View Full Version : Our Veins Like Letters
Closed. Quest thread.
Summer winds sweep across his neck. The warm sand, the unfathomable grains as one soft mass. A restful place, a hidden glory. Nameless pleasures of an innocent life.
Margaret, three years old now, plays in the lapping waters under the childish watch of her oldest brother. The sun sank more deeply here, the blue waters rising up around it in a natural embrace each day at dusk.
Toes digging into the wet tan surface. Back against the rough comfort of a stunted tree. These are what he knows, and all he needs to know. His eyes rise no higher than the flag of his father’s trade boats. His feet take him to the farthest length of the shore, but no further. Sand is in his hands and in his hair. His face is a placid brown landscape. Her smile is his heart.
Gradually the moon emerges from the red sunset. Stars are born as the sky is filled with celestial ink. Brother and sister are enveloped in the arms of the gods, and soon asleep.
Recollections such as this generally upset the sailor. It wasn’t the memory of his mother’s tears and raised voice the next day. It had nothing to do with the anxious lines that appeared more and more frequently on his father’s face as the years moved on. It was not regret so much as an unfulfilled hope.
There was more than one part of his life that made Wrae feel incomplete. His brother and sisters lived on eternally in the geography of his mind, still young, and still at home. His father laughed and shook a hundred hands. Margaret smiled and hid meekly behind the immensity of her mother’s skirts.
His skin was telling Wrae otherwise. Biting winds and cool blue peaks surrounded him, and the white waters of winter crunched loudly under his rough leather boots. Thin towers of greenery grew sparsely. A trail barely distinguishable from the meandering vastness beyond led one tiny figure on. Had he not been as adept with the labyrinths nature offered him, he surely would have buried under this wide, pale world. The black-green needles bristled with directions and rumors. The sun was distant and white.
A week ago, Wrae had literally missed his ship. Caught up in the possibilities of his vocation, he had been forced to remain on shore when the time came to leave. Ship timbers seemed to creak in his ears nevertheless. It didn’t take him long to realize with some dismay that this was the objection his frozen trousers made each time he took a step.
“Fucking wasteland,” he commented to himself, and he didn’t think he was far off.
Even so, Athi had left him one night, returning days later with a note on his leg. Written on bark, the message had been brief:
“Mr. W. Launcey,
“Have been informed of your arrival. Aware of your situation. May be of assistance to you if you will do the same for me. Find me in Salvar. Your owl knows the way. Come alone. You will not be disappointed.
“I know about Troy.”
The short letter had been signed Othello Stark, and included were five gold coins in a pouch. These Wrae had promptly spent on drinks. Upon preliminary inquiry, he had found that his unknown benefactor was an isolated merchant with a penchant for decorum and an extensive network that spidered across the northern regions of Althanas. Wrae had no way of sounding out the man’s intentions, but he had told no one about his brother. The cryptic epistle was enough. He had made preparations and left the next morning while the grass was still damp.
His charms had fastened themselves onto Wrae’s wrists and neck. Their muted colors were glazed alternately in ice and salt. Athi flew overhead, landing sometimes to find shelter in the meager branches of some pitiful grove. Peak over peak, the mountains rose up greater and larger ahead. The day aged and the sun passed its summit. Wrae wasn’t afraid, but neither did he look forward to the hardship of a chilled night. He had endured as much on the waters of his youth.
Grey clouds rolled above the spotted plains, and as he came over the crest of still another nameless hill, an orange glow below warmed Wrae from the inside. Athi descended gratefully to his left shoulder. A square wooden structure nestled below amid trees, and several torches stood like sentinels about the perimeter.
His nose running and his hands thrust as far as possible into his armpits, the shaking traveler made his way down slowly, avoiding the various falls that offered themselves to his numb feet. Wrae approached the only visible entry, a confident door boasting the scars of many seasons of difficult weather. A dull brass knocker styled in the shape of a bear’s face greeted his hand coldly as he took it and struck the matching brass plate four times.
A single sailor waited in the void of his new world and old dreams.
The door swung open with an agitated squeal.
The morning is cold. A sheet of glassy frost over the grass. Pinpricks on their small feet. Dock workers thrust their voices through the fog and the words die even as they are spoken. Ropes tighten crisply, and stale timbers groan to see the first fingers of sunlight push over the shore.
Shirtless, his breath cascades out visibly. Rocks and weeds on the sand. Fish – grey and smooth – watch their companions through a ten-minute glaze. He picks out the rocks. He pulls strings of green and purple plant. Tiny wet leaves slick on his hands. Salty lips and hands aching in the atmospheric pressure.
Sweat rolls down the side of his face and he looks up. The air is cold smoke.
An expressionless face viewed him from what Wrae gauged at a five and a half foot stature. Arrayed deeply in red, the doorman seemed oddly out of place to the visitor’s windburnt eyes. Decadent crimsons crept like carpets down the walls and across the floor. Golden brown rafters reached tactlessly ten feet overhead, burns like shadows above the plentiful gas torches. A massive brown stairwell commanded the center of its spacious territory in a spiral of bold carpentry leading from the foyer into the invisible upper reaches of the structure. A large doorway was to the left of the landing, and a smaller one to the right.
For a moment Wrae stood awed. But the formidable waters of the ocean had dulled his senses to the lesser accomplishments of man. His focus shifted to the somewhat diminutive figure in front of him.
“Your business?” asked the doorman curtly from under a balding head of what could have been straw. His collar rose in a velvet half moon behind his neck, and the effect was, Wrae thought, quite unusual.
He retrieved a crumpled note from his shirt and presented it to his questioner.
“This is from Mr. Stark,” he answered thickly.
With an interested glance at the now dripping guest, the doorman took the paper from Wrae’s hand and motioned him in.
“It gets cold out, nights,” he said, and closed the door firmly. An iron bolt completed the process.
Wrae stepped forward into the foyer. Water pooled into the rich carpeting underfoot, turning it shades darker. His skin was moist and cool, and every part of his exhausted body pleaded for a soft bed and innumerable blankets. The doorman was scanning the contents of the note.
“If you’ll just follow me,” he said finally, and made a motion with his hands.
Wrae followed the man’s suede steps one by one. Through the large door and down an equally excessive hallway, briefly encountering a dining hall and a few closed doors. Everything was strong lines and powerful burgundies.
“This,” explained the doorman as he unlocked one door and indicated its dim interior, “is what I can make available for you tonight. If you would be so kind as to join Mr. Stark for breakfast at nine.”
Wrae nodded slightly.
“Certainly,” he replied, and as his guide walked away, he stepped into his suite.
At once the sea catches fire. Faster the sailor goads his vessel on, but there is no crew. The sails burn and fly steaming into the angry orange water. Sparks engulf the stars and a young man falls from the sky with wickedness pouring from his fingers. Terrible words drip onto the sailor’s shoulders. He cannot stand his ground and the wheel spins as if possessed. His ship, the dial on his compass. North east south west north east south west. The fire swallows his terror.
Feverishly Wrae searched for the stars. Cloudy thoughts rotated in his confused mind. After several seconds of chaos, his unconscious surrender to this incredibly soft bed came to mind.
“Fuck,” he concluded emphatically.
There really were a lot of blankets on this bed.
Within moments, sleep resumed its natural course.
Yellow light overtook an indecisive dawn. Wrae, sore but exceedingly refreshed, emerged from a fortress of bedding. His left hand found its way up to the back of his neck, where it proceeded to comfort an especially poignant ache.
Minutes later, a knock interrupted the traveler’s morning haze.
“Mr. Launcey?” was the muffled inquiry that followed.
Wrae let a minute groan escape his lips as he stretched out the tension from his arms and pulled on damp trousers and shirt.
“Come in,” he answered slowly.
The door slid open with a pleasing hum over the thick floor. A middle-aged woman filled the doorway. A faded blue dress hovered around her at all sides, and a neat white apron made an elegant stripe over the front of her. Wrae bowed slightly.
“Good morning,” he greeted her.
“Good morning,” she agreed politely.
“Mr. Stark has asked for your company at breakfast,” she continued. “Would you come with me?”
“Of course,” replied the guest.
And they walked back the way he had come the night before. Gas torches still gleamed against the warm backdrop of their settings. Wrae reached the threshold of the dining room he had noticed earlier.
“Mr. Stark will join you in a moment,” finished the placid woman, and disappeared into the further labyrinths of this mansion.
The uncertain guest stood idly slightly inside the doorway, hands in his pockets. A solid collection of identical chairs surrounded a decisive black wood table in the center of the room. Silverware escorted fine white china plates down both its sides, and larger glass platters held the promise of toast and ham and egg under their transparent covers.
His stomach betrayed his anticipation rather audibly.
A small stone angel drops through the clouds toward his feet. A sudden fall, a sullen spring afternoon. Soon you will break his heart. He cannot move; his arms are pinned to his sides by Irony. Tighter he grips the hem of these rough trousers. The tiny figure grows and so consumes the distance.
Blue and aching air clutches at his chest. In warm rockets the icon shatters and disperses screaming from the ground. The young boy is on his knees. His lips do not move. His eyes are set in blindness. A softness touches his shoulder from behind. Her hand on his shoulder softly. Three childish fingers. His head bowed and her golden aureola. Frozen times standing in eternal mosaic. Etched in their minds.
“Wrae,” her still voice.
“I don’t know how to get home,” he whispers hoarsely.
Her delicate wisdom at the edge of an indiscernible cliff.
“Home,” he says.
Wrae waited in a richness of obscurity in the sparing ruby light. Gourmet smells invaded his nostrils from diverse ends of the room. Saliva pooled in his mouth.
A smaller door opened on the opposite side of the hall. The undistinguished porter from the evening before appeared and instantly moved to one side. In synch with his escort’s movements, a somewhat greater presence materialized in the door frame. Pallid hands distinct against the midnight blue folds of his fitted blouse. A gaunt face peered intelligently from within the crescent of an upturned collar. Silver buttons ran ornately down to the fine cream of his silk pants.
“Mr. Launcey, I presume,” he stated factually.
Wrae inclined his head in the semblance of a bow.
“You’d be Mr. Stark, then,” he responded.
The stranger smiled wanly.
“For your presence, I owe you my gratitude,” he replied. “Almost I didn’t want to think you’d come, but here you are now. Please sit down.”
Wrae chose the seat at which he had been standing, and the roomy woman wasted little time in attending to his appetite. Stark took his place directly across from him and was promptly served in turn.
“I believe,” he asserted, “in the needs of my guest above those of the host. If there is anything you find yourself wanting in any respect, be sure to tell Ms. Holland.”
The porter, dressed smartly in a blood-red jacket and white trousers, slipped into position several feet behind and to his employer’s left. Wrae noticed a bronzed russet hilt jutting quietly from the servant’s waist where it surely hid a short blade of some kind.
“Let us,” continued the thin-lipped head of house, “get to the point, as you’re certainly anxious to do.”
His dark eyes were an impenetrable liquid barrier.
“It was brought to my attention two weeks ago that you had made port in Scara Brae. You’re a bit of a navigator, are you not? Experience in sea travel and so forth?”
Wrae met his gaze evenly. His mind assembled various unknowns he wanted to have resolved.
“I have experience,” he answered. “Who knew about my arrival?”
Stark pursed his lips and indulged in a mouthful of goat’s milk.
“It’s of no relevance, I’m afraid. Just another set of eyes. I try to keep up,” he replied evasively. “I am under the impression that you could be of value in a matter of maps and charts. I am, unfortunately, not versed in these things.”
Wrae’s expression conveyed a renewed puzzlement.
“Oh,” added his host, “I’ve been on ships. But my strength is in planning and organizing. I make connections. I trust others to actually fulfill those plans. Right now that presents a problem, I’m afraid.”
“Alright,” Wrae prompted him.
Stark paused discreetly.
“Do let’s finish eating. Ms. Holland makes a lovely breakfast.”
Running pastels on the water. They stand transfixed in a repeating pattern. Repeated every night, every morning. The sun soaked in drowsy color. Weeds tangled around his feet. She balances on her toes and the waves are a prism lapping in her fingers.
“Margaret,” he says, and reaches for her arm.
But it is a reflection, a series of so many broken mirrors.
The merchant had led his guest into the upper region of the estate. A central hallway here branched into two smaller passages as they proceeded to the end. A heavy door opened boldly to reveal a spacious chamber adorned on every wall with sprawling maps and penciled tables of figures. Occupying one end of the room was an unfurnished table. The area closer to the door was scattered with chairs.
“This is the map room,” explained Stark plainly.
The porter began his unobtrusive vigil slightly outside the open door.
“I want to know what exactly you’re offering me, Mr. Stark. No offense. You understand?” asked Wrae.
Curiosity maintained its compulsion for only so long.
“Of course, Mr. Launcey,” replied the merchant readily.
A blank look filled up his eyes.
“I… have done business with a member of your family from time to time. Rod Launcey. Your father, I imagine?”
Wrae nodded.
“About a year ago I was informed that he had rescinded ownership of his practise. I was… disturbed by the event, as we had made profitable transactions in the past. Naturally I was interested to hear that a young man bearing his name had taken up residence in Knife’s Edge,” revealed Stark.
“In the capital?” inquired Wrae with more emotion than he would have liked.
“In the capital,” affirmed his host. “And furthermore, he had apparently taken to spending a good deal of time at St. Denebriel’s. The great cathedral, you understand. Naturally I investigated. Imagine my surprise when I was unable to in fact locate him. A connection of mine eventually turned up face down in a ravine a few miles outside of the great city. Several papers were found on his person in a bundle. I believe these documents may be of interest to you.”
Wrae took a few seconds to register the information that had just fallen on him, a collapsing wall. A dam he had built up over the years and now leaked reminders of a river that was once his life.
“You’re offering me those papers in exchange for my help? Are they from my brother?” he probed unsubtly. "Why should I believe you?"
Stark shrugged.
“Let me show you something,” he said.
Grey pillars reach sharply into a milky sky. About the timeless monument the city of Knife’s Edge spreads out, a horizon of rising towers and descending streets. Cobbled routes lead from district to district. A pair of broad shoulders hide under a hooded green cape. Passing doors and walls and aging tree life. Further in and progressively closer to the stone fortress of the Ethereal Sway.
His eyes alive with concealed intent. The wind is sharp and unpleasant to his exposed hands. Sore and blistered feet from the rough surface. His bitter smile and red lips.
A strangled sun here barely notices the groping figures beneath. The ground bares desolate teeth.
Defiant, he raises his face and sees the spire. A hand at his side and a hand on his heart. The hottest fire.
Othello Stark took the polished silver bar in his hand firmly and pulled open a cherry brown cabinet. The top of this cabinet came just level with his chest, so he stooped to rifle through some papers. A slight click emerged from the rustling, and was followed by several metallic whirrs. A smaller door appeared to open underneath the other various contents of the cabinet, and from this hidden compartment the merchant pulled a rolled parchment. It had a yellow tone that reeked of age and the moth.
Wrae had been following his host’s movements with meticulous interest, but now looked away as if to mask stolen knowledge.
“You have a nice place here,” he said distractedly.
Stark did not answer for a moment. With care proper to a man who’d held so many priceless acquisitions, he laid the scroll out on his painfully clean bureau and began untying its sturdy bindings.
“We all have dreams, I suppose. This is mine,” he replied. “But life is ephemeral, is it not? This is the irony of the stars, Mr. Launcey. Someone, somewhere, must be laughing.”
A smile crept bitterly into the aging man’s eyes. It disappeared.
Wildly the flames sing to him. Like the praises that must have once resonated in these lofts, each candle longingly bends its attention to him.
Tears pool in his bruised eyes. In vapor they rise from this stained face. From every pore a choir screams fear. Wax flowing on the invisible floor. Angels turn to hatred in the young man’s ears, and his lips are bleeding where he bites them. For hours he kneels in place. Five candles smiling down on the stooping figure.
For hours.
For days.
“Your father,” continued the merchant coolly, “has been an asset to me over the course of time. I have here an item I was able to acquire from him a few months before we ended our co-operation. Have a look.”
Stark indicated the now unrolled parchment with his chin, and turned it so that it faced his guest.
Lines ran in ink from corner to corner in sharp squares and ripples. Unknown characters grouped in orderly clusters down the left hand edge, and several more written lines adorned the base of the chaotic display. In smaller italics, trade translations were scrawled under their counterparts.
“12 Auvys,” began Stark.
“Hereyn is that hydden locker, whych secret Gregoyre hath entrusted to myne care. Gods protect thee.
“Mykael.”
Intrigue filled Wrae like a hot drink.
“What is this?” he asked.
Stark rubbed his chin contemplatively for several seconds.
“I wonder if you could help me with that. I told you I was illiterate with maps and charts. I do, fortunately, have some ability with language. A necessary tool of my profession, you understand.”
Wrae failed to make the connection.
“I believe,” the merchant went on, “this is a map. Can you see the river here? And trees here?”
Upon further examination, Wrae began to understand.
“Cross-sections,” he concluded.
“Sixty-eight cross-sections,” confirmed the merchant. “But I cannot make sense of it. What is the locker? Is it hidden in one of these images? And what are these other characters?”
His fingers drew circles over the clumped gibberish.
“Hadyn Civa Civa. Hadyn Born Civa. Gava Lyra Born. What is the significance of this?”
The navigator trailed across the miniscule landscapes and representations. Rocks, rivers and tress. Trees and trees and trees. Not one object resembling a locker. He straightened himself out and met the merchant’s eyes.
“I want to see the papers,” he asserted.
Stark shrugged microscopically.
“As you wish,” he conceded.
Dawn, he immerses his face in cool water from the tiny fountain. Pure and precious in his hands. He does not cry anymore. His dry cheeks and covered head bowed.
This isn’t my fault. This is his fault. This is his guilt.
This isn’t my fault.
I hate you. I want you dead. I want your mouth open and screaming and my fingers in your neck. I want to slip on your blood and fall next to you laughing. Take my hand.
I love you Margaret. I need you. I hurt, Margaret. I hurt inside.
I’m burning for his mistake. I hate you hate you hate you.
Wrae sat at a desk provided for him next to a larger bed in a more luxurious suite. In brass bowls hung on gold chains several gas torches hung from the spacious ceiling. A handle in a simple ceramic holder sat flickering inches away from his face.
Sleep filled his head like a cloud and slowed his thought process. He was not a scholar. He was a sailor. Sheets of discarded ideas and interpretations found themselves scattered around the four legs of his mahogany chair. But no matter how many papers he crumpled, his head continued its descent.
“Who the fuck is Haydn?” whispered the frustrated sailor aloud. No answer broke free of the pulsing shadows in the corners. No inspiration from the heavenlies.
Civa Gava Veras. Galat Born Galat. Haydn Civa Civa.
Wrae had begun feeling very negative about this task in general a few hours earlier. Tired out and needing air, he pulled on his few possessions and crept lightly from his accommodations. Down toward the doorway and out into the night, a blur against a deep blue horizon. Cast in lead over pale earth.
Call my name.
The sailor pulled his arms tighter around him to cut out the invasive cold.
The moon swallowed space tonight. Wrae had seen night, as a child, as a great blanket over the atmosphere, and the moon a hole in that unfathomed fabric. While frost crept in tendrils up his face, he wondered what took place on the farther side. If one could emerge from this covered place into eternal day. Only just higher than the reach of his fingers.
We could reach higher. We would hold tighter. I would do it all.
Blossoming in a grey ring. Strong notes tearing his ears like invisible wasps. He says nothing; she is the wind. He is a flicker in the leaves. He is a river slighted of its promise. Freedom at the cost of precious love.
She rises up four feet away. Sand and moisture. Her feet inches, inches from silky earth. His face upturned and uncertain. Wind howls, sixteen wolves in a wilderness of sliding pictures. Framed in fury like the family it divides even now.
“Margaret,” the air in his fist.
“Margaret,” oxygen that will not leave his blackened lungs. Seared with fire into his skin. And as her toes are lost in cloudy expanses, he sighs silently.
Wait until that hour.
Breakfast was hot and savory, to the point where Wrae could taste it before he had passed through the dark frame into Stark’s dining hall. The table was flush with loaded platters, breads and preserved fruits.
“I trust,” his host greeted him, “you were satisfied with the quarters I’ve been able to provide.”
Wrae indulged in a genuine smile.
“I slept well, thank you,” he admitted. “But I’m afraid I didn’t make much headway. It looks like a simple encryption, but that’s not really a field I shine in.”
Stark let out a breath of withheld laughter.
“My options were limited, Mr. Launcey. And I have particular interest in you personally. There is something else I know that would be of interest to you, if I may be so bold?” He queried.
Wrae judged this moment better left unabbreviated by speech. The short doorman shifted his weight between feet in the periphery of the comfortable environment. A continued chatter of dishes and silverware went on distantly like clockwork.
“I am not sure as to how I should approach this, Mr. Launcey, but I am certain it will hold your attention,” explained the articulate merchant.
His introduction complete, Stark abruptly put down a crisp piece of buttered toast and raised his hand to his shoulder. The doorman immediately emerged at his employer’s side and slipped a compact book into his hand. With that he regained occupancy of the dimness by a near wall.
“This is an item of special importance in your past, I believe,” said Stark as he opened the book to face Wrae.
Recorded in strong lines on the beige surface was a small stone.
Sinking into the underground rivers daily. Between the grass and fissures in cobbled sidewalks.
You cannot hide from yourself. How will she find you? How can you start to turn the world again? The way it was supposed to spin. Ignorant of time and progress. A soul suspended from pain and gravity.
A flash of golden heat flares from behind childlike hands. Shamed and tearful. Steps lead down from today into death’s undisputed arms.
Don’t come closer. I feel you when you look at me.
I will be there when you come.
“Harte’s Signet. Apparently Edmund Harte, a man of means two hundred years past, acquired the stone on a series of expeditions into the western reaches of Luthmor. He was said to carry it on his person for years afterward. That is all I knew until I learned that Rod Launcey had reportedly purchased the stone. Naturally I made inquiries, and found that he was anxious to rid himself of the thing. At that point I was able to buy it at an exceptionally advantageous value,” said Stark.
“I held that stone,” replied Wrae despite the thickness that engulfed his throat.
“So I imagined,” answered his host. “So I imagined. I gathered your father’s eagerness to sell the Signet was linked closely to the misfortunes that befell his family and eventually put an end to his practise. But I have no family, and my pleasure is in that which is unknown and untrustworthy. Harte’s Signet sat in a chest in this establishment for six months.”
Wrae’s hands came together in a knot of hesitant enthusiasm.
“When I heard about your father’s misfortunes I felt as though I was at least partly to blame. I am an honorable businessman, Mr. Launcey. Your father held the respect of many lesser men. And now you sit at my own table,” added Stark.
He paused to ingest a mouthful of canned peach.
“Harte’s Signet was stolen from me six months ago last week. Stolen, from my own home! I have spent time and money to retrieve it, and as we speak, my men continue to search. I have been indebted to James lately; he carries out the duties of four men. In any case, I do not have the stone. But I still have the tome you see here,” he apologized.
“What language is this?” asked Wrae, numb with possibilities.
“I have been informed reliably that the script is traditional Dheath. This, of course, supports what I was able to ascertain as to the history of the stone,” replied the increasingly accessible man across the table. The white ruffles splayed out from his extravagant velvet suit shook with unexpressed emotion.
“I want you to have the tome as a sign of good faith, Mr. Launcey. I have no time for regret in my old age,” Stark concluded.
Wrae’s fingers caressed the brittle bindings as he closed the book and drew it over the aromatic table.
“I’ll do what I can about that map today,” he said.
And he meant it.
Red waters ripple outward from his bare ankles. Thin and drawn and white. He waits, a lion in the pits of Purgatory.
This day had seemed intended for a general fade into the unnoticed, as with most others in the white wastes of Sulgoran’s Axe. Pallid precipitation mingled with numb fields or the self-absorbed interruptions that passed as trees. A single quill pen scratched over an imperfect surface. Thin white smoke trailed out from a brick chimney and lost itself in oblivious flight. An owl, gold and brown, alighted on a sill one floor from ground level. The window opened grudgingly, and the great bird disappeared.
“Excuse us for a few hours,” Stark had told him. “I have some business to attend to in Knife’s Edge. James and I will be back in two or three days, depending on how things go. If there is anything you need, please do ask Ms. Holland and she will be glad to oblige.”
Wrae had asked no questions. A half hour after his host’s departure, he set into the task at hand once again. Miniature landscapes ran over his eyes and swam laps in his head. He welcomed the arrival of his wandering companion.
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” commented Wrae.
Athi examined his master with hawkish perception. Cold and tufts of fur counterbalanced an otherwise dignified image.
A soft knock sounded at the door to Wrae’s temporary room.
“Come in,” he answered.
A full figure and distinct blue dress materialised at the end of the suite.
“Good morning, Mr. Launcey. Would you like me to bring in your lunch?” asked the housekeeper.
“That would be kind of you,” replied Wrae in the most relaxed voice he could pull together.
Thus far, none of the little pictures had openly admitted their liaisons with the inscribed annotations. The navigator was stranded in a flow of thought that was neither familiar nor clear.
“Civa Gava Veras. Hadyn Civa Civa. Or alternately, Haydn. The variation could be an error, or it could be a different word entirely. What do you think?” inquired Wrae of his now preening owl.
Ms. Holland returned shortly thereafter.
“Ham and cheese,” she announced with dignity, “and a bottle of Mr. Stark’s vintage. Complements of Mr. Stark.”
Wrae received the silver platter graciously, savoring the thought of his imminent meal.
“Thanks very much,” he said simply.
His provider made her exit with the slightest dip of a curtsy. Wrae thought it unnecessary.
The skillfully cooked ham was tender between his teeth, and the cheese was moist and sweet. Stark’s vintage, as it turned out, also failed to disappoint. The faintly sour, woody flavor was quite sufficient as mental lubrication. Each draught brought him steps deeper into a comfortably fluid state of reason.
I should actually ask about making a purchase, thought Wrae.
An aging man, his face lined and weighed down with heaviness of heart. Arms on the table and a firearm in his left hand. With the other hand he runs a blackened cloth over the ridged surface of the barrel until it gleams. Red eyes reflected in silver.
The labor of his life is behind him. The consequences of fate pull unfavorably at his shoulders. Stealing the color from his hair, the blossom of youth from sallow cheeks.
There is nothing left for me to say. There is no more you can say.
A paved road sheds stability for horror. Eyes shining from ravines, feet stumbling without sleep. The last leap. A step of faith, or of despair. The resolution of a question amid the millions that remain unanswered in the night.
The world shakes for the briefest moment. Silence descends, ringing in his ears. Wide and vacant. A corridor which stretches on interminably. The terrors of mystery as yet unresolved. Yellow light across slick crimson floorboards. Words will fail every one of us.
Call my name.
An hour later, Wrae had made several important discoveries.
The meaning of the words, he concluded, was less important than their direct relation to the images. The frequency of each word, with few exceptions, corresponded with the quantity of a certain image. Rivers with trees, it appeared, related to the word Civa. Similarily, Trees without rivers would be Hadyn or Haydn, whereas rivers unaccompanied by trees were represented by Born.
All this was less valuable than it would have sounded. The columns and rows mingled like geese, and Wrae found himself unable to order them in a way that made sense.
“What a fucking mess,” hissed Wrae through his teeth.
Seconds later, a raised voice broke abruptly into his study. The shout was cut off almost before it had been projected, and no further sound ensued. Wrae rose from his seat, vaguely concerned for the benevolent housekeeper. His hand had barely made contact with the frigid brass of his doorknob when the course of his stay with Othello Stark took a fairly drastic turn.
A series of hoarse whispers ventured out from the bottom of the massive stairwell. The sailor, now very much alert, pressed his ear to the sliver between door and frame that connected him with the goings-on below.
The gods, apparently, had not planned as unexceptional a day as he might have hoped for.
You think that’s the end.
You think you can run forever. Well, you can’t. You will come to me. You will forfeit everything; you are a monster. You have transgressed against gods and nature. Substance is the form of life. Form must honor nature.
We cannot rest. We cannot speak the way we would.
Wake up.
Chimeras in the wind. A dancer in the embers. Wraiths like water in our hands.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
You are alive. You are here, right now.
It took him all of two seconds to weigh his options.
If the incident that had taken place below was in fact an intrusion, as seemed suspect, Wrae would need to evaluate the situation more fully before taking a course of action. The first thing that came to mind was to identify who had entered the manor, and how many of them there were. Wrae also thought it only wise to ascertain whether or not Ms. Holland had indeed been assaulted. His fingers edged into the narrow space in the barely open doorway.
“—know where to look?” came a hushed male voice.
“Martin, Lupe, start in the study. James, have a look around upstairs. Haley, we’ll take his room, through the dining room here. Look alive,” responded a louder male voice in an expansive monotone.
Wrae withdrew. What was advantageous in reconnaissance was, in this case, a snare if he was to maintain delicate cover. It had become apparent that the newcomers were unaware of his presence. By now, Wrae had also lost faith in their good intentions. If this was an invasion of Stark’s residence, he had no wish to be caught in the crossfire. Unguarded footsteps ascended the stairs and softened into a room directly across the upper landing, and one door down from Wrae’s own.
His stay had been brief thus far, and if he had an attachment to Stark it was superficial at best. The man was free with his considerable resources and a fair host, but Wrae had known him less than three days. That the merchant had left his guest alone with the housekeeper was most likely an act of good faith. But then again, the entire premise of this co-operation left room for suspicion. Why single out an unknown sailor whose father had been no more than a distant trade partner? Were his purposes in bringing Wrae to his home less honorable than they had first appeared? Why would he choose to take the doorman with him today? Anger rose scalding in Wrae’s throat. Hot with the passions of self-righteous assumption, the navigator made his choice.
Continued scraping and sorting escaped through the thin indoor wall between the adjacent rooms. Wrae would need to move.
The housekeeper flitted through his mind. She would probably be left alone now, he reasoned as he pulled on his boots, and resume her untraumatic life once the owner had returned. There was no need for Wrae to be more involved than absolutely necessary.
His fingers crossed in his heart. With a hopeful hand he pulled back the soundless door and slipped into the warmly colored corridor. In his periphery a second figure, nondescript, emerged from near the stairwell. Wrae’s stomach slid down to his pelvis and drowned. His feet concrete, he turned his chin infinitesimally to the right. An apparently male figure in a fitted green tunic stood with its back to him, facing the interior of the room in which it had recently been occupant. With every effort to remain unheard and preferably unnoticed, Wrae inched back over the space between himself and his den of safety.
The window.
This is where we leave you. When I find you I will watch you fall. I will not pick you up. No one will pick you up.
This is where the night begins, where the sun sorrows. If you follow me, I will lead you in circles.
Enough.
I will let you down.
One leg out over the sill already, Wrae took a great deal of pains to scramble in a quick way. The front lawn hovered fifteen feet below, crisp and pleasantly sparkling. Both legs over the edge, the navigator strained to lower himself down with his arms. A protruding brick caught him below the ribs. Hot wetness matted the inside of his newly torn shirt.
His arms were tense and his fingers rigid with exertion and cold. His body fully extended, the drop measured in at around nine feet. Nothing, Wrae hoped, too much for a moderate athlete such as him. He released his hold with a pinprick intake of breath.
Hard soil under a co-operative blanket. Like lightning up and down his legs, his spine. A thread of searing thread sewn into his nerves, and pulled out slowly. The steadfast navigator had barely registered the noise he had created with his fall. Instead, his eyes fell victim to a spectacle far more captivating.
Lying belly-down in a merry snow drift next to the front door, Ms. Holland gaped eerily over the velvet stains that swam from her open throat. Mouth open and lips still quite flushed, the housekeeper blinked slowly, without expression. Her eyes ran blindly over the mountains. The scene was still, calm. Only her eyes suggested the adrenaline that currently coursed in both their veins.
Wrae did not speak. He did not kneel with the fallen innocent, her voice in his hand. Prostrate and inches from the presence of death, the sailor felt needles envelop his left leg. The vastness of Sulgoran’s Axe poured out in every direction, and he began to come to grips with the difficult reality of his position. If he was to last out the next hour, he would need to take an active role in the allotted activity. One arm under his full weight, Wrae picked himself up and found solace against the wall. With his right hand he pulled his knife free of its sheath, a faint rattle announcing the beginning of a very delicate hunt.
“You won’t die alone,” he announced in a whisper to the huddled figure at his feet.
Upright, the sailor peered hesitantly through the open door. Not a soul met his visual sweep of the entry hall. Throwing fear to the fire, he made his way in with a swaying step. Sparks of pain flew through his shin as he willfully dragged himself across the carpeted floor to the stairwell. He had an outstanding item to deal with before anything else.
Each stair stole an eternity. At the landing at the top of the stairs, Wrae’s teeth came together in displeasure. His temples pulsed uncomfortably, but he made his way down the upper hallway to his room. A chair was being pulled over the floor within. Wrae stood close by the wall, immediately next to the door.
“James,” he intoned tunelessly, “come see this.”
A shadow grew from within. As the gas torch in the hallway forced it back, an unremarkable knife spun from its cover and found a place in elastic flesh. Wrae emerged instantly thereafter, drawing back the weapon and taking his adversary by the shoulder with his free hand.
“Look alive,” he whispered through drawn lips.
And his knife tore in again, and again.
A young man stared down his fine roman nose at the unforseen aggressor, and he howled through his throat. It would have been difficult to determine which of the two was more astonished with the ensuing mess.
The scream was the worst part of the affair. When his knife had found its mark once or twice – he wasn’t sure – the red haired man had let loose a sound worthy of a most maimed animal. Without considering the consequences of such a noise, Wrae knew his position had lost its golden glow. The hunter, as the cliché went, was going to be hunted. He knew it, and so would the invaders.
“Ches!” came the response, loudly feminine.
Wrae searched urgently for a chance of survival, adrenaline taking up where imprudence had begun. This next minute would determine the outcome of his visit so abruptly interrupted. There could be no further chapters in the story, no recovery.
“Come have it,” he growled.
Behind him was the room in which he had spent the better part of three days. Before him was the void of fate. Wrae trusted his hands more than he would ever trust the gods, and darted into the room. His weight against the door, it clattered into place to the rhythm of increasingly heavy footsteps. Cries of bewilderment and anger penetrated the solid obstacle. The cornered navigator took hold of the desk at which he had so recently been sitting and threw it against the entrance. A shower of Salvic curses ensued.
“Who’s there?” came the first voice from the other side of the closed door.
Wrae thought for a moment.
“Who the fuck are you?” he returned.
Two aggressive blows shook the wood frame. A third blow pulled the doorknob from its settings, and it tilted uselessly in place. Further angry phrases followed the unintentional damage. Wrae pushed the desk more securely so that it pressed up under the ruined knob. His hopeful eyes located the large cabinet that had likely stood in place for decades, and he began to pull it toward the makeshift barricade as well. His teeth on edge and sinews straining, he succeeded only in toppling it over with a magnificent crash. His leg had gotten the best of him. His heart beat faster still.
“We’re not here to fight,” shouted the same male voice. Wrae had begun to think of him as the leader of the unwelcome crew.
“We’ll leave when we’re done. Don’t move,” it went on.
Minutes passed, and Wrae lay prostrate on the floor, cold planks under his hot skin. His breath came out fast through pursed lips. Pain enveloped what in his consciousness was not devoted to assessing potential outcomes of his situation. He thought of the window, and of his barricade. He thought about his knife and the blood that he had not wiped from it. Dark cherry hair interfered with his moist eyes. Minute sounds drew the seaman’s acute attention to the window from which he’d injured himself. Panicking, he obscured himself as much as possible in the cover of the cabinet.
No.
Upon reconsideration, a more active approach made more sense.
If they get in, that’s it. That’s the end. I’m not ready.
He had endured so much worse. This was not the time to give in.
A day of miscommunications and treachery in the world of trade had dispirited Othello Stark. He had left home that morning with plans that seemed destined for success. He did not take to failure.
James Knox rode at his employer’s side, wearily alert as per usual. Stark had come to rely on his valet quite heavily these last few years, and had not had opportunity to regret his choice. The doorman’s unused weapon swung lightly at his left hip.
“James,” began Stark, “is that Mr. Launcey’s bird?”
Knox followed the merchant’s pointed finger to a growing spot coming from the direction of the Manor. he shrugged.
“Damned if I know, sir,” he replied truthfully.
The pair had turned back from their well-intended expedition earlier that afternoon when they had encountered an emissary of Stark’s intended partner. He had announced that Dane Garret, a landowner and builder just outside Knife’s Edge, was unable to continue with the arrangements agreed upon weeks earlier. The transaction had been meant to establish in-city trade monopolies Stark had had his eye on since Rathaxea’s chief minister had increased government funding for military establishments in the city. Stark, an important supplier of lumber and granite outside the region, was to supply Garret, who had been contracted for defensive construction. The builder had apparently gone back on the negotiations in favor of some better prospect. Stark could have strangled the man with his bare hands.
The gold-brown fowl came nearer, and soon alighted on Knox’s shoulder. Knox withdrew somewhat, unused to such interaction. A slip of parchment arrived with the bird, attached to one of its strong talons. Stark shot a questioning look at his servant, who reluctantly untied the paper.
Stark – In a great deal of trouble. Come quickly.
The note was unsigned.
They were mere minutes from the Manor. Alarm in his heart, Othello Stark goaded his mare on.
“Let us waste no time,” he commented briskly.
Knox scowled.
At that moment, Wrae could have been found in the act of standing next to the open window, one long, slender leg of the damaged cabinet in both hands. The object was up near his face, and his lips caressed it as his own life.
A round face poked up over the sill, but the desperate seaman was prepared for such an event. With an incongruous grunt of satisfied displeasure, he brought the blunt item horizontally into his target’s vision. The lumber failed to make a direct impact on the invader’s day, but did serve to throw the unfortunate off balance and into space. Wrae’s weapon glanced off the edge of the window and spiraled out after the fallen man. The navigator massaged his fingers where they, too, had made contact with the hard frame.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered unregretfully.
Wrae did not deceive himself.
Odds are, he reasoned, I’ve bought a few more minutes. But this can’t go on forever. Where’s that damn owl?
Athi had made his exit when the trouble had started, and Wrae felt very little affection for the unpredictable bird.
“That all you got, asshole?” he cried in the direction of the door.
In the back of his mind, he was already writing farewells.
“I’m sorry, Margaret,” he exhaled in resignation.
Rapidly more familiar, the vacant roadway approached and exceeded the turnoff to a dignified little pathway. Set between two low hills, the trail led through snow drifts to the grand comfort of Stark Manor, just invisible from the road by virtue of the local geography.
James Knox had been scanning the horizon constantly as he and his employer had goaded the respectable mounts under them to greater ambitions. The bird had taken to the air and followed their progress overhead.
“Let me go ahead,” offered the porter.
Stark shook his head.
“If it is trouble at my house, it is I who must address it. Fall back,” he asserted.
Knox complied, a somber light under knit eyebrows. The bold brown horse he rode slowed its pace in response to the draw on its bit, and Stark’s mare stepped ahead lightly.
For a few minutes, the thieves had given Wrae much-needed reprieve. It had become apparent to the caged navigator over the course of his unexpected troubles that his captors were quite possibly after the ciphered map.
If that’s what they want, it’s what I want, he speculated. It must have something to do with the Signet.
A knock sounded at the barred door.
“You’re making a mistake,” snapped the familiar male voice. “We’ll burn the goddamn house if you don’t come out.”
Wrae shuddered instinctively. Fire. He rarely enjoyed it in a fireplace, and still less fancied the idea of burning alive. Flames crept up his subconscious and he leapt screaming from the window, scorched limbs like signals over a black sea. With a sharp intake of breath he shook the dark fantasy from his head.
“You need what I have,” he shot back.
An angry pause filled the silence.
“I’m going to take you apart,” snarled the agitated intruder.
Wrae involuntarily let out a very genuine chuckle, but quickly tied it into a snort.
“Try me, shithead,” he replied with a grin.
The absurdity of the exchange injected a strange glimmer of good humor to the standoff. Heartened, the staunch navigator almost wished it could be as easy as pulling aside the desk and applying knuckles to his opponent’s lying mouth.
Upon the discovery of Jan Holland’s limp figure on the doorstep, Stark’s thin face had lost what color it had.
“Sway,” he swore, astonished.
Knox dismounted instantly, drawing his russet shortsword with a whistle of metal.
“Wait here,” he growled.
A disenchanted exclamation slipped in under the door, a series of crashings and footsteps following immediately thereafter. Wrae’s bowed head rose instantly to attentive readiness. Knife in his left hand, the navigator pulled back the desk in a gesture of faith and desperation. Two times the weight of his foot fell on the damaged doorknob. The useless ornament fell into the hallway with a dull roll.
The heavy door flew open, its space now filled with a burly male frame. A dark-skinned man stood eyes and ears above the cornered seaman, a long, straight knife correspondingly held in a large left hand. Wrae withdrew slightly, every ounce of tendon tightening, his injured leg protesting quite tangibly. There was no time to lose on introductions.
Taller and thicker, the dark man grimaced as he entered the room, shoulders brushing the doorframe. He ducked almost imperceptibly as he approached. Wrae pulled the thumb on his right hand inward and felt the gases in it release with a crack.
His adversary thrust suddenly, relying less on surprise than speed. Wrae recoiled fluidly, taking hold of his aggressor’s hand with his own free hand and locking the man’s grip over the long blade. Grunting, the man simultaneously threw out his free hand to take hold of Wrae’s, and pulled back on his weapon arm. Reacting on impulse, the navigator took advantage of his opponent’s energetic pull and allowed himself to fly into the dark man’s arms. A gasp burst from the stranger’s expansive lips as Wrae’s knife feathered up and into his leather abdomen.
“Shouldn’t have done it,” grated the navigator as the deadly heirloom ground against bone.
Blood and sweat. His travelworn shirt hung matted against prickling skin, and his leg shook under him. Darkness climbed his throat and blotted his vision. Church bells and school bells collided over pulsing temples.
Liquid, the mansion was on its roof.
Cheeks hot with the moment. Barron at the mast, cursing the gods and nature. His hands wet on the wooden wheel.
A flash of light in the furious night, a blink in the storm. The clouds open their scrolls and sing a chorus of awe and chaos. Ceto in his wrath ignites the water to pull down the heavenlies. A handful of rags and ambitions driven from shore to shore.
“Life is empty without death,” a hope in the waves.
“Death is nothing,” comfort in a thrashing shelter.
Against the promise of uncertainty, wrapped in flags and roses, he finds a route through the night.
In wet carpet and clotted plasma, Othello Stark sat dying by his own front door. Fair on the warmest days, the weight of years and lonesome hours now manifested itself in the profound creases that marked his features. Framed in midnight blue finery, a keen mind assessed its labors.
Behind him, the unfortunate Jan Holland had long since made her exit. An empty vessel freezing in the still daylight.
In the hall ahead, Knox had provided the intruders with an encounter they not especially enjoyed. Stark had entered even as his servant had run ahead, and had witnessed the violent decease of a ferocious man and an equally forceful woman within seconds. The doorman had given no ground, and while he had thrown himself in pursuit of a third intruder, still another had emerged from the study.
“What’s going on here?” Stark had demanded of the young criminal.
And the freckled youth had pressed his knife between his unwilling host’s ribs, piercing through an aging heart.
Years ahead had shrunk to minutes, and his eyes ran, although he didn’t know it. From this height, the world was daunting. With a murmur of effort, the fallen merchant dragged himself to his knees.
One more thing.
It had been a very long day. Emerging from the latter end, colors and static circled the injured navigator. He had awoken in a lovers’ embrace with the fallen colossus, and had found himself unable to use his left leg for anything. Praying he had endured the worst the day had to offer, Wrae Launcey pulled his body over the immense bedspread and upright, weight exclusively on his useful leg.
Reality was a blur of shapes and touch as he groped his way through the door and down the wall. Huddled on the floor, another extinguished form. A candle floating over broken lamps. His boots slick with human moisture. His upper abdomen pulled at his stained shirt, hairs pulled taut in drying fabric. It was uncomfortable, but he barely paid attention.
Stumbling down the stairs, Wrae became entangled with a third form. Face first on a downward angle, cheek on luxurious carpeting. His legs over an unknown invader. A whimper glanced against his grit teeth, but couldn’t get out. He slid the final distance, coming to rest behind what might have been a rather pleasing female figure. Dark stains crept from her stomach onto her back, and Wrae watched her fair skin rise and fall for he could not imagine how long. Abandoned by the cords of vital fluid that should have held her together. Air making a few final treks to and from her lungs. In his heart, Wrae bid farewell without bitterness.
The navigator rose to his feet again, clinging to the banister.
“Anyone here?” he searched the walls, the lights, the floor.
A quiet voice reached out from the room at the end of the hall, fifteen feet in from the open front door. Frosty currents again harassed the seaman’s bare skin.
“Over here,” it hummed.
Wrae followed the sound, locating its source seated in the grip of the most heavily adorned room he had yet witnessed. Deep burgundy shelves housed row upon row of books over the far wall. Rich tapestries covered the left side of the room, and hung between two massive crystalline windows on the right. The same thick carpet covered the floor from wall to wall, and a massive cherry desk crowned the farther half of the room. Behind it was Othello Stark, appearing worse for the wear.
The wounded host spread his arms in a welcoming gesture.
“We are the playthings of fate, Mr. Launcey,” he intoned.
Wrae swayed slightly as he held himself up against the doorframe. Large portraits filled the space to his right, staring out coldly over the occupant of the imposing desk.
“Where’s the doorman?” he inquired.
Stark studied his hands on the smooth surface in front of him.
“Gone in pursuit. An exercise in futility I am afraid,” he replied blankly.
Wrae took note of his host’s torn shirtfront, in uncustomary disarray and soaked in the precious substance that so pervaded the afternoon.
“You’re hurt,” he noted bleakly.
“We walk the path fortune chooses for us,” answered the maimed merchant. “Take a seat.”
He indicated a slender chair to the left of his bureau. Wrae clumsily took the proffered location.
“I am impressed you are here. I have little time, I’m afraid, but I wish to help you in what small ways I can. Gods forbid I obstruct your purpose. To this alone a man must be faithful,” the thin man speculated.
Wrae had nothing to offer in reply.
Stark drew a sheet of rough scrawlings to himself, crumpling it in his hand.
“I was unsure as to whether we would converse in person,” he apologized. “When we are done here, if you would please enter the map room upstairs and open the red cabinet. Under the papers there you will find a book, the tome these bandits were certainly trying to apprehend.”
Wrae’s hands came together unconsciously. He could feel his pulse, and vigorously.
“The book about the stone,” he clarified.
Stark nodded. A perturbed look wafted into his gaunt features, and his nose wrinkled.
“Something’s burning,” he said quietly.
The navigator understood at once. Without hesitating, he rose and began to work his way around to the other side of the desk. His host shook his tired head and stretched out his palm in denial.
“No. You are injured, and I am weary. My day was full, and I have no reason to be dissatisfied,” he argued. “It is your day now. Do not forget the tome.”
Wrae frowned ever so slightly. He did not feel completely at ease leaving an aging man to the flames that assuredly raced through the densely combustible residence.
“This is not your choice; it is mine,” added the merchant, noting the uncertainty in his guest’s demeanor. “Take the tome. Leave me.”
With these words Othello Stark closed his eyes, arms spread over the fruit of his wealth. Greying hair gathered in humid rows over his ears. The man was a god in his house, and the navigator less than dust. With an imperceptible bow Wrae staggered from the room.
“Fucking..,” he whispered to no one but himself.
Heat in colored tongues in the walls. From the walls, dancing from corner to corner.
His eyes were open, wide with the imminent mystery of death. Looking to the end of pain, a disclosure of the Answer.
With a cry his flesh was consumed, his soul for a moment white in red fire.
Freedom.
Alone in the snow again. Today, comfort radiated from the remains of the previous three days of his life. From somewhere within, his generous host was little more than fuel in his last hour.
A small collection of parchment leaves bound in leather was in Wrae’s left hand. the flawed brown skin was warm in his hand. A prize with a cost unexpectedly higher than he would have guessed.
I need to go, he reminded himself as a shiver trickled up and down his back. Hypothermia was an experience he rather wished to avoid. With his leg in the condition it was, he would need to move as much and as soon as possible. That the map he had applied himself to the last two days was gone in the ascending ash was barely relevant at this juncture.
I’d like to find my brother, thought the navigator. And those goddamn thieves.
These practical goals in mind, Wrae pulled tight a worn brown coat he had lifted from the deceased gentleman at the top landing. A wide, wet slash hung open over the right shoulder. The navigator hid his face from the biting wind in the shade of the woolen hood.
Footsteps for miles, spoken words among the deaf. A familiar bird circled downward.
Wrae Launcey winced against relentless Salvic breezes and clenched his numb fingers. Bare afternoon neared bloodless close.
I miss you.
Margaret, I’m coming.
End of thread.
Requested spoils: Explanatory tome; Damaged heavy brown coat; Personal papers & Deed to Stark Manor (Enclosed in Tome)
AdventWings
09-20-07, 08:59 PM
Sad Story. Nice Read. :)
Story
Continuity - 6
Wrae almost seemed to appear out of nowhere, but he indeed had a purpose to be at the Manor as well as heading out of there after the incident. Nothing too memorable, though, as well as nothing too unusual in the twist.
Setting - 8
Greatly done!
Pacing - 8
The somewhat off-beat pacing merged well with the flow of writing.
Writing Style
Mechanics - 7
Good overall use. Some errors in comma usage, though, such as using a comma before and.
Technique - 9
Very good. I love the off-beat feel to this and the literary devices used reflect on that well.
Clarity - 8
Character
Dialogue - 6
Action - 7
Persona - 5
Wrae still did not express a strong or subdued character, rather a lukewarm character which could use a bit more emphasis in later stories.
Miscellaneous
Wild Card - 6
I like how you merged what seemed to be two stories together - one of Wrae himself and one of Troy at the Church of Ethereal Sway.
FINAL SCORE – 70!
Samoa receives 1,000 EXP and 150 GP. He also receives the Explanatory tome, a damaged heavy brown coat with blood stains on the front, Personal papers & the Deed to Stark Manor which are enclosed in Tome. He also receives a rather sprained leg that would require a good deal of healing. Nothing that Time cannot fix, if you catch my drift.
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