The shifting wind brushed leaves from the square and shrapnel from Shinsou’s ice barrage over the bloodied, shambling corpse of the fallen Olin. Congratulations were uttered between the guardsmen and as the backslapping continued, the Telgradian’s eyes shifted to all corners of Serenti; his mind swaying back towards the Heirophant.
“We’re not done yet, Cronen,” Shinsou pointed out, “the woman who jumped us, who seems to be known as the Heirophant by the way, is still out there. She’s number one on my shit-list.”
Josh nodded, sidestepping as he put on the remaining of his enchanted boots. The sun he had been blocking lit the Telgradian’s path; bright white sunshine bathed the way in front of him, causing the town watch’s armour and Olin’s dragging corpse to glow like dirty stars. A gentle draft meandered lazily through the town, whispering over his shoulders and rustling at his white greatcoat.
“How did she get the drop on us?” The question that came from Shinsou’s lips was filled with a quiet anger. “Both of us can sense sentient beings; neither of us had a clue she was following us until it was too late. The question is, how? Why?”
The weight of the problem was greater than his tone suggested. It pulled at his mind as Shinsou recognized the burden it laid upon them. They would find it difficult to track her now and for all they knew she could have been long gone from Serenti. It had been several hours now since dawn.
“Shinsou Vaan Osiris and Joshua Cronen…”
The pair snapped from their pondering as a man pushed through an opening in the crowd, stepping into a small clearing containing the two men. Shinsou noted something was terribly wrong with the gentleman; his eyes were black, his skin as white as stripped and bleached bone. His voice had a different quality than human; as he spoke it was stark, synthetic, and bitter. The wind came rushing through a mop of grey hair, his tombstone-like teeth rattling against each other as the stranger tried to pluck up the energy to speak again.
“Gaze upon me and know.”
A small chain, almost like a severed manacle, twinkled in the sunlight as it hung loosely from an emaciated wrist. The man’s other hand reached out and grasped it, holding it still. The Telgradian had turned his face up towards this phantom of a human, eyes steeled, and nostrils wide.
What the fuck is this about?
Exhaling loudly, the man gave a sigh and turned his face towards Joshua.
"You can run around as much as you wish; but you can never truly hide from me, scum. Know that I am Roderick; and I have returned. I am not as weak as the others; with me you are dealing with forces beyond your imagination. I’ll see you both very soon, but let me leave you with this parting gift."
Before him, where Shinsou’s eyes were cast, the man’s hand shifted to his side where a knife hung loosely in a leather pouch. Worried that he was about to be attacked, Osiris’s hand flew to Shira quickly but before anything else could be said or done, the knife was at the man’s own bristled throat. The salt white blade seemed to slide, undulate, like an oiled snake across the skin.
Shit!!
In a moment, the gruesome demonstration was over. Frightened gasps erupted from the crowd as the sickly man slit his own throat, collapsing in a fountain of blood. There wasn’t time for Shinsou and Breaker to do any more than exchange glances before something got inside the Telgradian’s head.
Everything faded to grey. The form of a shadow figure became more definite a moment later, the curves of her body rippling and all the angles appearing like the curved blade of a scimitar. A moment later, a woman of similar height stood before the stone faced Telgradian; a woman of no features. A voice he heard was unmistakably the same as Roderick’s from a moment ago before changing to that of a woman’s, but Shinsou couldn’t make out what was being said. The words were distorted and twisted in some way.
The featureless smoothness suddenly and very briefly bled colour to reveal the face of the Heirophant. It was quick; too quick to discern any real detail, but the momentary photograph in the Telgradian’s mind told him it his senses were finally gathering information about her soul. Something warm glimmered like a brilliant star in the darkness, out towards the furthest ends of Serenti, and as the scene suddenly shattered into a million fragments Osiris twisted his head back to Joshua Cronen.
Something hardened in the Telgradian's face, the sharpness of a knife edge glimmered in his golden eyes as they shot down to the newest corpse on the street and then back to the demi-god Breaker.
"I don’t know what’s going on, but I think I know where that bitch is."