The Devil's Courier

[Ashiakin]

((This is one of the threads of the Fallien FQ. It’s for me and Darion, but I suppose if someone else wants to join in, they can feel free. Keep in mind that we’re going to be working with the Cult of the Sun, however.))

Fire blossomed in the market stall like a desert rose, virulent petals of flame bursting across the drab ochre and white of the cityscape. The street burned. A cadre of crossbowmen, one of the groups of Jya’s militia, had taken refuge behind the stall from a group of elementalists affiliated with the Cult of the Sun. The bow-wielders now scattered from their makeshift barrier, leaving three dead in their wake, corpses gently smoldering under the watch of Fallien’s sun. Spouts of flame leapt out from the robed cultists hands and chased after them as they ran.

The smells of Irrakam’s market, the roasting meat, the spices, the animal dung, now mingled with that of burning flesh, charred wood. A chill wind swept down the street, carrying these smells and something else, something colder… One of the cultists stopped and cast back the hood of her undyed woolen robe. The others chased one of the militia into an alley, silencing his screams by slicing his throat with a curved ritual knife even as his final bolt caught one of them in the eye, sending him tumbling back onto the road trailing a gout of blood. The one that had stopped, though, she gazed around with a discreet glare. And Ashiakin ducked into a vacant building to avoid being seen.

It was not that he was against the cultists, far from it. He had been sent as an envoy to—as quietly as possibly—let the Cult know that if it was able to take the city, Salvar would support its coup monetarily and provide mercenaries to sweep the countryside free of any of Jya’s loyalists. That did not mean he could travel the streets freely. It was impossible to be neutral in a war zone. This was why his long strands of white hair had been dyed a deep black and his pale skin painted olive with a thin paste of leaves and oils he had purchased in the market. He was even dressed in poor, ragged garments—clothes that said, “Look the other way, I have nothing.” As there was indeed nothing on him identifying him as an agent of Salvar (there could not be, as this deal he was proposing did not legally exist.) So it would be torture and death at the hands of the militia or torture and death at the hands of the Cult of the Sun if he were caught. Having a regime in Fallien more sympathetic to Salvar’s economic interests mattered to Ashiakin, but it was not a thing he would risk his life over. This was why he needed an intermediary to deliver his government’s message. Someone that he or Salvar would not cry for if lost.

Ashiakin strode over to the deserted building’s window and looked outside. Most of the cultists were now dead. They had been a small group that had broken past the front line. A militia patrol had found them, made short work of them. The lone survivor—the one that had nearly seen him—was on the ground, screaming as one of the captains removed her fingers with a bone saw and shouted questions at her. Ashiakin turned away, slumped down against the wall and let out a slow breath. Where the hell is that contact? he wondered. The government said he was reliable. If he’s fallen victim to… to that, I don’t know how I’ll get out of this godsforsaken city.

Compared with what was going on just outside his door, this room was so empty. Its empty wooden table, stone tools overturned in the escape of its previous occupants, cabinets long since raided by the militia or someone else. Ashiakin played with his fingers nervously where he sat. The woman outside screamed as the militia captain drove his saber through her chest. But the room, the room was empty, and this made him smile.

[Darion]

He is tall and thin, usually very pale with white hair, however it is likely he will disguise himself in someway. The extent of change is unknown. He will be in Irrakam near the market area. Your best bet is to find the clients and look for stragglers or watchers, but whatever you do, don’t ask for him by name.

At the time, and under the golden influence, Darion hadn’t thought to ask any more. Finding one guy out of the multitude that dwelt in the city was difficult enough, but one guy that was deliberately trying not to be found, that was near impossible. It was worse now that the attack was under way, people fled from either side of the conflict, and confusion and chaos ruled the streets.

His mission so far was simple, find the man. After that, he would receive further instruction, and everything would go smoother. So far, he’d been following the cultists and picking out other individuals he’d also found lingering about, but no successes. One militia operative, two corpse robbers, and one filthy pick-pocketing wench that’d bitten him during his questioning. He flexed his bandaged hand impulsively, they hadn’t told him much, but the more he took out the closer he was getting.

The wealth of buildings with broken windows and splintered doors made it easy enough to hide while the Fallien factions bled each other in minor skirmishes, Darion darted between the doors easily enough and managed to follow a group of the sun cultists as they broke past the front lines. They were called something else, but they had suns colored onto their clothes and the Irrakam guards were always searching for “the cult”, so most of the travelers including Darion had taken them to calling them as such.

Trailing the sun cultists, Darion took in details while they blasted away at a huddle of crossbowmen, and there was much to take notice. Even in the shade of buildings, the heat was nearly unbearable and suffocating, so when a breeze made him shiver, it was a feeling to relish and take note of. It lasted only a moment, but it raised his hopes dramatically. He wasn’t the only one either, it stopped one of the cultists in the middle of battle as a bolt flew past her hood, but she wasn’t quick enough in turning. His cold grey eyes traced the path and arrived first, a shade vanishing into a building. It could have been just heat radiating off the hard dirt road, but it was worth checking out. Waiting as the last scream stopped and the militia dragged the bodies off, Darion crept up the street hugging the walls until he reached the doorway and slipped inside.

“Are you the man?”

[Ashiakin]

Ashiakin tensed as he heard the door creak open, summoned chill magical energy to his fingertips and prepared to release it at a rumor of violence. Even when the newcomer made no such move, he did not relax. He merely pulled the hood of his ragged garments up as to hide his face in the shadows. It was best that the courier was not able to give a good description of him in case he was captured and interrogated. The words the man spoke set the demon more at ease. Simple as they were, they were code words that the king had told him the courier would use. Now let’s hope that he’s not militia. They could have picked up the real courier and gotten those words out of him, he thought.

Carefully and slowly, as to show that he meant the man no harm, Ashiakin rose to his feet and turned to look out the window. The street was empty. The militia had cleared the street of bodies and all that remained were scattered pools of blood in the dust, charred pieces of wood from the ruined merchant’s stall. This is crazy, he thought. Surely His Majesty has better things for me to do than traipse around in a war zone in a beggar’s garb. All Ashiakin knew was that he was leaving Fallien as soon as possible.

“Yes,” he said, not turning around. “I would like you to deliver an invitation to a friend of mine, a priest.” This was the second half of the coded phrase. If the man was really the courier, he would recognize it. “The invitation is in a small house of red clay bricks seven blocks west of here. Its doorway is marked with the letters ‘IR’ in the top left corner. Within the house, you will find a single fireplace. One of the bricks pulls away to reveal a secret compartment. Here you will find a wooden box containing the invitation and direction to the priest’s house. I hope I do not need to stress that this is a highly exclusive party he is being invited to and it would be unfortunate if anyone else were to learn of its existence.” He paused for a second, peering cautiously down the street outside both ways. “Do you have any questions about this task?”

There was a scuttling of feet in the back of the room. “Oh, he may,” said a voice doing its best to keep level, “but I think my questions will be more important.”

The voice made Ashiakin freeze. It was not the voice of his courier and the noise in the back of the house had suggested that he had not checked it thoroughly enough—someone else had been waiting in here with him. Ashiakin turned slowly to see the third figure that had entered the room. He was militia, chain-mail and cloth armor, short brown hair and skin like leather. He was young, though, inexperienced, likely scared by what he had seen today. There was nervousness in his voice, in the way he hefted his crossbow. “I’ll be needing to see both of your papers,” he said, swiveling his weapon to indicate this.

Shit! thought Ashiakin. I can’t believe he was hiding back there… I looked this place over so carefully. It was supposed to be safe. Ashiakin presented a calm façade and only glanced momentarily at the courier to see how he was reacting. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” he said coolly, flexing his fingers, coaxing the magic energy that he could release at a moment’s notice. “What sort of papers do you need?”

“Your exit passes,” said the guard, voice cracking. “Come now… Both of you.”

[Darion]

So, he was indeed the man. Not exactly what he had suspected, but it made sense in hindsight. When, out of the shadows, emerged a man clad in mail with a crossbow, Darion cursed himself for not noticing sooner. The chainmail was cool against his own flesh, hidden underneath a breezy grey shirt, but it would be as good as paper against a crossbow at such close range.

“My papers…Let’s see here…”

Darion began to search his pants and shirts for pockets, patting himself down as he bought time while energy gathered in his hand. The spell was a simple one, reliable and effective but still he tensed as the energy gathered. The armed man was getting jumpy, he stank of fear, it was written all over his face as his eyes darted between the two uncertain of which one to watch. Finished gathering energy, he presented his hands as though he’d come up short on exit passes, and flung slithery metallic liquid.

Within seconds the armed man was on the ground writhing in agony and screaming. His fingers raked over his face and tore at his soft flesh as he tried to get the substance off, but he couldn’t, and the more he tried the more spread to his hands and the worse off he became. His violent spasms sent the crossbow skidding across the ground until Darion bent and plucked it from the floor, letting it hang idly from his side.

The acid was evaporated quickly, but by then the damage had been done and the man lay on the ground sobbing quietly, his pain wracked body shuddering with each heaving breath as his hands clung to his face. “Let’s see the damage then.” Darion strode over to the man quickly and struggled for a second to move his hands out of the way before striking him with the crossbow.

“His eyes are gone, so he won’t be pointing fingers later, but the choice is yours. Leave the man to suffer, or…mercy.” The tip of the quarrel clicked against the steel of chain as Darion let the weapon’s weight press against the man’s chest, his finger calmly pressuring the trigger.

[Ashiakin]

Ashiakin merely bit his lip when the courier unleashed some sort of acid on the militiaman's face, tasting the chalky substance he had painted over them with so they would appear pink. He watched impassively as the man walked over to the wailing soldier and retrieved his crossbow. This could have been handled better, he thought, but the situation is still salvageable. Ignoring the courier’s question about the guard’s fate for the moment, Ashiakin once more looked out the window to make sure that the militia patrol had not returned. Their wounded comrade was screaming so loudly that other soldiers in the area would hear him from a block away.

With an easy gait, he walked over toward the injured man and knelt down next to him, painted hands lifting up the soldier’s head and carefully inspecting it. The sudden movement just caused him to cry more loudly, but Ashiakin ignored it. “Suravani have mercy,” the man was saying, “I’m fucking blind, I’m fucking blind. My eyes. I was just doing what I was told, man. You think I give a shit about your exist passes? I’m just doing my job. I was just making sure that… that you weren’t the Cult… you are, aren’t you? Suravani help me, you are, you are…” The man’s Common broke apart at that point, becoming a ritualistic hymn in Fallien, a language Ashiakin did not know.

The man’s head was now still as he prayed, but Ashiakin did not want to take any chances. Summoning just a touch of cold energy, he waved his fingers over the man’s mouth and froze shut his teeth, rendering him incapable of speech. The soldier’s eyes bulged and he tried to scream to no avail. Ashiakin’s fingers, continuing their search over his face, found a small, unnatural bump on the side of the man’s face near his ear. From it, an almost invisibly-thin organic vine protruded from the lump and led inside his ear. It was exactly what Ashiakin had been hoping not to find. He let out a slow breath and stood up, quickly walking toward the table in the middle of the room.

Ashiakin began to speak in matter-of-fact tone that did not betray the nervousness he felt. “Our friend here is a telepath,” he said, grabbing hold of the table and pulling it toward the door. “A communicator, a link. His counterpart was likely with that militia patrol that just passed. They will know everything that’s just happened, I’m afraid. Everything we've said.”

A quick glance out the window was all he allowed himself—enough to see the ominous glint of militia chain-mail in the distance. He shoved the table carefully against the door and began to move the chairs against it as well, carefully making sure to give the barricade the proper leverage. The way he moved was quick and professional, not allowing fear to slow any of his actions. He moved back to the now-silent soldier, ignoring the crossbow that the courier still had aimed, and grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him into the back room from which the soldier had originally emerged. Ashiakin waved for the other man to follow, then turned away to have a look around.

It was a disheveled storage room, long since ransacked, anything of value that it had originally held gone for at least a day. Fallen shelves and empty canisters littered the dirty gray floor. “There will be a secret exit in this room,” he said. “It won't lead outside. It’s the only way our friend could have gotten in. He could not have hidden from me earlier.”

Ashiakin began to carefully run his fingers over the walls of the storage room, looking for anomalies, something that stood out or did not make sense. Hidden panels, spikes of magical energy, anything like that. Without even looking around, he said, almost as an afterthought: “Kill him. Close and barricade the door to this room, too. I don’t know where this exit is. Finding it before our friends arrive is going to be the real trick.”

[Darion]

“Well, we’ve all got to die someday. You should have stayed hidden.”

The strings hummed as the quarrel pierced the chainmail, skin, and bone. The bolt sank all the way down to the feathers, nailing the man to the ground. Darion watched as the man squirmed feebly until his eyes glazed over, only then moving onto his next task. Trying to emulate his employer, he moved the little debris he could find and the two rotted cyper shelves against the door. Imagining how little good those would do on their own, Darion attempted to reinforce them with magic. He’d seen how his partner gathered magic and formed it into ice on the soldiers face, and he attempted to do the same but succeeded only in causing a portion of the shelves to split apart. No matter, he didn’t need to use ice and he could try again later, once it was safe. Walking over to the door, Darion placed his hand flatly against the surface and closed his eyes in concentration as he drew out the magic. The wood blackened around his hand and slowly began to spread across the door, the wood warping and distorting the grain into unnatural directions, slowly the door began to twist violently. Splinters flew off the wall where the door stretched and slowly the wall also became infected along with the shelves.

After nearly five minutes, the better part of the wall and the entire barricade had been corrupted, as well as some of the floor where the barricade merged together. Darion felt the sweat run over his eyes and the magic leave him, he shouldn’t have expended himself so early in the day.

“Well… I got… the door fixed. They’ll need… axes…to get…through. What now?”

His chest was heaving, though not from exertion. In the throes of magic, it was common for little things such as breathing to be forgotten, occurring less than necessary to survive. One time, he’d lost so much oxygen he spent the day seeing black and white flashing dots.

As though in a far off place, the thumping sound of axes slicing into wood echoed into the room. They were faster about it than he’d thought. Gathered from the little time he’d spent in Irrakam, the militia were fond of swords and at least in Corone a swordsman wouldn’t dare put his blade through the brutality of slashing wood or risk ruining its edge forever.

“Now is a good time to find the secret exit, or make some brilliant escape plan. A last stand doesn’t sound particularly appealing or profitable to me, so I’d rather not.”

[Ashiakin]

Ashiakin paid no attention to the soldier's ragged gasps as he died, pawing hopelessly at the crossbow bolt lodged in his chest. The demon's fingers continued to move ceaselessly over the wall of the storage room. So far he had found no trace of the secret exit that he so desperately needed to exist. Despite the intensity of his search, he did spare a glance to see how the courier sealed the door. The man was resourceful and magically talented. It was easy to see why the Salvic government had chosen him as their agent. Ashiakin simply nodded when the man remarked that he had finished the barricade and continued searching for the exit. It was only when the man mentioned that the militia had arrived that he winced. His time was so quickly running out.

“You will be paid twice what you were offered,” he said without turning around, wanting to ease any thoughts of desertion that the man may have. “If anyone else offers you money, we will pay you twice that. Do not think of leaving until we have seen this through.” Ashiakin’s painted fingers glided over a small, discolored section of the wall and the clicking sound of static reverberated through the room, barely audible with the thud of the militia’s axes and their shouts all nearby. “I do not intend to die here,” he added, smiling at his discovery. And then he thought: I don’t intend to ever die.

With a slight flexing of his fingers, Ashiakin allowed a coating of ice to form over the protective hex that he had encountered, freezing the invisible enigma. Then he broke apart the chunk of ice on the wall, quickly but carefully, and there was a sound not at all unlike a door unlocking. A small indention on the wall that had not been there before could now be seen. Ashiakin grabbed hold of it and pulled, opening a squat door that opened up to a dark shaft that led down to Irrakam’s underground. He leaned over and looked down the shaft—while it was dark itself, torchlight was visible below a short ways below, flickering over what appeared to be a shallow pool of water.

There was a resounding crash in the far room as the militia patrol broke through the first barricade and entered the building. They wasted no time in attacking the second barricade—when Ashiakin turned around to speak to his employee, he saw the first militia axe crash through the welded door. He heard the words that the militia were shouting, but it was all in Fallien, and he did not know what they meant. Whether they meant to take them alive or capture them. He could not take that risk.

“Come on,” Ashiakin hissed. “Close the door behind you if you can.” With that, he slung his legs over the edge of the doorway and pushed himself down the shaft.

He landed ten feet below in a circular underground chamber, its floor obscured by a shallow layer of murky water. All around the walls of the chamber were narrow passageways, each only about seven feet tall—there were eight of them, one at every compass point direction. There was a burning torch above each of these corridors, which themselves were pitch black and devoid of light. Scattered about the watery floor of the chamber was a ladder, a large piece of rotting wood, and the bodies of three recently dead militia, all picked clean of their armor and weapons. Ashiakin grabbed one of the torches from the wall and began to carefully look around, waiting for the courier.

[Darion]

Darion observed wearily as his employer as he moved about the room carefully searching for a hidden door or passage through the wall, but didn’t move to help. He wouldn’t have known what to look for anyways, but his breath was still coming in short bursts and leaning against the wall seemed wiser than futile searching.

Twice? Well, least risking my neck is going to be damn rewarding.

It was only a short matter of time when they found the secret passage, a panel on the wall swung forward to reveal a dark path he entered without hesitation. Darion followed after and pulled shut the door as best he could, the lack of handles made it impossible to completely close from this side. He began to seal it, but didn’t have the energy needed. Wasting no time, Darion tried to scale the wall but missed a handhold and fell, his rough landing was padded by water, mud, and flesh. His eyes widened at the bodies, but only from surprise. There were three of them, their eyes glazed over but their bodies weren’t completely set yet, they were obviously fresh.

“I wasn’t able to do much about the door, it won’t take them long to find it. Give me your hand, we might be able to forestall them a while longer but I need to leech your magic reserves. You have a deeper pool and more potent, besides I’m nearly dry. Once I set the bodies, don’t splash the water or bump them unless you mean to kill us both.”

Darion gathered the bodies near him and let each float easily within reach, and then stretched a hand backward, waiting. On his own, he could have made them rip apart on contact or emit slightly acidic gasses, but he’d seen what the other man was capable of. His control over ice was very fine, there was little if any excess dispersal, and the ease of exertion hinted at vast stores. With his aide, Darion would be able to make the corpses explode violently, hopefully enough to bring the roof down on them but at the very least it’d take the first down the shaft.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

[Ashiakin]

Ashiakin hefted the torch and gazed down one of the passageways, looking for a telltale sign of those who had slain the militia. He found nothing but a dank corridor made of old mud bricks, its floor obscured by a layer of murky water. A quick inspection of the other passages revealed mostly more of the same. When lifting the torch to one of the corridors, he thought he saw a rat scurry off from the invading light, but the shape had moved so quickly he could not be certain. All he could surmise was that every passage followed a straight path from the chamber for at least as far as could be seen.

A splashing sound behind him caused him to turn away from the corridors. The courier had arrived. Ashiakin heard the hacking of axes and the foreign shouts of the Irrakam militia growing ever-loud in the room above, muffled as it was by the shaft. He did not respond to his employee’s request or give any sign that he had even heard. It was only after several moments that he grasped the man’s hand, channeling magical energy to his finger so that the courier could siphon from it. He remained poised to plunge his torch into the man’s face if he attempted any tricks. Although his face was still mostly hidden by his hood, Ashiakin looked away so that the torchlight would not reveal anymore of his painted face than he could avoid. It was still best the man did not know his features.

There was a nagging, draining tug somewhere deep within him as his employee pulled magical energy from the natural reservoirs in the demon. It was a dizzying feeling not unlike the loss of blood. When it was finished, Ashiakin nodded. “I’ll be careful,” he said quietly, ever-aware of the militia about to crash into the room above. “As should you. We’ll not be traveling together. There’s too many of these passages and I can only guess as to where they end up, and that is hoping that they remain straight. The telepath will have related my account of the safe house to the militia. We’re going to have to try to get there before they do. Otherwise this is going to get… complicated.”

Ashiakin gracefully moved through the shallow water in light steps that hardly broke the surface. He paused in front of one of the passageways, then turned around and gestured to the one adjacent to it with his torch. “I’ll follow this one,” he said, “and you will follow this one. I don’t know who all uses these. Avoid anyone or anything you encounter at all costs. Travel in a straight line for what you judge to be about seven blocks and then find a way to the surface. Look for the house I described to you earlier… red clay bricks, ‘IR’ on the doorway. Recover the letter immediately if you can. I will meet you in the house or somewhere nearby. We’ll continue from there. Go.”

With that, Ashiakin turned back around and vanished into the corridor, the light of his torch quickly growing smaller as he moved further and further away. Now all I have to do is avoid whoever… or whatever… killed those militia. And find a way to the surface. And get that letter before anyone else. Or else this little war is going to get a lot bigger.

[Darion]

His hand was held out for a long moment, but at last they made contact and a surge of energy filled him. Darion worked quickly, his lips moved silently as he ran through the mystic runes that couldn’t be spoken and slithering black marks left his fingers and glowed faintly underneath the bloodless skin of each corpse in turn. It took only moments for the magic to run its course, even in death these militia men were going to be dangerous.

Darion listened patiently as his employer gave more instructions, and Darion prepared to follow them. Splitting up didn’t sit well after all the hard work that went into finding him, but an order was an order.

“Very well, I remember what you said. Double.” Darion whispered almost as an afterthought, “Don’t die before we meet again.”

Darion gripped the torch delicately, when he’d first removed it from the wall sconce half the shaft had broken off and he’d nearly doused it, but it wouldn’t have been too bad if it had gone out. The shaft was long and straight, there weren’t doors and exists that he could see and the only two directions made it hard to get lost. For a while he contented himself to stare downward lazily, but the sight of his reflection in the water with his glowing blue eyes made him uneasy. The face that stared back was that of someone else, his face was plain and his eyes grey, but the blue made it seem entirely otherworldly, like a demon. Darion dismissed it as a distortion by the water, but he never let his eyes wander to the water after that.

“Damn!” Darion cursed his lack of focus as he let himself walk right into a wall at the end of the tunnel, he must have been day dreaming. His long thin fingers ran along the wall in front of him, it was completely smooth and slightly hot to the touch, and as he exerted a bit of pressure, the wall slid away from him and the to the side, revealing a new passage. As the door slid away instantly the sound of running water roared into the silent tunnel, and a gust of air rushing past the door brought with it the foulest stenches that could only be produced in such a place. Darion was in a sewer.

After a minute or two of wandering, Darion managed to find a service ladder that led upward into a small recessed stairwell that emerged out onto the street. It impressed him that they had something like this is in Fallien, but it was only possible because of the nearby river that ran underneath the city and into which the cities waste was dumped. He didn’t know what part of the city he was in, but from the look of the streets the siege hadn’t reached this far in yet. Looking about, and hoping he was in the right area, Darion examined each of the buildings on the street carefully. Of them several were made of red brick, and of them only two did not have letter markings on their doors. Had Darion not neglected learning to read common, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but he found a better solution. He knew where the letter was supposed to be, and fortunately only one building had a blackened hole for a fireplace though its existence was still surprising, any extra heating would have been nothing less than murderous in this climate.

As he pressed an ear to the door listening for occupants, Darion swiveled his head in a quick search to see if he was being watched or not.

“Lucky me, got here first.”

His hand gripped the handle and twisted, the lock clicked, and the door burst apart as it was wrenched violently from its frame and wood splintered outward as a giant brute of a man burst through the door. Caught completely unawares Darion didn’t even begin to resist as the man’s colossal hand covered his entire face and swung him into the ground as if he were no heavier than a doll. For a moment, the man stood over him as Darion’s eyes rolled up into his head and his blood pooled on the ground behind him, then the man picked him off the ground and threw him over his shoulder, barking orders to the smaller men accompanying him. All were clad in thick leather jerkins that covered their heavy chain, longswords unsheathed, an assortment of maces and axes carried as well, and each had the symbol of Jya marked somewhere upon them.