5:17 Shadow of the Hammer.

 The morning was new enough that the air had not swelled up to its full heat or humidity.  The sun played coyly with the tops of the trees, peeking at birds, cattle, and people alike as though it were a child playing tag.  

The abbot, a salt-and-pepper haired Human man of sixty odd years, spent a few contemplative moments gazing at the eastern skyline, then walked over to his heavy wooden desk and sat down.  He rustled through the copies of laws, legal suits, notes, and personal letters that waited there, and upon not finding any written correspondence from the object of his thoughts, reached for the small hand bell at the far corner of his desk.  A few moments later, a young man wearing a freshly pressed set of purple and white layman's robes stood awaiting his command.  The abbot handed over a short note with a wax seal so fresh that the other side of the paper was warm to the touch.

"Please go to the Dragon barracks, hand this to the officer of highest rank available, and don't return without an answer," the older man said in a quiet, but firm voice.

"Right away, Abbot Rigel," the young man replied, hustling out of the office.

Just as skittish as when he was but a lad, the abbot chuckled with a small smile.  Squirrel-spirited, that one.  You'd think it'd wear off with age, but-

A priest turned into the office and gave a small bow of respect to the elder clergyman.  "Abbot Rigel, I've received a messenger from the docks with two more letters from the priests who were brought to Urmlaspyr from the Isles."  The priest briefly looked back down the hallway at the still air that the young man left behind him.  "If Sylus continues moving at that pace, he may beat the messenger back to the docks, actually."  The moment of contemplation passed, the priest righted himself and stepped all the way into the sparsely furnished office to hand over the correspondence that he held in his hands.  "Anyway, this one is from Brother Marius and this from Brother Arel.  Both mention Father Iona, but the man himself has put no word to paper."

The priest's suspicious tone, just hardly masked, brought a slight frown to the abbot's face.  "Did either of them mention that his eyes had been burned out?" he asked.  "Father Iona has been studious about communicating his progress up to this point; I find myself hoping that the descriptions I've read so far from the other brothers and fathers have been exaggerations."

"Brother Arel mentions that his eyes were 'changed' rather offhandedly, but because Brother Marius attempted to help the alchemist who was aboard the woman captain's ship to heal him, he delivers a much more comprehensive description of the problem than anyone else has so far," the priest replied, as he gave the abbot the two page letter in his right hand.  "He starts the description in the second paragraph on the reverse of the first page."

The older clergyman obediently flipped the first page over in his slender, amber skinned hands and looked over the writing there.  "Ah, this is quite detailed... and the damage is worse than the others imagined.  Marius states his belief that Iona will be permanently and totally blind as clearly as possible without inking those exact words- he might as well have done, but... of course, such blindness precludes Iona writing anything to anyone, without a trustworthy scribe."  Rigel took a few moments to quickly send his eyes over the words of both letters.  "Still no mention of what 'ill news' separated him from the brethren, however.  Hobson has, in my place, done an admirable job of 'preventing loose talk' about whatever personal scandal may have arisen; no one else seems to have any idea what Iona's intentions were or are since leaving Marsember."

"Father Hobson's own ideas perhaps err on the side of hope," the priest mentioned slowly.  "There is now, I understand, a persistent rumour of the judgement of Tyr falling on the temple of Lathander in Marsember.  Whether or not Tyr's judgement was indeed there pronounced, Marsember was Father Iona's home, and his family is a prosperous, well-connected one.  He could be courting the attentions of a few high class patrons looking for a man of letters and legal proficiency to serve their estate.  The rough business of bringing law to the lawless here seemed... insufficient for him; isn't that why you sent him on pilgramage in the first place?  The temptation to return to a life of relative ease could be great."

The abbot could only hum softly.  " 'Relative ease'," he echoed as he looked over Brother Marius's letter again.  His mind, far from actually being invested in the words written there, flitted briefly over the hours of confessions from Iona about the life that he'd left behind.  "Let me be plain with you, Nataniye.  I sent Iona on his current journey with the idea that he may prove himself worthy of becoming a knight of holy judgement, even at his early stage of development within the order and faith.  He is not on a vacation; once his trials and tasks are completed, I expect his return."

The priest moved to one of the two simple chairs in the office and seated himself.  "In that case, I feel that I ought to speak plainly about Father Iona's having taken brethren to the Pirate Isles in the first place.  You did not send him there, did you?"

"No, but I-" Rigel looked up from the letter and, noticing the priest's tense posture in the chair, quieted himself.  Setting Marius's letter to the side of his desk, he sat down in the chair there.  With a sigh, he said, "Before you wind yourself up, know that I had many concerns myself, and so much as recalled the entire group here because of them.  I thought myself in the right of the matter, until I received a very grateful letter from the new adherents to the teachings of Tyr on Paldir.  There was a small town there- who knew it was possible, in that place?- but it had been looted, burned, and sewn with salt by several groups of treasure hunters all working together.  As it was written to me by more than one of his companions, and even the man himself, Father Iona daily preached to the people, and nightly prayed for their deliverance.  The hearts of a ship full of mercenaries were so turned by his words and orisons, that they relocated the people of the town to a place that they built, complete with a small temple and mission to Tyr.  They trained up some men in simple arms, so that they would not be completely defenseless against invaders, and then left.  Iona left from them soon after the mercenaries did, possibly in response to my demand, and this- people's missive, if I can find it here- includes a request for him to be resent to them, to serve as the priest, chief lawmaker, and judge of the town." 

The abbot tumbled a few papers on his desk and handed over a page that was full of writing on both sides.  Nataniye accepted the letter, looked at it for a long time, then frowned as he laid it back on the desk.

"Any vaguely moral person would stand out like a lighthouse in a fog of sin that dense," he argued.

"That is true, and that argument crossed my mind as well," Rigel admitted with a slow tilt of his head.  "But I wonder, brother, when was the last time you ever heard fog ask a lighthouse to pierce it.  Further, I have two other such letters, from places to which I did send Iona, if you'd like to see them.  So I cannot in good conscience call such requests 'uncommon'."

Nataniye sat in motionless silence for a few moments, then reclaimed the letter that he'd placed on Rigel's desk and looked at it again.  As he studied its content, Sylus did in fact poke his head into the office with a quiet knock on the opened heavy wooden door.

"Enter, son," Rigel said welcomingly, turning his attentions to the young man.

"It seems like there's a lot of goings back and forth, Abbot," Sylus smirked.  "I caught up with one messenger who said he'd just come from the docks, and as we were talking and going, a second asked us the way here.  She was new, it looked like.  I told her, and came here with her, after the other messenger promised to take your missive to the highest ranked officer as you asked, but as soon as she could see the place, she handed me this and turned back.  If I'd known her name, I'd have called her more earnestly, but I worried about what others might think of my going on calling, 'Oi, girl!', or 'Hullo, miss!'."

"She probably thought herself just in leaving whatever it is in your capable hands, although she's accidentally cheated herself," Rigel noted with a gentle laugh.  "It's not common for monasteries, temples, or any other centers of healing or worship to give messengers any coin for their footwork.  So, likely she hustled off to get a better paying run before the others snap them all up.  Try, 'Excuse me, young lady!' next time, or- better yet- simply learn the child's name.  Now, the friend that you put my missive in care of, you're certain he'll do as I asked?"

"Yes," Sylus said with a touch of sheepishness.  "I wasn't quite sure that I should let it go, but he promised me he'd go straight to the commander without delay.  I told him I hadn't any coin, and he told me that because I was doing the girl a solid, he would do me one.  So, I gave him the missive."

The abbot laughed again, a bit more gustily.  "Well!  My, it's been a while since I've heard that kind of talk- 'doing someone a solid.'  However, in my experience in this wilderland, 'solids' are taken quite seriously; I will content myself to believe that my will shall be done."

"I hope so," Sylus sighed.  "Here- this is the message the new girl had.  It seems to have been unsealed and resealed, though."

"Curious, but I hear there have been some strange goings on in Suzail of late," Rigel answered.  He took the letter that the young man handed him, turned it over a few times in his hands, and noted the same stress marks on the edges of the wax seal, the same extra creases in the paper, and the same scratch marks on the paper from whoever-it-was trying to carefully pop the wax up without breaking it or taking it all the way off.  After quite a while of noting these and other small clues of tampering, he opened the letter and began to read it.

"Oh, interesting," he mused after nearly an entire minute of silence had gone by.  "This is the long awaited correspondance from Father Iona, but it's penned by his sister-in-law, one Missus Susanna Chelois Raibeart.  According to this, he went home primarily in hopes that a proper healer in the capitol would be better able to attend to him than some woe-be-gone alchemist serving a woman captain, but even after visiting with some of the best healers in the country, he still can perceive the world and those around him only as 'shadowed figures on a moonless night'."

"He's prettying up a grim matter with that description," Nataniye frowned simply.  "The fact is that Brother Marius is right; Father Iona is blind."

"His sister wrote this, remember," Abbott Rigel reminded gently.  "The gossip between orders and temples about the Chauntea acolyte who ran away from the order because it was discovered that she'd gotten pregnant was quite true, and this is that same wayward acolyte, trained to write as gently and beautifully as any other lady of letters who would have been expected to write psalms to the goddess.  Iona likely stated the matter as plainly as you did, and his caring sister-in-law guilded it up so that the terrible misfortune sounds like an unlooked-for blessing.  It seems, anyhow, that Iona is aware that the rest of the brothers have left Marsember already, and since he neither wants to travel alone nor does he have anyone near him who can easily travel, he has asked for someone to come and guide him wherever I wish him to go from there.  Well, Sylus, get running; the missive that I sent was intended for Marsember, but it should go to Suzail instead.  Hurry, and you'll know for yourself whether your friend did as you asked him or not.  Be sure to tell him, swear to him by Tyr's left hand, that I sent you to change the course of the missive, so that he does not feel that you followed him only to check whether or not he acted honestly.  And Father Nataniye, prepare yourself; I will send you to guide Father Iona to Halfhap."

"Halfhap!" the priest sitting before the abbot exclaimed at once.  "If anything were there but a garrison!"

"A garrison, and the energies and influences of Tempus the Foehammer," Rigel argued, "and what better weapon could Tyr have against the Foehammer than the Firehammer?  You will ensure that Iona has all the guidance and counsel he needs, since that is what Tyr has planted in your heart to do for him.  If it were not so, surely you would be at your own prayers, instead of complaining of his possible intentions to me."

5:6 Undue process.

In the middle of the late Kythorn afternoon, while any passer by could look and see, a team of three Purple Dragons systematically tossed things to each other to dump into a burlap sack.  The commanding officer had set himself up near the front house door, which was level with the street, and was taking note of each confiscated item in a small evidence notebook.  The second officer was indiscriminately picking up every small vial he could lay hands on, whether it had been labeled as part of Bliss's Blessings or not.  He called out descriptions, then tossed each item to the third officer, who caught them either with his hands, or sometimes simply by raising the bag enough for whatever it was to fly in on its own.  Since the third officer was at the kitchen entrance, sometimes the thrown items fell short of his reach, went too far and smashed against the kitchen wall, or didn't clear the corner between the sitting room and the kitchen.  The people who would have wanted to purchase the items were told by the commanding officer that anyone who had made purchases from the illegal front room shop could be seized for aiding and abetting it.  Of course, no one admitted to anything but curiosity.

It had been a morning close to normal.  Breakfast had been easily acquired in the market and prepared in the kitchen- bread with a bit of fruit and cheese.  Susanna prepared the last of some tea that Mi'ishaen had sent a few days before, repeating the Tiefling's admonition that if they didn't use it up by the end of the tenday, it wouldn't taste right.  There followed a brief conversation on ripening, molding, fermentation, and general food waste in which Iordyn and Iona discovered they had little to contribute.  Iona found the topic boring, but Iordyn was surprised at how knowledgeable the children were about such matters.  After all, none of them were farmers or brewers, or in any danger of being apprenticed to any such folk.  When all were finished dining, the dishes were cleared quickly by Susanna, Sarai, and Salone, and Sarai smilingly left to attend her apprenticeship as soon as they were cleaned.  Stephen, Saul, and Sylvester all headed down to the shop.  Iordyn aided Iona up the stairs to the shrine room, while Valeria waited for him at the bottom of the staircase. 

Valeria was, in fact, the first herald to the coming of the Purple Dragons, jumping and barking shrilly while they were still so far up the street that Iordyn, who came downstairs at once to see what the matter was, did not believe that they were coming to the Raibeart house.

The three soldiers barged in as soon as the door was opened to them, pushing their way past the astonished Susanna to take their places and get about their work, with almost no explanation at all.  Salone, in contrast, walked into the sitting room and sat on the floor next to the low table, with the price list for the items on the floor by her side as though she still intended to sell them.

"C'mon, sweetie," the second officer cooed after a few minutes had gone by.  "No telling why you're here, but why don't you at least go sit with Mummie while we get this stuff sorted?" 

"You are Jealousy's hands," Salone replied simply.  "Everyone will pay for this waste twice over."

"Lona, please go to the shrine room and see if your uncle needs anything," Susanna said worriedly.  Something about the way her youngest child had just spoken made her heart beat so hard that she thought she might faint.

"I can't help him," Salone replied, turning the same stoic gaze upon her mother.  She shifted not a single inch, and Susanna got the sudden impression that her youngest child could possibly be possessed.

"You ought to mind your mother, girl," the commanding officer reproved, looking up from his notebook with a frown that would have better befitted a blood relative.  "That fresh mouth wants the back of your father's hand."

"Please don't threaten her, ser," Susanna breathed, tentatively reaching out a hand for something upon which to steady herself.  "You don't know-"

"Do you think she'll find an apprenticeship, or a husband, if you don't take her in hand?" the commanding officer scoffed.  "You're setting yourself up to have an aldermaiden, Lady Raibeart; mark my words.  Bad enough she's mixed up in- whatever this outfit is."

Sly, who was down in the shop with his brother and father when the Dragons made their brash appearance, had tried to quickly forge some merchant papers, since he'd seen enough of them at his apprenticeship.  Saul caught him at it, however, and snatched his work to hurriedly shove down into the water barrel.  He checked his little brother's scribbling every few minutes after that, just to ensure he wouldn't keep trying again, and Sly resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't get away with the attempt after four more ruined sets of papers. 

At the same time as the young pair of brothers were having their hushed disagreement, Iordyn went downstairs with Valeria, and found Stephen already ensconced in an icy silence.  His questions went unanswered, and his statements passed without comment, so he decided to do his best to be an obstacle to whatever destructive intention Stephen may suddenly have.  Rather like Saul occasionally checked the work of Sly's tricky fingers to ensure that it had nothing to do with trade or commerce, Iordyn kept finding Stephen just one more thing to do, one more method to demonstrate. Valeria, charged up with nervous energy, was constantly under Stephen and Saul's feet as they tried to continue working.  All commands to sit were obeyed for about five seconds, and then discarded in favour of anxious tail chasing and circling the shop. 

Stephen was at war within himself, fighting valiantly against the all consuming cold at the center of his chest.  Everything Iordyn said to him sounded as though it were being garbled through rushing water; he could hold on to no meaning in any of it.  He kept moving through repairs mechanically, absently, carefully trying to hold on to some scrap of normalcy until he could safely come back to himself.  Working through the instinct to rage upstairs and tear something- anything, and possibly everything- apart felt like pushing into a wintery wind filled with razor sharp snow.

Iona listened to the confiscation process from the solitude of the shrine room.  At first, he had been surprised, because he had not believed that the confirmation of the tip that the Dragons had received would result in the ransacking of his eldest brother's sitting room.  He thought of going downstairs to mediate, but was hit by a pang of embarrassment so strong that he had to sit back down.  Wouldn't the soldiers recognize him as the one who confirmed their information?  In the end, wouldn't it be he that Stephen had to thank for this incursion?  And he would know, of course, that Iona's intentions were not as pure and lawful as others might believe.  With grinding teeth, Iona prayed to Tyr once again for a justification of his mind, annoyed that he seemed no further along the path to freedom from his bitterness than he had been when his confessor had sat him down for a series of long talks.


And the sun took its time gazing upon the various spectacles from shifting vantage points in the sky.  Morning wore slowly into afternoon.


"Can't you simply make a report of the products without smashing them all to bits?" Susanna asked for the third time.  "Also, some of those things aren't even-"

"Look, Lady Raibeart, I hate to make you cry, especially now, when the baby's taken hold of your wits, but this's got to be done," the commanding officer replied, again looking up from his notes.  "Now, it's only the evil we're taking, alright?  Everything that's yours is in its place.  Come on now, be peaceful, and we'll be out of your house faster."  He crossed the sitting room toward her, drawing the stone cold gaze of Salone.

"Lona, please," Susanna began, not certain what her youngest daughter could do.  Oh, Mother Chauntea, if she chooses this moment to turn to witchery-

"I can't help," Lona repeated, just as distant as her father had ever sounded.  The little girl looked down at her hands, for some reason, and Susanna suddenly noticed that the hearthfire that she herself had lit that morning was out.  Her head swam again, and her eyes welled up and burned with tears that could not decide on their purpose.

"You're right about the baby brain," one of the other soldiers noted as he turned one small bottle of vibrant green fluid in his hand.  "It's fierce; terrible stuff.  My wife was a mess this Greengrass; couldn't put a pot on the stove but for scorching it.  I repent me of making fun of her handling of her daughter; she probably can barely make heads or tails of anything this moment.  Nevermind the child; mice take advantage when the cat's sick abed."  He shook the bottle a few times, then tossed it to the third soldier.

"True enough; true," the third soldier noted as he caught the bottle.  He pulled the cork stopper out and sniffed it.  "Oh, this one's pretty smelling.  A shame."  But with no remorse about him at all, he shoved the stopper back into the bottle and tossed it into the sack.  The tinkling of shattering glass made Susanna wince.

"I'm telling you, not all of the things in there are to be sold; that was from the midwife, for me!  Can't you at least return to the apothecary the things that are hers?" Susanna argued desperately.  "If you destroy all her work, she won't have any for the College to even test-"

"My lady, the apothecary would be arrested immediately, if we could lay hands on her," the commanding officer soothed as he tossed his notebook to the second soldier and took Susanna by both elbows.  He gently began stepping the pregnant woman back toward the kitchen.  "That is, unless I already have hands on her."

There was an incredible clang from downstairs, followed by a series of insistent hollers, to which only Susanna and Salone paid any heed.

"Oh no," Susanna breathed.  Salone simply nodded once at her mother, as though affirming something good, which further agitated the mother.

"You probably don't," the third officer sighed as he looked at the bottom of the sack he held.  "I've always heard tell of Lady Raibeart to be a former priestess what'll read and figure for anyone who asks her, but not once heard of her being a witch or an alchemist.  It's someone taken advantage of her state, I'd bet my life.  Ought to be ashamed, the cretin."

"Wait, wait, wait-!" cried Iordyn from somewhere between the shop and the sitting room.  But Stephen, who had heard that a guard had hands on his beloved wife, could hear nothing else.  The smithy charged into the room, passed his stoic youngest daughter, and served the second guard, who was closest to the smithy stairwell, a clean right hook before anyone had time to process the fact that he was there.  The guard's head snapped sharply to his right, and he crumpled ungraciously to the floor, just barely avoiding hitting his head on the stone wall.

"Stevie, no!" Susanna cried, trying her best to wrest herself away from the commanding officer to try to get to her wrathful husband.  She couldn't do so, but her alarmed voice alone was enough.  Stephen stopped, blinked, and rubbed the knuckles of his right hand with the fingers of his left, as though the punch had hurt him.  Absolutely everyone, even Salone, knew better.

The commanding officer unhanded Susanna to step toward Stephen, but Iordyn stepped around the low table where the rest of the alchemics were and physically got between the two.  "I also am a Purple Dragon, and by that seal, I ask you to reveal to me your rank."

The commanding officer started for a moment, then replied, "I am Oversword Gregris.  It's... unusual, to say the least, that you, a blade, would call upon the seal and then claim to be asking my rank.  It's... been no secret that some kind of... infirmity of mind had settled here, for one reason or another.  I was commanded to remove all trace of the illegal shop from this place, and to arrest the alchemist.  I have no designs to charge or arrest anyone else- well, I hadn't, until one of my subordinates got knocked clean out by the commissioned blacksmith."

"I beg you think it over," Iordyn sighed wearily.  "This poor man's zeal for his woman is as famous, I think, as his excellent craftsmanship.  Lady Susanna is highly blessed among women in intelligence, courage, and beauty; would you not act the same, if you had such a prize, and heard of her in any form of danger?"

Gregris chuckled quietly, but genuinely.  "Well, that's Garimond's apprentice if ever I heard him.  But remember, boy, Garimond has rank, and you don't."

"I have an effective right hand that says you will neither take hold of my wife nor call the very well grown man Blade Iordyn Valiere Raibeart 'boy' in my presence again," Stephen rumbled.  "The infirmity of mind is all mine, and it will direct me, presently, to make it so neither you, nor anyone with you, are found for many, many weeks.  And when you are, it will be because someone will have recognized some stray burned piece of you.  By the time that happens, old age would have shackled me before you could; think that over."

"How far House Raibeart has fallen," Gregris scoffed.  "Your grandfather and father were both war heroes, and here you are, the pair of you, devolved into slick-talking thugs and murderers."

"And can you say that your grandmother and mother would recognize you, ser, as you threaten me and throw my sitting room into disarray?" Susanna cut in, her words laced with an icy fury dangerously close to Stephen's.  "As you scorn both myself and my youngest daughter?  Praise be to every god that my eldest is tending her apprenticeship far from here.  You have so little respect for those of my kind that only the solid hand of one of yours could put brakes to the rampage in this house.  As unlawful as this little store may be, abuse of force is likewise unlawful.  Papa Raibeart defended this house and me from you just now, and anyone in court would render the same verdict."

Gregris inclined his head as a sort of acknowledgement of Susanna's points.  "I ask you again, dear my lady, from this respectable distance, without any physical pressuring whatsoever, are you the apothecary?  And if you are not, do you have knowledge of the apothecary's whereabouts?"

"I am not," Susanna breathed, made suddenly weary by the sharp drop of adrenaline.  "And whereas I know the apothecary, her current lodgings and whereabouts are unknown to me.  I do know that truly she did pay, with honest coin, the goods that went into the makings of these efficacious ointments and salves.  Now, if you sin against a talented healer by destroying her work, she may turn poisoner.  Well you know, I'm sure, that while many who work wickedness know not how to cure it, most who cure know also how to hurt.  For all our sakes, please, I pray you, put these crafts aside carefully, and let her answer for them in a proper testing.  Some of the weeds for these things were not easy to come by, and no one has so far complained of ill practice.  Please, by Mother Chauntea, I beg you, and if I do not get down on my knees to do so, it is because I am well gravid, and cannot easily arise from the floor."

"The antics you all will get up to in order to avoid getting your due," Oversword Gregoris smiled grimly.  "Each and every lotion and potion in this room will be destroyed, because it is, every drop of it, illegal.  You cannot say that no one has complained, for someone has, or we wouldn't be here.  Don't bother asking who; the person's protected from your revenge.  What you might rather do is sit quietly and let us do our work, as I told you."

"Don't talk to Lady Raibeart that way or you'll go the way of your subordinate down there," Stephen warned. 

"I could arrest you for obstruction of justice and assaulting an officer," Oversword Gregoris threatened.

"He could countersue for abuse of force, and he'd win," Iordyn reminded.  "Lady Raibeart is not the apothecary.  There's no reason to touch her.  Further, all the shop items are labeled, but you've clearly been taking everything without checking whether or not it was actually a part of the shop.  I can smell the salve that we just paid for yesterday; it had nothing to do with Bliss's Blessings and everything to do with Lady Raibeart's pain seared lower back."

Salone finally got up, in the silence that her uncle's words left, and walked over to her mother.  "Don't worry," she whispered confidentially.  "She'll come.  The old ones say so.  They think we should ask Ser Alek's daughters for help, though."

Susanna replied only by hugging Salone very tightly to herself.  She closed her eyes, but couldn't put sufficient sensible words together in her mind to pray to anyone.

Iordyn stepped back past Stephen slowly, and began picking up a few of the items on the table.  "I'll comply if you agree to take what I hand you.  I know this house; I know what's belonging to it and what's foreign.  When I'm done, you can look about and question me about anything that I've left behind.  By the crest, by my own soul, and by Lathander himself, I'll answer anything you ask me about any cream, salve, potion, or other alchemical item that I do not hand you.  Can we agree to that?"

Oversword Gregoris frowned, but nodded after a few moments.  "Can we do it without half the house standing witness?" he asked as he beckoned the third soldier closer.

"My woman and my little girl I will send out of here, but I'm not going anywhere until you get out of my house," Stephen rumbled.  "You want to look at me less, work faster."