Sarai
My blood glowed like liquid gold in the flickering light of a wax dripping candle. I frowned and focused on the tiny prick at the tip of my thumb, but try as I might the wound didn't close. With a disgruntled sigh I wiped the smouldering liquid away and leaned back on the hard, uncomfortable chair to survey the crowded taproom through a veil of fire, pipe and candle smoke.
Helena, Aglaia, her beastly husband Indigorath and I had decided to stay in the only tavern on this much too small, provincial island until Quenda, the silver dragoness, was going to return from Free Land. She had taken a tiny sample of the crystals with her to show Mephisto. The demon was, as much as it stung to admit, just a tad more knowledgable than me when it came to lore and magic, but I was a hundred percent certain I hadn't made a mistake. The proof was still slowly oozing from my finger, after all.
The fortunate miners hadn't stumbled upon a vein of some new, never before seen material. They had unearthed parts of an immortal's body, even though I couldn't begin to guess how and why the corpse of an angel or a demon had been buried in the mountains of an island so remote it didn't even have a proper city. The largest settlement, the one we were in now, had sprung up around the local baron's residence, but it barely counted 2000 souls.
Absentmindedly I massage my thumb and put away the splinter I had used to cut my skin. Over the last two days the tavern had attracted a much more diverse and noisy crowd, as merchants and mercenaries had poured into town, hunting after whispered rumours. How the story of a new magical material had spread I couldn't say for sure, but considering it had taken Aglaia and Indigorath days to reach Free Land, we could just as well count ourselves lucky that only soldiers from the neighbouring kingdom had made it here. The succession war had already reached these shores anyways, so there wasn't much for us to do about it. The troupes were staying with the baron at least, which meant we didn't have to worry about them much. For now.
When I looked up, the swaths of pipe smoke and spilled booze parted to reveal a broad shouldered lad with a massive claymore swaggering his way over, his eyes constantly roaming over Aglaia's curves… once again. Helena and I were entirely ignored, because we had long since chosen to hide ourselves properly under heavy cloaks and pulled down hoods. The vain kitsune, though, hadn't wanted to hear a word of it. In that regard she was even more conceited than Cassandra, even though she couldn't hold a candle to her.
Our overzealous friend had to be a new arrival, otherwise he wouldn't even have tried. The veterans had already figured out, that the sensual vixen was protected by a veritable giant of a man, who wasn't very understanding when it came to a variety of men hitting on his wife. At least the purple worm had a much more practical approach when it came to his pride than his lover and had never, not even once, revealed his magic, nor his true form. Unfortunately he wasn't here. He had returned to the ship for the night to satisfy the unreasonable demands of his stomach.
Boisterous laughter filled the air and from the corner of my eye I saw a drunk maid climb clumsily onto a creaking table. A moment later a surprisingly steady and refined voice rang out when the girl jumped into a fast and cheerful song to the arrhythmic clapping of the crowd. She was going to earn a pretty penny tonight. "Is there a reason why you're letting him come close," Helena whispered grumpily, her slender fingers drumming impatiently on the badly carved and dented table. The few times we had found ourselves in a similar situation before without our faithful watchdog, I had immediately revealed a minuscule hint of my aura and had sent the curious mutts packing.
"He's not your common lout," I explained slowly, my gaze stuck to a metallic shimmer I saw underneath his leather shirt, despite the dim, flickering light. "The weapon's good. His armour isn't made from iron and I see neither scars, nor calluses on his hands. There's also something familiar, something hidden... anyways, it might be worth listening to him, don't you agree?"
"No." Despite the hood, Cassandra's mother was usually being treated like a child, her voice simply didn't sound very mature, and even though she had enjoyed it for a while, her patience had been running thin. "It'll just be more of the same. Stammered compliments and an invitation. Can't we just spend the evening in peace? We'll have to convince the baron tomorrow, no matter what the drunkard says."
"I'm with the kid on that one," Aglaia hissed from the corner of her mouth. The two kitsune didn't get along all that well. "I'm not a bargaining chip for your entertainment, angel." I meant to reply, but the drunkard in question had already arrived. Still, Cassandra and Ahri had a lot to answer for. The way their family and friends treated Mephisto and me… unfortunately I liked most of them.
"Fine," I hissed, but instead of unveiling my presence I simply pushed back my hood. My hair spilled from underneath the cloth like a glowing wave and with a little help a flash of crimson and gold danced around my head for the fraction of a second. Only a few heads turned at first, but quickly enough most of the patrons were staring at me and our unwanted visitor even stumbled. For the moment nobody took notice of him, though, which was exactly what I had been waiting for. A cold smile tugged on the corners of my mouth and the dry crack of his neck breaking was swallowed by his clumsy attempts to regain his balance.
I used a speck of power to keep him upright and steer his corpse towards our table the very moment his body relaxed and his legs gave out. At the same time I sent a surge of my aura through the crowded room and the curious, sometimes lecherous stares quickly turned back to the intoxicated maid and her performance. The girl had stopped singing, but as soon as an ominous silence gripped the room in the wake of my spiritual assault, her instincts, honed over years of working in a tavern, kicked in and she did her best to recapture her audience. When the undead puppet pulled up a chair the atmosphere in the tavern had already returned to something much less pent-up.
"Did you really have to kill him," Helena snarled while a silver glow spilled from underneath her hood. I shrugged.
"Probably not, but it's easier this way. Didn't you insist on spending the evening in peace?"
"I didn't ask you to break his neck, did I?"
"Potato, potato. Whether he dies now or in fifty years hardly makes a difference. And we really need a few answers. I could have pulled them from his mind, but the outcome would have been the same and he would have suffered quite a bit in the process."
"A random stranger has answers an immortal needs," Aglaia interjected sarcastically. "Oh my, is he the leader of an unknown civilisation? Or maybe a visitor from outer space?"
"Save the snark for someone who cares," I quipped and allowed a hint of my temper to enter my voice. I had finally understood why he felt somewhat familiar. "Watch. Pull out your dagger, sweetie." A trickle of blood was dripping from his nose, but he followed my command in utter silence. Luckily the noise had once again reached a level where speaking freely wasn't much of a problem.
A beautiful blade, carved from the very gems we were after, hit the table with a dull thud. The wooden heft wasn't anything special, but the edge had been polished meticulously and a few runes had painstakingly been cut into the blade.
"Shit." The former queen of the kitsune had hit the nail on the head. "How," she continued. "Nobody has access to the vein, do they? You monitor everyone who gets close, don't you?" I shrugged again.
"I do, but the gems themselves interfere with my perception. I've been keeping an eye on the cave we know about, but I can't be sure if there's another access point. Chances are, someone is already mining, directly under our noses. Do you still think I overreacted?" When they remained silent I turned to my puppet. "Sweetie, where did you get this weapon?"
"Bought… it," he began, agonisingly slowly, as if he was having trouble recalling the memories and wrapping his numb tongue around the words. He also sounded sleepy, like a soldier after a three-day siege on the defending side.
"Where?"
"Old comrade… sold it to me yesterday… a favour. Best blade I've ever owned… cuts anything."
"I don't doubt it. Is your comrade still around?"
"Yes… but not in town… they camp half a day from here."
"They? Who are they?"
"Mercenaries... don't know details." Big surprise.
"Show me your arms." He awkwardly rolled up his sleeves with a few chopped, but unnaturally quick movements.
His skin was already turning pale as snow and the veins stood out like blue, rigid worms. There wasn't a single scratch on him, though, which didn't make any sense. Every warrior carried a few scars. Even us immortals usually had one or two as visible reminders of our youth.
"Did you have your scars removed recently," I asked. He didn't flinch. Ever since he had sat down he hadn't moved an inch and the eerie stillness of his chest was unnerving, even to me. I had never liked the undead and I wasn't going to keep this one around for longer than I had to.
"No… was a favour… one of the mercs is a… healer. Offered to treat me… free of charge." Sure. Unfortunately there was no such thing as a free lunch. More likely the so called healer had used the chance to… well, my puppet couldn't possibly know, but magic always left traces behind. I'd just have to look for myself.
"Let's take this party upstairs," I whispered to my companions. "I want to have a proper look at him and I don't think we should have him strip in the middle of the taproom."
"Do I have to come," Aglaia complained, her eyes twitching in disgust. "He's scary enough to look at now. I don't think I want to see him naked, especially if you're going to examine him."
"Are you squeamish," I wondered and arched an eyebrow. This time around she could even see my facial expression. "Considering whom you're sleeping with…"
"Immortal or not, if you finish this sentence I'm going to clip your wings."
"One of these days I'll have to teach you some manners," I began, but Helena cut me off:
"Enough. We can get back to trading insults anytime. Let's go. And you do have to come, Aglaia. Caught together, hanged together. Don't you think we should figure out how this imbecile got his hands on more crystals than we've even seen before?" Ever since the soldiers had appeared, nobody had been allowed to come close to the vein. If it had been up to me, I'd have simply blasted my way through and dealt with the consequences later or not at all, but apparently that sort of behaviour was bound to come back to bite me in the ass. One of the disadvantages if you actually wanted to stay in a place for a prolonged period of time. You weren't able to simply torch the lawn and be done with it. Somebody was sure to complain. Provided this was going to go the way I expected it, though, my restraint wouldn't last much longer.
Aglaia was muttering under her breath, but she didn't resist any longer. Accompanied by the very occasional wolf whistle and envious stare we made our way up the creaking, worn down stairs. It was a touch quieter on the second floor, but the decided lack of insulation still allowed us to enjoy the noise and especially smells of the taproom. We made our way along a narrow and entirely bare corridor towards two adjacent doors at the end. Aglaia and Indigorath stayed in one room, while Helena and I shared the other.
Again, if it had been up to me, we would simply have created more decent accommodations from thin air, but my roommate had insisted on keeping our heads down until we'd have gained a feel for the lay of the land. Considering she had raised one of the most notorious immortals I honestly couldn't believe how careful she always acted. Maybe it was precisely because she had raised Cassandra. The last few months had been pretty hard on them, from what I had heard.
The door to our room opened silently, curtesy of a little spell I had placed on the hinges. I didn't sleep much and Helena had been pretty indignant when I had woken her in the middle of the night for the first time. Our quarters weren't anything to write home about, but a little magic had at least provided us with two comfy and clean beds right alongside a working tub, an actual mirror, a cupboard and somewhat breathable air. I had even conjured a carpet for us, so we wouldn't be forced to guess at the origin of some of the more ominous stains on the grimy, wooden boards.
Once the door had closed behind us I commanded my puppet to stand at the centre of the room and twirled my fingers to turn his garments into dust. Aglaia couldn't suppress a surprised cough when they floated to the ground and even Helena pushed back her hood, her slanted eyes smouldering with much more silver than I had seen in a while. Old Frankenstein obviously had a few, tiny flaws in his memory, otherwise he probably would have mentioned the sewed up, angry red welts that covered his entire torso.
Some of the scars were still fresh and had been oozing blood until his heart had stopped, but others were already beginning to fade. A veritable maze had been cut into his chest and from the looks of it the poor blighter had been forced to undergo the unpleasant procedure several times.
"What is that," Helena pondered while she slowly circled the rigid zombie.
"Your daughter's work," I sighed and immediately raised my hand placatingly when she whirled around with a snarl on her face. "Cassy didn't do this, that's not what I meant. But look, the newer cuts form runes of binding and resilience. See these fading slashes here and here? The ones almost healed? I can't say for sure, they're almost entirely obscured by more recent mutilations, but I think they were meant to anchor his soul, even after death. Now… magic like that doesn't work around here anymore, the Lightbringer has seen to it. Which is probably the reason why our friend has been crested several times. The older runes would have turned him into an eternal slave, while the newer ones only bind him in life." I scratched my head. "Still, that's dark. Even by my standards. Me turning him into an undead was actually a mercy. I just don't get why he was trying to hit on Aglaia. It can't have been of his own volition and who would arbitrarily expose a pawn…" The white tailed vixen had listened with a frown, but Helena had turned paler with every word I had spoken. When I finally uttered "pawn", silver light wreathed her in an ethereal gown and her aura surged like a mountain brook when the snow melted.
"Get away from him," she hollered, but her warning came a tad too late. Scars I hadn't been able to spot under the scab ignited and my undead friend exploded with the strength of a bomb. In his stomach he had carried around a bag full of pointy shards that could wound even an immortal.