Subterranean Homesick Blues

[Inkfinger]

closed

You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows…

He should have kept the door shut.

Wind-whipped smoke and ash dyed the sky above black, swirling in clouds so low that the flames from below were reflecting off of them, flickering in the same raw red as an open wound. The air was full of cinders rising from the crater, and he had to fight to keep breathing with each and every step.

The ground shifted beneath his feet, adding the strange hiss of shifting earth to the crunch of charred grass and dead insects, dust rising in puffs from beneath his feet. He could feel heat on his back, searing through thick leather and unknowable scales. He would have taken his coat off hours ago, but it was the only thing protecting his skin from the too-hot coals still raining down from the sky.

He didn’t turn around. He already knew what he’d see if he did: a crater, spread near from horizon to horizon, spewing embers and steam, lightning and flame into the heavens. There were still voices down there, barely audible over the roaring of the wind – loud and howling and inhumane, a gleeful counterpoint to the cacophony of destruction, something unleashed and yet still chained and not entirely comprehensible.

The laughter grew in intensity on his heels, and he didn’t turn around, pointedly did not look back. He already knew what he’d see if he did: a pillar of flame, piercing the center of the clouds, turning slowly and malevolently, a tornado of fire and debris, metal fragments and dead bones. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, and on the ache in his jaw, the fiery pain streaked down his cheek and in his throat, on the sound of his boots turning former life to dust.

Lights danced and swirled through all the spectrum, visible and invisible, casting eldritch light over his shoulders, making his shadow gain two heads and tentacles, or flicker out of existence altogether. He didn’t turn around, pointedly did not look back, didn't even think about doing so. He already knew what he’d see if he did: the portal, alone on an island of stone in the newly-formed void, its mouth drawing in more light than a gateway that size should possibly be able to carry; glowing brighter than ten thousand suns. He focused, instead, on the blood trickling down his face, the taste of pennies and peppermint, rancid strawberries and charred flesh thick on the back of his tongue.

He didn't look back.

He knew what he'd see.

And over it all hung the horrible, obvious thought:

He should have kept the door shut.

[Inkfinger]

I.
Two Weeks Ago

“What d'you want?”

Cael Strandssen didn’t really ask, despite the obvious question. He said it, a dry statement spoken from one side of the shoddily constructed door in the dead tone of someone with speaking from experience. He leaned against the door frame, one pale eyebrow raised, and waited for the answer.

Îdhdaer Bireth grinned at him from the hallway, teeth glinting in the dim light pooling from the window. The expression had Cael worried more than anything. The elf was, effectively, Cael’s boss. He was also, not-so-effectively, Cael’s on-again, off-again friend. Judging from that smile, this was going to be one of the on-again afternoons.

Or at least attempt to be. The elf had a dusky green bottle in one hand, and a look on his face that was trying far too hard to actually be innocent. His eyes danced with a expression that Cael was beginning to recognize – and fear. It was a look that meant the elf was thinking. He could practically smell the smoke.

“What makes you think I want something?” Îd asked, fluttering his eyelashes.

Cael sighed, crossing his arms across his bare chest. Afternoon was slowly fading into evening, but it was still too early for the temperature to have gone down, and the windows hissed with the typical brush of sand on glass. The natives dealt with the heat by baring more skin than Cael felt entirely comfortable with (some of his neighbors even went so far as to wear kilts, but those still felt far too close to skirts to even consider), and by doing most of their business before noon and after sundown. Cael mostly made do in loose trousers and a pair of worn sandals. Îd, by contrast, was still in the same heavy leather duster he usually wore, goggles perched on top of his perfectly braided hair, gloves up to his elbows.

He wasn’t even sweating.

It was disgusting.

“Y'never show up after work hours with booze,” Cael pointed out, matter-of-factly, “Unless y'want somethin'.”

Îd opened his mouth to continue his protest – and then closed it with an audible click of his perfectly straight teeth. “Alright, fine,” he admitted, spreading his arms in a swish of gold-trimmed suede. “You've got me. I have ulterior motives. Can we talk?” He made as if to brush past Cael, sending that old, familiar shiver of proximity-induced-panic up his spine. So he half-slammed the door on him, backing further into his apartment.

“No.”

Îd frowned.

Don’t antagonize him, Cael's conscience piped up, You still owe this month's rent.

“I mean, yes. Yes. I don’t know, I guess. But not 'ere.” The triumphant flash in Îd’s green eyes dimmed somewhat. Cael felt a tiny spark of satisfaction. “I need t'get dressed. Y'can explain over dinner, which y' are buying.” He shut the door the rest of the way with a satisfying slam, ignoring Îd’s squawk of protest.

[Inkfinger]

“You could have gone shirtless.” Îd said brightly as they made their way through the early-evening. The streets were starting to come alive now, conversation filling the air with bright chatter, like so many birds back home in the springtime.

Cael rolled his eyes, tugging his tunic so the wrinkles smoothed out just a little more. “No, thank y'.”

Îd practically skipped in front of him, amber eyes glittering facetiously. “Scars are sexy, though! We could've had the whole district talking, me and you! Make half the girls jealous, gave the other half something to…think about….” He licked his lip, eying one of the girls tottering by now – dress too tight, already had two or three drinks too many. His lascivious glance turned to Cael, then, scanning him just as openly. “…mhm.”

“No thank y',” Cael repeated, still trying to ignore the slither that look sent up his spine after months. “You’re disgusting.”

“Square.” Îd spat out, his roving, honey-glaze gaze already flickering elsewhere.

“Pervert.”

Gold-plated incisors flashed in a predator’s grin. “Thank you.”

"Yeah, sure. Whatever."

[Inkfinger]

Îd’s favorite restaurant (and, Cael had to admit, it did have good food, even if the prices were out of his range) was a good twenty minute walk from Cael’s quarters. It was a simple looking establishment on the outside – one whitewashed building in a long row of identical structures, rambling down an unnamed alley. The door was made of thick glass that gleamed in the fire of the torches smoking; a portcullis of glittering blue that swung open the second Îd touched it.

The restaurant, like the alley, was unnamed. Cael had never bothered to ask how Îd knew of it, and Îd never offered. He simply basked in the cool air that wafted over him the moment he stepped through the door and into the quiet, dim interior, footsteps nearly silent on the rug-covered floor.

…and Îd still probably generated some talk, regardless, after he flirted his way through: the doorman, both bartenders, the maître d’, and a woman who was most certainly someone else’s escort for the night.

Cael ground his teeth as he dragged him further into the restaurant and away from each and every encounter, mumbling apologies; the last just in time to avoid getting his skull pounded full of metal. The elf flashed a blinding grin and waved a scrap of paper – he’d somehow acquired the woman’s address in ten seconds of interaction – before he stopped in his tracks, angular face set in an expression of feigned surprise.

“Nashyn! Koravel! Fancy meeting you here!”

…poorly-feigned surprise at that.

Cael turned slowly, varicolored fingers still wrapped in Îd’s lapel, feeling rather like a schoolboy caught chucking things at the headmaster’s windows.

The large table nearest the wood-paneled wall was set for seven, but only four of the chairs were filled. Four elegant elves, three with the ethereal paleness and grace he associated with the Raeiran elves, one with animal charisma and inkdark skin of the Aleraran people. Not one of them looked at ease, or pleased to be there – nor pleased to see them, for that matter.

Possibly because you look like you’re seconds away from beating up their contact.

Cael, abruptly, felt rather under-dressed in his tunic and sandals, though once he let Îd guide him to his seat – disconcertingly, the middle of the table; wedged between Îd and the woman he’d called Nashyn, the one woman in the trio from Raeira – he realized their finery was more than a little worn, a look emphasized by its wearers. They all looked…weary. Fatigued.

Battle-worn.

“Cael Strandssen, allow me to introduce my….business partners,” Îd said as soon as they were seated. “This is Nashyn Olastin, the loveliest creature to pass between the gates of Istien’s hallowed walls-” the regal woman to his left bowed her head without lowering her eyes, glittering fire-green in her carved-marble face. Her hair was drawn back in a severe series of braids, tight to her head, and he could see needles of silver worked through them. Cael returned the gesture, feeling his stomach shift uneasily.

“Morgúron Koravel,” Îd continued, indicating the man directly across from Cael. He was stocky, for an elf, and his chestnut brown hair was pulled back in a network of braids even more intricate than Îd’s or Nashyn’s. He didn’t bow. He simply regarded Cael with about the same expression he would have used when looking at a mildly interesting insect, and the butterflies in Cael’s stomach broke formation.

Îd said business partners. These are warriors.

“Hwimmegil Kornin,” The last of the Raeirans looked young by elfin standards, which probably put him at merely twice Cael’s age. His auburn hair was pulled back in a simple, single braid, and his clothes were plain, black wool. He didn’t really meet Cael’s eyes as he was introduced, gaze flickering around the tavern.

“And, last but not least,” It took all of Cael’s history with Îd to recognize the slight hesitation in the usually upbeat elf’s voice. “This is the infamous Direstae Risigo.”

Direstae’s narrow lips twitched in a small smile before parting enough that Cael could see gold inlay on his white teeth. His voice was mild and deep. “You’re too kind, Îdhdaer.” The Aleraran elf turned towards Cael, and the inkmage tried not to stare. His short-cropped hair and his beard were pure white, almost blinding against the purple-black of his skin, but Cael’s eyes were drawn to the blindfold tied around his eyes. They were etched with the same symbols as marred his teeth, sewn in dark, bloody red. “He flatters me so, Caelric, you have no idea.”

“-aha.” Cael stammered, feeling – somehow – as if he’d been caught out for staring, barely registering that Îd hadn’t once called him his full name. Îd, who was ignoring his questioning, overwhelmed gaze as he signaled for the waiter. Jerk. “…Charmed to make your acquaintance?”

“Quite.” Direstae’s voice was dry as he turned from Cael, as effective a dismissal as any Cael had ever seen.

Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to mind.

[Inkfinger]

The conversation didn’t start until long after Cael and the elves had ordered and eaten. Cael ordered last, trying to gauge Îd’s anticipated generosity by what the elves were getting, but eventually gave up when Îd’s face had drained of most of its color by the second order. He tried not to get anything too expensive, in case his boss decided to take it off his next wages.

It’d be just like him, too.

Once the meals arrived, the elves ate as if they hadn’t eaten in days, weeks, even. He tried not to stare, feeling both vindicated and shamed when Îd watched as openly, equally agast. There was something unsettling at seeing any of the older races brought down to this level…

What, that of a mere mortal? Cael tried to keep the scorn from his thoughts as he ate his own meal, but the truth of the matter simply boiled down thus: the sight of the telltale traits of starvation evident in someone as calm, dignified and regal as Direstae or Morgúron was almost enough to steal his appetite.

Almost. He wasn’t that far removed from the memory or nigh-starvation to not eat a perfectly good meal – but it didn’t have much taste, and in later days he wouldn’t even remember what he ordered.

Direstae, the dark-skinned Drow, pushed his empty plate away when he was done and wiped his lips with the linen napkin delicately, as if he hadn’t just bolted his meal. As if he’d spent hours, eating as slowly and primly as most elves seemed wont to do. He broke the awkward silence with one simple, even-toned statement.

“We’re here about your hand.”

Cael’s fingers convulsed, cloudy grey against the white tablecloth, and he stood so abruptly that his chair almost toppled over into a passing waiter. He barely noticed the look the waiter gave him in return. He was too busy trying to meet Îd’s gaze. “I need t' talk t' my colleague.”


*

Îd followed readily when Cael pulled him off into a dim corner, far from listening ears – though the waitstaff kept giving them odd looks down the hall.

“Y' set me up!” he accused in a whisper, jabbing a finger at Îd’s narrow face. Îd just smiled, serenely.

“Yup.”

“Why?” Cael waved his hand, trying to ignore the spiderwebbing lines of dark grey against his skin. “We agreed, all my secrets are mine t' keep, not yours to give away!” Being able to wake up Salvar’s portals wasn’t exactly a common talent, not a talent he wanted to brag about. If the wrong person heard, he could be - would be - dragged back home and-

No.

Îd’s expression went cajoling. “Cael, babe,” He breezed right over Cael’s growled don’t call me that, don't ever call me that. “Don’t you want that promotion..?” He waved a long-fingered, perfectly-manicured hand down the hall, towards the door outside. “You could stay in Irrakam full time, go home to your little dear-heart every night?”

“You’re manipulatin' me,” Cael snarled, trying not to think of just how nice that would be; of finally not having to head back out into the desert every other day, of being able to stay in the security of the city’s walls, the safety of Skyler’s warm gaze. He could feel his resolve faltering. “Again. This is about y'still lookin' for a secretary, isn’t it?”

The elf hesitated a second too long. “…no! Of course not!”

“Îdhdaer.”

“Alright, yes. You’re the only one who can read my shorthand. I just want you to hear them out, alright?” Amber eyes went pleading, like a puppy’s, as his tone slid to nearly begging. “Please? They’ve come a long way. You can see that.”

That was the problem. Cael could, in their worn finery and the tired set to their shoulders. He sighed, scruffing his hand through his short hair, and nodded. “Alright. Ok. I’ll…I’ll at least listen t'what they want…” He drew himself to his full height, a good three inches over the elf's head, trying to glare intimidatingly. "If I don't like it, I'm not goin', they mention Salvar an' I'm out of 'ere, but...I'll 'ear them out."

“Good!” Îd crowed, grabbing Cael’s wrist and dragging him back down the hall with a force that made Cael doubt that his disclaimers had even been heard.


*

The candles guttered on the table, casting ominous shadows off the wine glasses and tankards of water that still littered the surface, though the staff had cleared away the dishes in their absence. Cael leaned back in his chair as Nashyn detailed the circumstances that brought her and her companions to Fallien, seeking him out.

Some of it, he knew, bits and pieces of hearsay and rumor he’d picked up since his own desperate jailbreak: famine and undead hordes, sieges and monsters the like the world had not seen in centuries. Others, however, were new: cities reshaped, forests ruined. Families destroyed. There was a rising sound - not quite tears but close - in the elfin woman’s musical voice.

“The war has left our people scattered, scared, scarred and, to an extent, isolated.” Nice continuation of the alliteration, Cael thought absently in the beat and breath of silence that followed. Nashyn spoke again, green eyes narrowed, and her tone had shifted to something near anger, still rising. “Our lands are…beyond ravaged, if not completely defiled, and, and, and-”

Direstae cut her off smoothly, heading off what seemed to be an old, worn tirade, his measured baritone pulling the conversation back to level ground. “And we thought it beneficial to, perhaps, create a shortcut.”

“That,” Îd piped up, incongruously cheerful against the backdrop of war, death and unlife, “is where you come in!” He reached out to tap the back of Cael’s hand, right where the strange mark from the Portal’s control amulet still showed against his skin.

Cael shook his head, running his hand through his hair again. “I understand, really I do, but…this,” he lifted his discolored hand, wiggling the fingers. Some days, he swore he could still feel the amulet beneath his skin, between his bones. “This only works in Salvar.” He was not going back to Salvar. The thought of the cold wind curling around his ink-damp fingers, the sensation of coarse rope tightening around his windpipe – he shook off his own imagination.

“There aren’t portals in Raeira. I checked.” He had been able to feel every portal in the network when he used them: a glittering chain, connected by voices he couldn’t really hear and didn’t want to understand, babbling until distance or the Magicide clamps silenced the words. “I know each and every of the forty, and-”

“Forty-one,” Direstae interrupted. Cael stuttered to a stop, gaze flickering to those hidden eyes. On a human, that blindfold would have meant blindness, but he had the uncomfortable sensation that the Drow was seeing more clearly than he could comprehend.

“Excuse me?”

“Forty-one. There are two in Knife’s Edge,” The Drow paused, head tilted, when Cael flinched, fingers clenching involuntarily. “Yes, you’re somewhat intimately aware of those, no?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “There’s one in Kingsport, one in…”

Direstae listed each and every portal, Cael keeping track in his head, his eyebrows slowly climbing towards his hairline despite himself. I don’t think even I could name them all…and I can’t help but know where they all are!

“And,” Direstae finished, “one in Heivernok, correct?”

Cael nodded, reluctantly, with a muttered “Yes.”

The Drow continued, “There is one more. Think.” Cael tried not to slouch in his seat, tried not to indicate in any way that the man was getting to him, but in truth, he could feel the edges of his brain starting to ache with the effort, and the other three elves were staring as he thought. Direstae’s arm shot out suddenly, hand clamped down on his wrist, hard, and Cael couldn’t hold back the startled yelp, arm pinned to the table-top.

“I said think!”

“Alright, just let go.”

Direstae did, and sat back. Cael shot Îd a poisonous look before he closed his eyes, letting his mind slide into areas it hadn’t touched in months, hadn’t ventured into since the Salvic Civil War ended. He could still hear the song, connecting each gateway to the next, fogging his ears against the real sounds of silverware and clattering porcelain, conversations, drinks being poured. It was high-pitched, keening, and it reminded him strongly of stars, in a way he couldn’t pin down in words.

It was faint, here, a phantom memory from hundred of miles away, and thus it held none of the siren tone that could lock him in place, wash over his mind when he tried this in Salvar. He could still send his thoughts from note to note, point to point to…

For one abrupt second the remembered song became a scream deeper than the singers and edged with the sensation of too-many-eyes. It only lasted a second before he felt water splash his face, shoot up his nose. His eyes snapped open, and he released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

The Drow smirked at him as he set the now empty tankard on the table.

“You’re talking about the Vin Dargriff Gate, aren’t y'?” Something that may have been surprise flickered across Direstae’s face, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. Cael barreled on, making sure he took the time to meet each elf’s gaze in turn. “That isn’t a part of the network. People never used it, and we sure as all hells didn’t build it.”

“And what, Caelric” Nasyhn said over his shoulder with a strange, musical calm, “makes you so sure your people built the ones you do use?”

She had a point. There were factions within the Church that didn’t think the Sway put the network of marble gateways into place, that it was something even older that brought them to life, spanned the distances across the continent. But those portals - cool and calm and clean - were a far cry from the Vin Dargriff Gate and its wild, feral feel, its obsidian and green sides and the carved, bloody eyes. The Vin Dargriff Gate was a thing of nightmares to scare children and people with too much imagination.

Regardless-

“I still don’t see how y' consider that useful, though!” he argued. “The Vin Dargriff Gate is in Salvar, it can’t be used…” Though now he wasn’t sure. Now, his mind was already working out a path that would exit through that gate – and even now, here, Cael knew it would work. The thought made him feel sick, though he couldn’t explain why. His argument shifted with the realization.

“…and there are people who are so, so much better at this than me. Viktor Janda,” though it hurt to say the name, to admit that the petty-minded bookkeeper with the wandering hands was better than him at something. He racked his brain for the others he knew. “Pietr Rachm, or…uh. There’s Jagin Oldeyes, she-”

Nasyhn interrupted him, again as smooth as silk. “They’ve disappeared.”

That drew him up short. “What?”

Morgúron nodded from across the table. “Vanished. All of them, in the weeks after your Cathedral was destroyed.”

“…but…”

“The Vin Dargriff Gate is not the only such doorway,” Direstae pointed out. Cael couldn’t help but sigh.

“I know that, everyone knows that!”

Direstae didn’t even act like he’d heard. “There are similar portals in Concordia, deep in the forest; in Corone, in Alerar and one in….”

“…Eluriand. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Cael's hands -scarred, inkstained, branded and shaking - closed on his half-empty water tankard. This is insane. The answer, now that they’d worked their way through the runaround, was blindingly obvious. “You want instantaneous travel between Salvar and Raiera.”

Nasyhn nodded, something like relief flickering behind the blue of her eyes. “And Corone eventually.” She sighed, fingers playing with the ends of her braids. “It takes longer than we can manage to get food in as it is. We have children to think of, some regions, innocents...”

He was fine, until she pulled that card; half-convinced it would be a wild goose chase and that he could convince them of that fact; that he’d be able to send them on their way with the assurance that it wouldn’t work, but…

He swallowed memories, shoved out the idea of toppling through the gate and right into the hangman’s open arms, open noose. This is a bad idea. This is such a bad idea, this…why is Îd doing this to me? How did I manage to piss him off this time?

“We’re hoping,” Hwimmegil was saying when Cael managed to drag his overactive imagination back from the brink of panic, “We’ll be able to, with the Alerarans’ help of course, reverse engineer the technology and the magic, create a wider network…”

And the last missing piece of the puzzle snapped into place with a loud, final click. Cael schooled the shivers from his hands, the half a thousand disasters from his imagination, and turned suspicious eyes on Îd.

“You want them to build one here.”

Îd looked at him as if it should have been the most apparent answer in the history of conversations. “Well…yes?”

Starving children. Countries in disarray. Instant travel between the most remote places on the planet, without the rates or discomforts of a ship. Cael clenched his hand, and let out a sigh.

“When we get back? I want my own office.”

“Deal.”

[Inkfinger]

II.
[48 hours ago]

The journey – ship, and then days of walking – had been as uneventful as they could have possibly wished. Just…walking, walking and more walking, across plain and through forest and dale. The signs of war were everywhere – scorched earth, ruined villages, abandoned towers, and the occasional skeletons that looked like nothing Cael had ever seen outside of nightmares.

But it had ended days ago now. It had been nearly three weeks since the meeting in Irrakam, days spent in a blur of dry travel, until he was actually looking forward to the city.

Cael had never been to Eluriand in his life, though his master-scribe (when he’d been no more than a boy) had espoused it as the most civilized city in the known world, a center of knowledge and culture surpassed by none and imitated by all. He had always made it sound like an island of civility in the maelstrom of unwashed mortality –

Cael had, to be honest, expected something far grander, something far finer, something…much bigger.

“How very like a human,” Îd had sniffed when Cael said as much, far from Nashyn’s ever-sharp ears. “Size isn’t everything, you know.” The naughty grin that accompanied the double entendre, however, seemed strained.

He’s shaken, Cael had realized as they approached the city. This was his home…. He had tried to imagine Knife’s Edge without the Cathedral, as it must be now…

Good riddance.

But obviously, by the look in Îd’s eyes, whatever had driven him from his home was a far cry from what Cael had experienced. The holes in the massive walls, the burned girders and broken towers of the city had to be disconcerting, disturbing.

He’d tried to be sympathetic the rest of the way through the city.

And that, honestly, had Cael worried.


*

One night of sleep in an actual bed (though it smelled like mildew) had felt like heaven after a year of Fallien mats and weeks of a bedroll, but his sleep had been filled with strange dreams. Nothing especially prophetic, but enough that he’d woken up before the sun rose above the horizon, rolled out of bed, lit a candle, and splashed three colors of ink of a strip of parchment, whispering:

“Will this work?”

The ink blotches, after a half hour of sitting there with his palms going raspberry and green, were inconclusive. They seemed to change, depending on how he turned the paper. One way, they looked like sun rays: optimism, positive change, and…he consulted his book again. The pages had flipped to the next spell, and he growled, frustrated. “Îd?”

The elf didn’t stir. He just snored on, head buried beneath his pillow on the other side of the dormitory room.

“Îd!”

Nothing. Well, not entirely accurate. He rolled over, wrapping himself more fully in the blanket, burrowing further under the pillow. The snoring faded, but only because it was being suffocated by bedding.

Cael sighed, and turned the page, trying to ignore the new ink stains appearing on the edges of the paper.

Sunrays. Optimism, positive change, upward motion. That wasn’t too bad, after all. But if he spun it the other way, they were flames rising from a jagged smear that looked like a mouth. Flames were the opposite of the sun rays: negative change. Downward motion. Chaos. But...the smears at the edge of the page's opposite end looked darker. He frowned at the parchment once more, and spun it so the ink looked more like rays, the stronger stains towards the top where he was pretty sure they belonged.

We’ll assume the best.

He stood, wincing at the cracking sounds his back made, and padded across the small room to grab a cloth from the basin of water on the bedside table. The green came off easily enough, but the raspberry red had already sunk into his palms. He grumbled, sitting down on the edge of the bed to scrub at the ink irritably.

He was still scrubbing ten minutes later when someone knocked on the door. That sound had Îd awake in five seconds flat, diving off the other side of the narrow cot and mumbling something not entire comprehensible about his hair. Cael shook his head, dropping the cloth in the bowl of water.

“It’s open.”

The door creaked, and Hwimmegil stuck his head into the room. “You ready?” He asked, brown eyes hopeful. The young elf had changed on their journey home, becoming more and more talkative and animated the closer they were to his home. It was a better attitude for him than the subservient silence of the restaurant. Certainly more likable – though the question didn’t make Cael any more comfortable. He glanced out the window – it was still grey outside, though he could see the rosy tint of the sun starting to rise over the nearest wall.

I thought I would have more time than this, at least?

“Now?” Îd asked for him, straightening up – the elf had somehow managed to get dressed and twist his braids back up in their neat rows while under the bed. “We’ve not even had breakfast yet…”

Hwimmegil shifted his feet, glancing at Cael somewhat awkwardly. “Direstae says,” he stammered out, “that he thinks Strandssen wouldn’t really want to eat before this.” He looked away for a second before he grinned, kind-of awkwardly. “I kind of agree.”

The statement completely failed to make the morning any more bearable. Cael nodded, regardless, and pulled his coat off the back of the chair. “Just…give me a moment.”

“Of course.” Hwimmegil gave him another, less-awkward smile, and stepped out the door. Îd followed him after a moment, with one reassuring glance. Cael rubbed his sweaty, reddish hands on his trousers and tried to calm his suddenly thudding heart.

Lev Reznik’s rank pins glittered in the coat’s lapels, dangling from the pockets and jangling reassuringly as Cael pulled it on, leaving it open to the cool air from outside. The weight of the fabric and the gleam of the metal was familiar, a reminder that sometimes things could go alright. Skyler had helped him win the coat. The rank might not belong to him, but the coat belonged to both of them, and the memory helped. He finally pulled the collar straight, his boots on, and padded for the door.

Just remember to breathe.

His boots clattered and echoed on the stairs as they followed Hwimmegil through the maze of halls. Despite the smoke smears on the walls and the torn and slashed tapestries, the dormitory still felt secure, as if it would survive another half-dozen wars. The heavy door that the young elf pushed aside still had a spearhead embedded above the door handle.

Maybe it will keep us safe. Cael thought as he followed the elves into the courtyard. The battered walls of the University towered over the open space, and Cael tried to shake off just how much it felt like they were closing in on him.

“Just think,” Hwemmingil said with a grin as they rounded the corner. He pushed aside a lighter gate, waving them ahead. “Few hours, this’ll all be done and you’ll be on your way back to Corone at speeds previously unknown to mankind.”

“Sure,” Cael agreed uneasily, looking around himself. The portal had been reconstructed outside, in one of the narrow inner courtyards. There were other elves there, atop the walls, staring down at them. At him. It felt like a cattle chute at a market. He swallowed his worry as they passed through the last small tunnel and into the courtyard. His steps faltered the moment he got his first look at the gate.

It was, like the monstrous Vin Dargriff Gate, taller than the portals Cael was used to. The church’s esoteric doorways were only a foot taller than his head, set in half-circles - more an arch than a formal gate. They were generally carved from pristine white marble, polished smooth and set with sapphires, aquamarines, anything that reflected the blue and white robes of the Priests of the Ethereal Sway. They looked clean. Cool. Aloof, somehow; tame things. They didn’t cause feelings until they were stepped into, and even then it was merely the strange (but harmless) sensation of being dust blown on a cosmic wind.

This…thing was the antithesis of those portals: easily ten feet tall, segmented and almost all sharp angles, knit at each intersection with a red substance that almost looked like sinew. It was, overall, the dingy, off-white of oft-used piano keys or old, worn bone; a weapon turned to art turned to a doorway. The black and orange symbols etched up this gate’s arch sent spiders of malaise up his back and down his throat that he bit back with a whimper.

“We found it,” Hwimmegil said, proudly, stepping to Cael’s elbow. “Out in the Black Desert, over years and years and years, scattered from one end to the other…most of our best scholars didn’t even know what it was at first.”

Maybe. Cael thought frantically, there was a good reason for that. Hwimmegil kept talking over the concerned looks Îd kept throwing Cael’s way.

“Then, oh, dunno. Hundred years ago, they found a text, showing something that looked an awful lot like this.” The elf looked up at the gate, something like fondness in his eyes. Cael couldn’t help but shudder – the gate was radiating something back at the young elf, something that felt like a cold hunger. “We put it back together the first year I came here, hasn’t even been twenty years now. Piece by piece, we rebuilt it…or most of it. The top bar, well...”

He waved a gloved hand at the gate, and Cael followed the wave. The top bar, when he looked closely, looked something like claws: lots of elongated claws, stretching down to grab at whoever passed beneath.

Whatever possessed them to think this was a good idea?

“We just found the top bar right after the war, actually. The cataclysm in Tembrethnil …” He’d heard of that, some, since his arrival. It was one of the incidents that made Nasyhn rage about defilement and sullying the very most, half hour tirades that had usually made him feel like apologizing for the sins of the entire human race. “It must have been buried there. The one good thing to come of that whole…tragic mess.”

None of this was making him feel better. Cael cast pleading eyes toward Îd, who just…pointedly did not meet his gaze. Again. Something about this felt just as skeevy to the other elf, he could tell. If anything, it was making him feel worse.

“If Direstae hadn’t been on the envoy that found it, it probably would have been destroyed…” There was true sorrow in Hwimmegil’s voice that seemed utterly disproportionate to the situation, and Cael took one last glance at the gateway. He didn’t think that would have been such a tragedy.

“And then there would have been no reason to bring you here!” Morgúron’s deep voice intruded, loud in comparison to Hwimmegil’s soft tones, and Cael jumped, spinning and taking a step back, further into the courtroom. The elf gave him a look of scorn, but…

I’d rather have you disgusted than have you at my back.

“And wouldn’t that just be a tragedy,” he murmured. Morgúron’s dark eyes flickered back at him with a startled smile. Morgúron, at least, he could understand – even if he was as intimidating as all hells combined.

“Exactly.” He shifted, the leather of his boots and his armor creaking in the sudden, awkward silence. His broad hand rested on the hilt of his sword as he looked at Hwimmegil expectantly. “Everyone is in place, Megil. They’re just waiting for him.”

In…place? He thought back to the elves lining the walls. Watching. Reluctantly, he lifted his gaze –

The wall tops bristled with arrows, two dozen bows pulled taut, all aimed at him. He could practically hear the strings vibrating with the strain of being drawn, the resonating creaks of oak and yew.

“Î- Îd-Îdhdaer?”

“I see them,” Îd breathed, practically in his ear, but the shudder that lanced through him this time had nothing to do with the elf’s closeness, and everything to do with the promise of instant death that circled him. He shoved past Cael, gold-toned leather nearly blocking Cael’s view of the courtyard, though he could still feel the archers’ eyes between his shoulder blades. “Morgúron, seriously, what the fuck?”

“Watch your tongue, brat,” Morgúron growled back. “You left. You’ve no idea what it’s been like, no idea what’s rampaged through here. If anything goes wrong-”

“Not” Hwimmegil interjected, eyes flickering from Morgúron to Îd to the archers again, “that we think anything will, they’re just a precaution-”

“Your boy there would get off easy looking like a pincushion. He’d be the lucky one.”

Cael opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to say, but knowing he had to say something. Îd stepped backwards, treading lightly on his toes, and Cael let his mouth snap shut again.

“Really.” Îd’s voice was the closest to dead that Cael had ever heard it. “The lucky one.” Morgúron nodded. “What if we are…no longer interested in your offer? Just supposing?”

Morgúron’s mouth twitched. “That’d be a problem.” He said, voice light, though the look in his eyes was as dark as the feeling curling in Cael’s stomach. “We can’t exactly…well, there’s quite a few people out there, on quite a few continents, who would have a way in here now.” Corone. Salvar. An open doorway into this symbolic city. Cael felt his stomach clench, though the words were just confirming what his heart already knew. “He’s not that long from a prison cell, it’d feel just like going home, and eventually…eventually he’d give in.” The elf shrugged, meeting Cael’s eyes over Îd’s shoulder. “Nothing personal, you understand.”

That’s what makes it worse. I do.

“It’s your choice,” Hwimmegil piped up. Îd, Morgúron and Cael all looked at him with the same expression, and the elf subsided, lapsing back into silence as Cael reached out to take Îd’s shoulder, move him out of the way.

“Alright.” The air felt greasy on his skin, slimy between his fingers and teeth. “I’ll do it.”

Morgúron smiled, tightly. “I knew you’d see reason.” He waved towards the gate. “Let’s get this over with.”

There were intricate circles of binding worked into the brown-grey pavement of the courtyard. They spread around the bone and metal of the portal, six rings, interlocking and interwoven, miles beyond anything he’d be able to construct, even if given ten hours and step-by-step instructions. Not everyone thought this venture was as wonderful as Hwemmegil, apparently, because Cael could feel them hissing and fizzling beneath his feet as he carefully walked over them. Barely contained power, so strong even he could feel it, taste it stronger here like strawberry and salt and ash on the sides of his mouth.

He stopped inside the last circle, boots crunching against the dust grass, regarding the portal. It felt worse up close, cold and sick and lustful, and he didn’t want to touch it. It was watching him. It was laughing at him.

But no matter where he looked, there was no visible way out. Just rings of arrows, heavy walls, nets of magic, and the portal itself. Even the golden glow of the finally risen sun couldn't burn the chill from his bones as he circled the living doorway.

What I wouldn’t give for Magicide right now. Normally, the thought of the magic-killing metal made him as nauseated as any practitioner, but it would be worth losing the warmth of his skills if it would sap the cold from this thing before him.

There was a panel set into the furthest side of the portal, a flat rectangle of pure white, obvious against the dirty tint of the rest of the gate. Cael flexed his fingers, eying it with some suspicion before he reached out, gingerly. It had the texture of plaster, and snagged his fingertips when he brushed them against it.

Nothing happened.

He could feel Hwimmegil’s held breath, Morgúron’s watchful eyes on him. He looked back towards them, caught what looked like a glance of reassurance pass over Îd’s face. Direstae stood behind them now, his blindfold firmly in place. The Drow had told him on the journey back that, maybe, he would explain what had put that blinder on him, what the sigils meant, if everything worked out.

Make him keep his promise.

“Stop stalling, Caelric!” Direstae’s voice, slightly mocking, rose above the ambient sounds of the courtyard. Cael took a deep breath, painfully aware of eyes on him, of two dozen arrows ready for his ribs, his skull, his throat. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and pressed his hand flat against the panel.

The pain and the song – a screaming, bone deep wail that vibrated like a hive of bees between his teeth – tore through him in the worst way possible, peeling his eyes back open as red light shot between his fingers, sliding and shimmering beneath the surface of the panel. It was hot, and it burned and stung his fingers the moment it crossed them, but he couldn’t even register that pain on top of the one coursing through his veins, between his ears and beneath his tongue. He couldn’t pull his hand away, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move.

He could hear shouting, his name, orders, but none of it registered. He dimly felt his knees give out, dimly felt the chalkboard press of the stone and dust against his knees, palm sealed to the panel with a force that felt like a hand of steel was pressing his down. He forced himself to look back at the portal, teeth grinding –

Red light was collecting along the inside edges, dancing on the outer edges, spreading out in all directions until it passed over the entire courtyard (unimpressed by the circles of protection on the ground), through the walls, over and between his would-be assassins; breaking into lines that passed one after another through and across everything he could see. It shot from the portal straight into the spring-blue, early-morning sky, a bloody-bright beam –

And everything stopped the second Îd’s hands closed around his wrist, jerked his hand free of the panel. The clean, natural sunlight bleached the slick, moldering blood sensation from the courtyard. The lights in the symbols flickered out, one by one –

And a sharp, twanging hiss split the air.

Îd shoved him flat on his face just in time to avoid the arrow that would have pierced his skull. The elf spun on his heel, amber eyes flashing dangerously, duster flapping behind him as he stormed towards the archers. Cael just lay sprawled and dazed on the pavement, staring at his stinging fingers.

They had gone black.

Not the dark, natural tones some Falliens and Scarabreans had, nor the almost violet of the Drow, but the same viscous shade as the ink in his regular inkwell. The blackness marched up his arm in an almost geometric pattern of bars and gaps, finally tapering off at his elbow. And it burned, every bit as badly as it had when the old activation talisman – the one that had brought him to this situation in the first place – had been shoved into his skin.

He tried not to whimper as he worked his way to his knees, dimly aware of Îd’s returning footsteps. He looked up at the elf, hands spread, voice small and hoarse though he didn’t remember screaming.

“I…don’t think it worked.”

“No, really?”

[Inkfinger]

They’d been – or he’d been and Îd had chose to accompany him – sequestered in the University’s High Library while the other elves investigated the city thoroughly. Morgúron warned them that could take hours. Despite the city’s relative desertion, there were still pockets of holdouts: the civilians unable to make it out for any reason, those stubborn few who were convinced that any day now everything would go back to normal…groups of looters, armed and convinced that the city still held unimaginable treasures. Granted, it probably did, but riches were the furthest thing from Cael’s mind at the moment.

The Library simply felt like books, the strange heavy sensation that hovered in the air, the muffled tones of every noise, the scent of leather and onion paper combining as the unmistakable. Years ago, Cael probably would have given his left arm to get in this place – the shelves that lined the walls and filled the space between them were ceiling high and crammed full of every subject from Alchemy to Zoology and everything in between. Some of the books were chained to their shelves, and even he – with his weak mage-sight – could see the magicks seeping off of them.

They seemed to sizzle when they struck his blackened arm, evaporate like medicinal alcohol rubbed on the skin.

And that would be unsettling alone.

The markings marching across his flesh now were easy enough to recognize once the initial shock wore off and the choking panic had faded. Sideways Demonic, the language every Salvic apprentice wanted to learn on account of the Priests being so dead set against its very existence.

“I can’t believe this.”

Three hours in the Library with a cup of something that passed for tea and (more importantly) no more arrows aimed at him may have soothed his nerves a bit, but not enough that the symbols curling around his arm seemed natural. The card catalog had vibrated when he touched it, as if it was contemplating exploding.

And now it seemed that that was for naught. The shelf, set deep in the languages section of the library, was as bare as the University’s larder. Îd hopped off the step-stool with a shrug.

“Well, believe it.”

Cael rubbed his eyes before he looked back at the shelf. It was still empty. Looking around the whole library, he was only slightly gratified to see that the shelf before him wasn’t the only place with conspicuously large gaps.

Some looters don’t live on the outskirts.

“Why would someone take all the books, though?” He finally said, rubbing absently at the still-tingling skin. “It’s an obsolete language, and a dangerous one at that!”

“Wow!” Îd made a noise like a carnival barker announcing a winner, voice dripping with sarcasm as he disappeared around the corner into the next row of shelves. “Give the man a prize!”

The door creaked, beyond the wasteland of towering shelves. “You two sound like an old married couple from outside,” Nasyhn’s voice echoed through the Library. “Just thought you should know.”

Cael shuddered. “Gods. That is not the sort of thing I want to hear right now.”

The sound of her footsteps echoed hollowly down the stacks, ringing off the high ceiling. When the elf woman finally appeared at the end of the row, she had sarcasm in her eyes and a thin, tense smile on her face. “So, what does it say?”

“How should we know?” Cael tried not to snarl, knowing what her appearance meant. They were done checking the city. Morgúron and his men could show up at any time, force him back to that wicked gateway, or worse. “Someone’s done a runner with all your books on Sideways languages, or Demonic in general...”

“Except this one.” Îd hurried back to them, holding a narrow, leather-bound book. Cael took it, gingerly, feeling the edges of his fingers sizzle with the anti-dust charms layered into the cover. He turned it so he could read the spine.

“The Nature of Punctuation?”

Nashyn’s smile didn’t falter. “Fascinating.”

“Ooh, let me see!” Îd stole the book back, flipping through the pages. He kept looking from the page to Cael’s arm and back again. Cael tried to ignore him, focusing on Nashyn instead.

“So,” he forced himself to say, forced his fingers to stay uncurled, “What have they found?”

He hadn’t wanted to think of why he was being pushed away, kept on campus, but he’d heard Morgúron’s cursing as clearly as anyone. Who knew what havoc that red light had done, what chaos he might have been forced to unleash?

“It…doesn’t seem to have done anything,” the woman said, solemnly, and Cael breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the knot in his throat loosen. “We made it to all five outer walls, nothings changed…though,” she paused, long enough that the knot made a valiant attempt to reappear, “we spoke to one of the wall patrols, they said the light made it as far as them, even went through the walls…” The inherent wrong-ness of that idea still sent chills up his spine, and he’d seen it himself. “Most of them, ah. Most of us think your friend managed to shut if off before it could finish...whatever it was doing, thank the Pantheon.”

How about thank Îd?

“Anyway. I came to see if you felt like eating.”

Cael thought about the dry travel rations, the hard bread and preserved meat, and his still-tense stomach seemed to twitch in protest. The tension that was slowly fading from his shoulders, though, now that the main reason for the trip had been tried (even if it had failed) left him feeling loose and clumsy, as if the worry of the last few weeks had been demanding the lion’s share of his attention and mind since they’d left the city. He could feel his eyelids flickering.

“Almost think,” he said in return, “I should be thinkin’ about sleepin’.”

“We could manage that,” Nashyn agreed. “Let me get you back to your room.”

The maze of corridors back to the dormitories were still as incomprehensible as they had been at dawn. Cael followed Nashyn blindly, listening to Îd babble his way through the book. “This is a transliteration, Cael!”

“Wonderful?” Nashyn turned a corner, and they followed, as the ruined tapestries on the walls began to look more familiar. Cael thought longingly of the bed, of not having eyes on him for the foreseeable future.

Îd kept talking. “No, that’s good, see, it means that in addition to finding out what the book says, we can figure out which symbol means what…”

Cael tried not to sigh as Nashyn swung open a door and their room came into focus. “I know what transliteration means, Îd. Scribe, remember? Seventeen years experience?” The elf-woman snorted a laugh, though it was a far more elegant sound from her than it would have been from anyone else. “Thank you, Nashyn.”

“My pleasure. I’m just sorry we brought you here for nothing,” the elf lied, smoothly, and the relief kept Cael from caring too much about the falsehood. “You rest, we’ll see about working out the particulars of your journey home tomorrow.” She bowed her way out, shutting the door as she did, leaving Cael alone with the still-rambling Îd.

“I know there’s a full stop in there somewhere, and….this here, it’s about the equivalent of a colon.” Îd poked a finger at a symbol near Cael’s elbow as Cael made his weary way to his cot, “I think this is a D. See, it’s on the cover…”

Cael looked at his arm, looked at the cover, and sighed. “That’s the end of the word. You’re reading it the wrong way. The author’s Kirenoc bin’Faznic, so…that’s a C. The colon’s in front of it.” He snagged the ruined piece of soothsaying parchment from the table before he flopped on the bed, sketching the symbols from his arm onto it with the ink left on the pen nib. He held it up. “Colon, C. Looks like this.” :C. “See?”

Îd frowned at the parchment, tilting his head “Does that look like a face to you? Because it looks like a face to me…” He looked back at the book as Cael tilted the parchment.

It does look like a face. A frowning face. What in all nine hells.

“….brilliant,” he sighed, falling back on the bed, his non-ruined arm thrown over his eyes. He cracked one eye open, verified that the reassuring length of his naginata, blade still sheathed, leaned against the headboard before he let his eyes drift closed again. “Wake me up if you make any decent discoveries."

“Sure thing, Cael.” Îd said, distractedly. If he said anything else, Cael was too soundly asleep to hear it.