"And then they just left?"
"What else is it that they can do?"
The guard, who had just put a loop of white yarn around her hook, dropped both hands into her lap. She leveled a pitiful brown-eyed look of disapproval for a few seconds, then picked her hands back up.
"There's always something. They could have refused to-"
Aleksei shook his head, turning his hands so that the yarn that had caught on one of his scales would come loose. "This is no use. I am asking them to do as they are told, so that things will go well for them. Already they must leave house that we are working so hard to make livable. They must not go through any more difficulty."
"Well, I still think..." the guard began, pulling the loop under and through the bit of yarn at the middle of the hook with the help of her fingers, "...that they could have done something." Aleksei moved his hands again, and the guard shook a bit of yarn from him so that it nearly touched the bottom of the bars between them. "If it were me, and someone had snatched off my darling, it's nobody gonna tell me to leave him rot in jail."
"He must be good man," Aleksei offered with a shrug. "He is also guard, yes?"
"Oh, no, Voyonov- Terrence? Gods no," the guard laughed, putting her hands down in her lap mid-stitch. "Goodness, he'd be cut nave to chops in an instant, right outside our door. Terry keeps a stall in the market, remember? He's friendly, his prices are fair, and he won't put out bad work- you know, it's him taught me to weave yarn like this."
"A man of the hearth," Aleksei smiled approvingly. "This is good. He will care for you, when the time comes."
"Certainly, he certainly will, yes. But I don't want him closing down the stall just to fetch nappies and my chamber pot to and fro. It's too many of us, now-a-days, put aprons on our men so's we can have our fancy. I'd rather put down the crest a while and do like proper women do- leave him to his business."
This time, it was Aleksei's turn to put his hands down into his lap for a few moments. "Who are these proper women?" he asked with a distinct note of exasperation. "Always there is comparison to mythical women who are some how kinder, smarter, and more virtuous. This is big problem here- I am not understanding it."
The guard shook her head as she took her work back up. "No, Voyonov, it's not just here. Stop ten women in the street and ask each one if she's the best woman she knows, and I don't know if you'll find more than two who'll say yes. Yet, every man seems confident that he is the gift of the gods."
"Ah," Aleksei sighed quietly as he put his hands back into the air and watched the yarn pull tighter. "Every man may seem to you confident, but not all are truly so. To make more confusing, in the army, I am finding that the warriors who are most preaching their prowess are not the best. They are not the worst, but still they have betters. And those betters do not talk."
"You know, that explains the massacre, really," the guard sighed. "I suppose the High Captain took the men that talk- I can't believe no one told you about it. Twelve men lying dead in the street for just about two days."
"Why should anyone tell me anything, now that I am here?" Aleksei grunted, trying to keep himself from imagining the scene the guard had just described. "You are the only one who is still treating me as if I am guardsman."
"Well, you bloody well ought to be. If you were, maybe some of those men wouldn't've died," the guard replied bitterly. "But no, Nithraz puts you in here for daring to take initiative, he takes a hand picked force to the border of the Dark Quarter, gives them a overview of what he wants done, and then he splits them up and sets them loose. No leading. No backup. Idiot."
Aleksei tapped a bar of the cell with a knuckle. "Quiet, or he will hear and put you in a cage, too."
"Oh, let him!" the guard laughed, unable to contain herself. "It'll keep me out of the Dark Quarter. Besides, he's hard up as it is- my father says he hasn't seen so many drop the crest since the war."
"And these problems, what is he doing about them?" Aleksei sighed wearily.
"It's four days straight, you asking me that," the guard replied, stopping herself in the middle of a stitch without putting her work down. "Yesterday, our blessed leader took himself to the chapel of Pelor three times instead of just the once, like normal. Does that count for anything?"
Aleksei snorted sharply, tipping his hands to allow some more yarn to come free of them. "So long as the sun god's champion is as cowardly as he, nothing in the Dark Quarter will know healing."
The guard nodded, pushing the hook between her fingers. "That's about the size-" She stopped herself when voices began to echo from the top of the jail down to the second level. "You'll want to hand me back my yarn, yes?"
A sharp sensation suddenly jagged into the Dragonborn's chest, which registered in his face as a loss of focus. The guard, not waiting for the situation to get any worse, reached between the bars and pulled the yarn off his hands. She quickly turned, put her work into her bag, and pulled a very dark sword from its sheath. The unusual color of the blade caught Aleksei's attention.
"What is this?" he asked, attempting to cover the strange moment.
"Ironwood," the guard replied. "Mum's side were mages, Pop's, warriors. Great grandpop, Mum's side, gave this to Mum when she married Pop, and Mum gave it to me when I married Terrance. Goddess knows she didn't have any kind of use for it; she had my great grandmum's staff already, and to this day can't swing a sword to save her l-"
A second pang of pain rang through Aleksei, prompting the guard to lay her sword on the table and go back to rummaging through her bag.
"My grandpop-" she began as she produced a metal flask and pushed it through the bars,"-made this himself; it's powerful. Shove it under the hay after- c'mon, quick!"
As Aleksei reached forward, took the flask and turned around, the voices came closer. About half way down the stairs, Nithraz called out.
"Silus! You're awake and safe, I hope!"
"Sir!" the guard replied sharply, looking behind her. She noted with surprised admiration that Aleksei had already polished off the entire flask and was quickly stuffing it under the filthy excuse for a bedroll.
A few more moments of rustling and footsteps- two pairs of feet, the guard noticed- brought a radiantly dressed Dragonborn with a staff and her half-Orc commander.
"I thought I told you about that non-regulation sword, Silus," Nithraz began immediately. "And what is that smell?"
"Grandpop's medicine, sir," the guard replied evenly, trying not to stare at the older Dragonborn. "Cures whatever aches."
"Keep it out of here," Nithraz ordered gruffly, crossing his arms over his armored chest. "And especially away from this one. If you're in pain, tell me, so I can send you home."
"With respect, sir, if I go home, I lose a day's pay," the guard answered, turning her gaze to Nithraz.
"Better to lose a day's pay than the crest," Nithraz shot back. "I want the entire guard clean. And stop bringing your ancestral sword, or whatever, in here. I re-issued good steel to every last one of you two days ago; I expect you to use it."
"Yes, Sir."
"Good. Now, get out."
The guard paused for a moment, then picked up her sword. Wordlessly putting it into its sheath, then sticking the sheath into her bag, she picked up everything and moved toward the stairs quickly. "Sun-blessed, Voyonov."
"It is my privilege to speak with you, Silus."
Nithraz snorted, then moved closer to the bars of the cell. "Voyonov!"
Aleksei simply turned on his behind so that half his face could be seen- the left half, facial scars and all. He didn't have to see to know that Nithraz had been accompanied by the Wyrmkeeper- the dull ache that remained in his chest told him enough.
"You could get up in the presence of a priest," Nithraz grumbled.
"Yes," Aleksei replied quietly. "I could. What is it that I can do for you?"
Nithraz sighed deeply, then moved forward to take the chair that the guard had been sitting it. Putting it on the other side of the hall, so that the back of it touched the bars of the vacant cell across from Aleksei, the high captain motioned for the gaudily dressed Dragonborn to sit.
"Two counts of assault, two counts public indecency, two counts treason," the half-Orc proclaimed without even looking at the scrap of paper that bore the charges. "The Council didn't see you as a threat to the city, miraculously, and so settled for a total of 21 years of imprisonment- instead of five days public torture and stoning to death on the sixth day."
"Stoning is good," Aleksei scoffed. "Please to return to the Council and ask them if I may not yet be stoned to death on sixth day."
"Of course you'd prefer death," the Wyrmkeeper laughed, his yellow-brown eyes glittering with a strange joy. "Anything to silence the screaming of your soul. No, stoning is too quick a death for a coward like you- let the years punish you, slowly, more painfully than any other method."
"Against my better judgement, the Council did offer another way," Nithraz interjected, casting a quick look at the Wyrmkeeper. "What you did in the Dark Quarter has reached their ears- albeit much over-blown, they see some scrap of truth still in the tale. They want to put your sword arm to use against the archer who's taken the Dark Quarter. Frankly, they assume that one Dragonborn can kill another."
Aleksei turned his head straight, then shifted himself so that his back was facing Nithraz and the Wyrmkeeper. Lifting his gaze to the ceiling, he began muttering.
"Otec, vy ignorirovat' vashi deti, i oni uchatsja podrazhat' vashej zhestokosti. Ne pokazyvat' mne milost'."
The Wyrmkeeper pushed his broad head forward in surprise, then leaned back in his chair and began to chuckle. "Let him answer you, Voyonov."
"She's obviously battle-hardened," Nithraz continued, casting another strange look at the Dragonborn beside him. "Easily struck down armed men-"
"Vy dali ljudjam vozmozhnost' ubivat' drakonov. Zatochite jetot nozh," Aleksei sighed, a little louder, pulling in his legs and resting his arms on his knees.
"And counting Trelwynen's pack, she's offed more than-"
Aleksei bowed his head and pressed his hands to his head to avoid hearing anything else. "Led serdca, ot vashej krovi, zhivyh sushhestv rodilis'. Probudit' menja-"
"You're acting like a child!" the Wyrmkeeper burst out at last, nearly weeping with the force of his laughter. "If Bahamut will not hear you, what makes you think that you can invoke Io? It will cost you more than just a few words to arouse that long gone spirit."
"The scimitar of the Ninefold Dragon functions properly, according to the most recent relic and sacred items study journal," a commanding female voice replied.
Both the Wyrmkeeper and Nithraz snapped their heads to their right to watch Master Ranclyffe slowly descend the stairs. Aleksei, turning just enough to see her, immediately stood up. Her deliberate movement irked him at once.
"I'll explain. Such items cease to function as intended when their patron's power levels dip below the Deity Standard." she stated as she walked past the Wyrmkeeper and fished in her bosom for a few moments. "Curam cum parum cognitionis."
The Wyrmkeeper, mildly embarrassed and quite confused, could do little else but stare. In the cell, Aleksei began to chuckle- a strange, bitter sound in the strained silence. Nithraz, uncomfortable with watching the older woman as she finally pulled a sealed paper from her bosom, began sputtering a reply. "Master Ranclyffe, I-"
"Will, by this order, release the subject to Battlemage Ranclyffe," the court mage finished sharply, pushing the sealed paper into Nithraz's hand. "I resent being left out of the final hearing on this case, which you scheduled for the exact hour you knew that I should be meeting with my first-year students in the courtyard. You've also exposed this priest, in a near-criminal attempt to force your 'deal,' without appropriate precautions."
"There is no precaution needed, good lady," the Wyrmkeeper began warmly. "It's obvious from his words that-"
"The subject was quoting draconic scriptures to the ceiling," the matron mage scoffed, refusing to even look at the priest. "Quiet; you're not involved."
"You're lying," the Wyrmkeeper charged, standing up to look down upon the Human woman who now seemed to have all the power and gusto of a woman at least twenty years her junior. "This male has no such sickness- if he had, the High Captain would never have brought me here. There wouldn't even be a guard- in fact, he wouldn't be here- he'd be in the Bone College, in a cell, alone."
"So one madman might guard another?" Master Ranclyffe shot back, an eyebrow arched high. "Battlemage Ranclyffe has vast experience with war-hardened veterans and the various diseases to which they are prone."
"He's your father," Nithraz stated. "I can't trust-"
"I have no reputation for a cuddly, family-oriented nature," Master Ranclyffe scoffed, turning her back on the three males. "The transport will arrive in five days."
Aleksei shrugged and retreated to the back of the cell, preparing to sit down.
"You're lying, I said," the Wormkeeper said again, much more strongly than before. "Voyonov isn't unwell. He is cursed- cursed by his own actions against a goddess to whom he swore his soul."
Master Ranclyffe stopped moving at the bottom of the steps as though hit with a paralysis spell. "What?"
"You're lying, I said." The Wyrmkeeper firmed his lips for a few moments, watching the older woman slowly turn and walk back toward him. "You're a Human, and you don't know the-"
The court mage closed her eyes and held a hand up before the Dragonborn's face. "Five days from today, this male will get on a transport to Suzail, to be treated by one of the most powerful mages in all of Cormyr. Now, if you think that you can deny a decorated, war-hardened, Cormite battlemage, you're welcome. I would suggest, however, that you settle your debts, choose a successor to your post, and write your will." Opening her eyes and lowering her hand, she turned her head just slightly, as though checking in on a disobedient child. "Was that clear?"
Aleksei, who had remained staring at the wall to avoid being sucked in to the red dragon's embrace, heard only the sound of his own heavy breathing for a few moments. He looked up to the ceiling again, wondering if Sofiya were keeping close count of her kills.
Perhaps, if I am surviving, I will count again.
And then he remembered precisely why he'd stopped counting. He sighed the idea out of his body, thinking of Bahlzair.
"Perhaps it would be best if I escorted you back to the Temple District," Nithraz sighed, taking the Wyrmkeeper by the arm. The older Dragonborn male, however, ripped his arm away.
"Beware," he growled down at the female mage. "You don't know whose will you thwart."
"Fine," Master Ranclyffe replied, spreading her arms in a feigned welcome. "Explain."
"It would be best if I escorted you back to the Temple District," Nithraz repeated, taking both of the Wyrmkeeper's elbows and urging him toward the stairs.
Again the older Dragonborn shook the high captain's hands from his arms, but he clutched his staff tightly as he huffily moved past Master Ranclyffe.
"Really, Master Ranclyffe," Nithraz began with an edge of annoyance. "You didn't have-"
"Get out," came the flat response.
And with a pained growl, Nithraz did as he was told. Master Ranclyffe, whose gait again diminished to little better than a hobble, put herself gingerly down into the chair the Wyrmkeeper had vacated.
"How is the chained god-avatar?"
Aleksei turned back around, but did not look directly at the mage before him. "They are putting cannibal in my cell some days ago, and when I am choking him, they are taking the chains away."
Master Ranclyffe rolled her eyes and put a hand to her face. "Blasted stubborn half-breed."
"You are telling him this would happen, yes?" Aleksei asked, already knowing the answer.
The mage raised an eyebrow at him. "Don't waste words, Lyosha."
Aleksei nodded, walking over to one side of the cell to lean on the wall. "He is doing nothing. Twelve guards dead, and he is running to chapel."
"I've mentioned that," the court mage responded with a sharp nod. "My agnosticism draws doubt, but he's being watched. As is Ntoru, whose mirror broke without a soul touching it."
"The danger," Aleksei mused. "Perhaps she is it."
"No," Master Ranclyffe nodded. "Too stuck on herself to mastermind a real problem. She's a pawn on a much larger chessboard." Pivoting and putting her hands on the bars behind her, the mage struggled to rise. Aleksei turned his head until the difficult motion was completed, then watched as she made sure of each joint and muscle.
"You may wish to rest," he suggested very gently, not wanting to seem overbearing.
"Had I a competent protege, I would," the court mage replied, again fishing in her bosom. "Come close. This is for you, and it's writ large, I think, so that you may learn the characters that create Common words."
"Who is it that wishes to teach me?" Aleksei said wonderingly, moving toward the bars.
"You know multiple Humans familiar enough with Draconic lettering to write with it?" the court mage asked, raising her eyebrow at him again.
"Ah, Lishka," Aleksei sighed. "And yet always she is thinking she is of little use."
"She'll learn nothing from you. Your zeal for self-destruction so closely resembles mania that it was the only evidence I had to present to the Council. To most minds, illness is the only way to explain one male taking on an entire coterie alone." Master Ranclyffe cracked the plain and pitiful seal, then looked at Aleksei. "And that explanation may save that archer, too."
A moment of silence reigned between the two, during which the clatter of armor was heard in the stairwell. The court mage didn't bother to move, but Aleksei looked up to see Silus returning to her post- scowling, and without her bag.
"What is it?" the Dragonborn asked at once, prompting the mage to turn around to look at the advancing guard. "You are wanting your flask, yes?"
"Bloody priest threw my sword, my stitching and my keys right down the well," Silus huffed as she planted herself in the chair across from Aleksei's cell. "Gods alone know why; I done nothing to the creature. I can't replace Pop's sword. And how am I supposed to get in the house? And I'll have to start the blanket all over; get fresh yarn and-"
"Stand in the stairwell," the court mage commanded sourly. "We'll see about the well presently."
"Oh, well, Master-"
"Go!" the mage repeated, glaring at the guard, who hastily moved toward the middle of the stairwell. "Now, then- this, Lyosha, is a 'D.' "
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