnels and corridors. In spite of it, Quistis shivered.

“I know you disapprove,” Falor said without turning to meet her gaze.

Images of bloody needles jutted through Quistis’ imagination. She had seen the procedure performed on several occasions. It gave her nightmares. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if to ward off the mental image and the memory of the survivors’ empty stares.

Blanking took away a person’s… person and ability to channel. So simple a procedure, but so grotesque in its effects. She couldn’t help but imagine the needle, long as her forearm, and the way a mind-skinner would insert it through the corner of the victim’s eye…

She fought the impulse to look back at Rumi.

“It would be kinder to kill her,” she said finally, aware of how her outrage seeped into her words and gave them a bleeding edge of revulsion. “I will not be made an accomplice to that barbarity.”

“I wouldn’t ask it of you. If we manage to take her alive, I’ll take full responsibility. She’s come back from the dead once. I won’t allow it a second time.”

“So kill her.”

“Were it so easy, Quis. What if she yields? What if I best her? I would need to kill someone that has surrendered herself to me. What would that make me?” He fell silent again. Echoes of their footfalls slithered in and out of the enveloping dark, dogging their advance.

Falor’s aura of power dimmed and the static in the air died away. Quistis no longer felt her hair standing on end next to him. It didn’t help her be less angry with his decision.

“There’s trouble in the South,” he said, as if groping for some justification. “My mage killers are stalled in Old Forge. One of Cinder’s old friends. She’s gaining support there, rallying people to a cause of rebellion, spreading lies. Mother wants an example made of her old protege.”

Old Forge was an old story by now. She’d read some of the reports. Empress Catharina branded as humanity’s grand traitor, the jailer that served powers bent on the eternal subjugation of every man, woman and child born on Vas. Not a grand unifier but a blood-thirsty monster, a daemon under human guise. And so on, page upon page of hogwash.

“So kill her,” Quistis repeated, decided on not giving any wiggle room to the issue. “Morality over duty, Falor.”

He laughed darkly at that.

“Wish that I could always have the luxury of choice, Quis. If she dies in combat it will be no stain on my honour. If she yields and I execute her, I will be a murderer. If I simply take her in and do nothing, I will be tempting another disaster on our doorstep.” He sighed again. “I will of course do my best. It’s all I can do in this.”

The Vault loomed ahead. It had taken the better part of the day to descend down into the deepest reaches of the city, deeper than the Hearth and its everlasting flame, deeper even than the holding cells of the underground prison.

They had replaced the old Vault door after Cinder had demonstrated that a sufficiently powerful and determined channeller could simply bypass the locking mechanisms by melting through them.

Falor personally tested the new one after the Enginarium people had finished installing it. Twice. Nothing short of a full Illum Hearth discharge was likely to penetrate the Vault now.

Rows upon rows of mechanical locks barred their passage. The Lord Commander plunged his arm into one of the mechanisms and channelled power inside. The lock tightened around his arm as it recognized him. Only he, Empress Catharina, and the High Lord had access to the room beyond. Anyone else would find themselves short an arm and likely a head if the mechanism felt threatened.

How it could feel anything Quistis couldn’t guess, but that’s how the Enginarium described it.

It took long minutes for all the locks to disengage. The door, a whole wall section, swung on its great hinges, fully three metres thick, with a low, angry groan of tortured metal and ceramics.

A strange feeling of fabric shifting, of a veil pulled aside to reveal terrors lurking in the deep dark. It hung in the air and spread out from the growing gap. Quistis watched ghostly echoes of herself and of the others screaming soundlessly, running through the rock, coming undone. Things slithered out, half-seen and half-imagined, and evaporated once beyond the threshold.

Quistis felt her stomach twist into knots imagining having to contain all of these horrors again. It had been havoc all the way up into the city when Cinder had stolen in and ripped apart wards that needed a small army of inscribers to reset.

Vial gasped and Barlo spat. Opening the Vault was never pleasant. Most of what they saw were hallucinations. Some were true visions of realities beyond reality, of the unknowable things lurking in the seas of illum that made up the realm of gods and their ilk. All of them knew that a stray stare in there could drive one into the clutches of madness.

Sprite light flickered to life as they passed the threshold. The cavernous room beyond was filled with glass cases, each containing a different magical artefact, locked away from the world at large. They numbered in the hundreds, every one a different object imbued with dangerous magical effects, each unique. A miasma of illum dregs hung thick around the cases and eyes peered through slits that shimmered and hazed.

“I hope you didn’t have anything else planned for your day, Quis,” Falor said as he led them to the lectern containing the large catalogue tome. Aidan and Vial whistled in unison at the wealth on display. Power crackled in the air with the unnerving buzz of millions of insects.

“I wanted to have a long, hot bath later,” Quistis sighed. “I guess today’s not my day.”

Falor smiled and turned to the others.

“One of these, at least, I suspect is a fake. Barlo, you’re with me, Vial and Aidan with Quistis. We each bring an artefact to Rumi and she checks if what’s in the catalogue matches what’s in hand. Do not pick up anything we don’t specifically tell you to, how we tell you to. Some of these can turn you inside out and that is just the kindest way to die in here.”