Talk About Breaking the Ice

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Closed to Rehtul and Sugar

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Two miles south of Underwood

Shinsou Vaan Osiris considered that he had a few redeeming qualities. Of those, he knew patience was his greatest one.

This was why he was perched on the crest of a hill in Corone, in the middle of the night, with a squad of six Brotherhood men and women around him. Slightly ahead of his own forces, down in the gulley where the road dipped before rising towards his position, were a further six Radasanthian soldiers. Cautiously aware of their counterparts atop the hill, they waited silently.

There was to be an ambush of an illegal goods convoy headed from Radasanth to Tylmerande, and the operation was to be the first joint one between the Brotherhood and the Radasanthian Assembly’s own lawkeepers. It was a small scale task that would, in reality, test few of the “specials” that populated Althanas, but nonetheless it was one that Shinsou Vaan Osiris took seriously. He knew it was a test deliberately designed to test the co-operation between his militia and the government. The Telgradian had learned that in order for the Brotherhood to survive, there had to be a little give and take with the authorities that he had so often challenged. Reparations of relations, for one, would ensure his militia’s survival in a changing world.

There were no campfires lit or pickets out; secrecy would be the order of the day. Annoyingly, there had been moonlight an hour ago over a familiar road between Underwood and Radasanth, but this had had been displaced completely by heavy cloud that brought even heavier rain. As the saturation of the beating weather pulled down his white trenchcoat around him, Shinsou felt his shoulders sag.

“Nothing yet, sir,” was the whispered message from his right-hand.

“Probably delayed by the rain.” Shinsou replied, his golden eyes never once moving from the crest of the meandering track below and ahead of them. “Bad for them, good for us.”

The downpour’s timing was perfect; it would wash the roads and fields, making the dirt track and surrounding areas hard for the convoy to defend and manoeuvre around. It served to mask their presence and ensure the ambush worked. There would be four or five hours before the sun rose and by the time anyone figured out what had happened, the trophy pushers from Dhethain would be long since in lockup.

It was at that moment a bright orb of white lazily peeked above the road ahead; a beacon of light shining before a horse led train. The steeds cantered steadily, eyes using the light to seek deepened puddles and potential footfalls. Chains and wood clattered as the carriage wheels struggled to grip the track.

Party time.

Tonight, the Telgradian would not intend on getting directly involved, instead depending on his Brotherhood men to carry their weight. While the government had tested him, he in turn chose to use this as an opportunity to test the newer blood of the Brotherhood. So, on his direction, the six Brotherhood soldiers flanking him leapt into action. They filled his periphery as they filed out, down and around the road, separating into two opposing lines of three and eventually settling on their bellies in the mud aside the route of the convey. Behind them were the Radasanthian guards, who divided themselves into two rows of three just the same.

All twelve pairs of the joint task force’s eyes settled upon their prey as they drew closer. The lamplight of the convoy painted them in their true colours; brown cloaks hid the tell-tale pale green attire of the merchants. The men and women of the wagon train were soaked from every inch of their bitter journey, preferring to walk alongside the wagons than hitch a ride where they would have been more comfortable. Shinsou found himself bemused by this - it seemed a dead giveaway that they deemed their cargo more precious than their own wellbeing, and the Telgradian wondered to himself how their trains had not been ransacked before by the many opportunists that patrolled near the woods.

They’re definitely not from around here. Even the dumbest smugglers know to keep a low profile near Underwood.

Then, as if on a divine que, chaos set in.

The rain had beaten the sloping mud path into submission, so much so that the trail had become mud soup. The hooves of the great steeds couldn’t grip and began to stumble. The traces and chains and the hollow rumbling of rickety wooden wheels of supply carts were violently replaced with the crashing of tonnes of brass, iron and timber. Shouts of confusion and despair erupted from the numerous merchants, who could only watch as their goods were scattered across the marshland and their carts overturned. The Brotherhood and Radasanthian soldiers moved as if in ballet, a perfectly choreographed pincer; each row of six circling around the spilled contraband. They screamed blue murder at the merchants, thrusting swords, lances and god knows what else in their direction until they simply submitted out of blind fear.

Within two minutes, the entire thirteen strong convoy was bound, gagged and kneeling at the side of the road whilst the Brotherhood and Radasanthian men and women began sifting through the goods and taking inventory. Shinsou, his white greatcoat trailing his form, marched down the hill and up to his most senior officer.

“Anything worth our time here?” The Telgradian asked, his soaked brown bangs pressed almost over his eyes. “And is anyone claiming responsibility for leading this circus?”

“No obvious ringleader – they’re at least smart about that - so we’re handing them over to Radasanth for questioning. As for anything worth our time, there’s one thing.” The sergeant responded, “Better follow me.”

The sergeant led the Telgradian to the closest wagon, whose cargo was still somehow contained within. With a sharp kick from the soldier, the door of the ruined carriage slammed open and Shinsou stepped into the gap. He looked, for a moment, at what he thought was a crystalline statue, and knelt next to it. As he brushed his hand past the smooth blue coating, a vicious chill bit at his skin and the Telgradian pulled it back immediately.

“Whoa. What the fuck is this? Ice? Some sort of ice sculpt-…”

His voice trailed off as his eyes swivelled and met another pair of eyes underneath the thick, crystal layer.

Well, shit.

“A person? Or…” He scrambled to find the right words, cognizant of the cold air across his wet clothes. Shinsou closed his eyes for a moment, focusing his senses on the core of the frozen ornament in front of him. “Something alive, anyway. I can definitely sense life.”

“Beast trafficking, maybe?” The sergeant queried, stroking his chin. “Perhaps they froze it for transport. Better than sedating and gives better protection, I’m guessing.”

“Perhaps, but I don’t sense anything animalistic in there. Something more intelligent…” Shinsou tapped the ice gently with the hilt of Enpera. The recoil was stiff and had absolutely no give at all. “This looks and feels like it’s been created with magic. The layers are too smooth; the ice too thick and frigid.”

“Can you cut through it?” The sergeant asked. “Sword or dark matter?”

Shinsou shook his head. “No, too much of a risk. Enpera could slice right through and my dark matter is too crude to be useful. This one is out of my hands. It needs someone…”

As he trailed off, it was then that the Telgradian sparked an epiphany.

“Wait. I know a guy back in Radasanth who might be able to help. Specialises in the cold elements, and I know I can trust him to keep this ‘in house’. Sergeant, please run it by our government friends outside; if they don’t like it, convince them to. I need him at Whitevale as soon as he can make it down.”

The sergeant nodded, pleased that he would be back on the other side of the cramped wagon. As he turned, his face was licked by the cold rain, but he didn’t get fat.

“Oh, sergeant?”

“Yes, sir?”

“…See if a few of the Radasanth boys fancy carrying this to Whitevale for me?”

The sergeant smiled. “With pleasure, sir.”

***

Whitevale

In the now frigid air of his Whitevale office, at the heart of the Brotherhood’s headquarters in Corone (a place one could only reach through invitation), the ice statue rested upon a podium. A bespectacled man, dressed in benevolent white and with curious royal blue eyes and hair, pondered around the living sculpture from all angles without a word. As Osiris watched him with keen eyes, he sat his cloaked body further back into the upholstery of his chair.

"We picked it up after a sting operation on a group of Dhethain-based smugglers the other night.” Shinsou began to explain, tapping his fingers on the desk. “Whatever is inside is alive, barely. I figured as you’re – number one - somewhat of an authority on ice elemental magic, and – number two – well connected in Radasanth, you’d be the man to ask for help.”

A moment passed before Shinsou tacked on, altering the pitch and intonation of his voice “Aside from the obvious “get the thing out of the ice ” situation, are we dealing with a new trafficking ring? Around these parts, mid-Corone, we’re familiar with a number of well known smugglers. You get used to the methods. But these guys seemed out of place; they flanked the convoy and made no attempt to hide the value of the cargo, and so on. I bet a gold coin to a pale of shit that these guys are new here in Corone, and news travels fast. You heard anything from the guild about them? Any requests for business? Protection?”

Shinsou lolled his head back as a guard entered the office with freshly brewed tea for the pair. He set the tray down on the desk between the Telgradian and Rehtul, and left. Shinsou filled both cups from the china decanter, savouring the aroma of bergamot and lemon, and pushed one towards the mage.

“Please, help yourself to some tea. It’s good shit, imported from Irrakram.”

Rehtul paused from looking at the strange ice sculpture long enough to look Shin in the eyes as he made his queries. The Telgradian was one of the only people in the world outside of the Colors Guild that knew of the mage's true occupation, a connecting that Rehtul had made between the two of them at great risk. It was hard to trust anyone in the assassin's game, even one's own guildmates. The only two in the guild who knew of Rehtul's true identity were the two highest ranking members of the guild.

"It's... certainly interesting, I'll give you that. Both the girl trapped in the ice and these interlopers, I mean," he said while attempting to be careful with his words. Shin knew that Rehtul's information network was one of the best in all of Corone, mostly due to it being made of the scattered remnants of the Ixian Knights information network from years before.

He sat down and took the small porcelain cup and wafted the scent before he took a sip. He let the slightly sweet taste of the bergamot hang on his tongue for a few moments before swallowing.

"I have heard of a foreign group trying to muscle in where our most recent quarry had a stake. As they say, a power vacuum will inevitably invite someone to step in and fill it. Looks like these Dheathan thugs are the first to try. I believe they contacted a few of our lower level members for some muscle to help protect their investments. They were denied, of course. Our group isn't exactly well versed in protecting others, and we would never align ourselves with a group whom we had not investigated thoroughly."

He took another sip of his tea and set it down on the table between himself and Shin with a light clicking of porcelain.

"As if we don't have enough problems right now, these clowns are making the sergeants and town guards all across Corone tense. Even the ones who are normally lax and easy to bribe have been on edge lately. Local thieves guilds have been having a rough time keeping their boys out of chains lately due to this increased surveillance. It's honestly a pain for everyone involved. Far too expensive."

Another sip and Rehtul continued, "Even the Guild's operations have been impacted, and we're among the best at remaining under the radar. With guards on double duty and taking to even the most dangerous back alleys, we haven't been able to use our normal means of discussing contracts. The smuggling we could deal with, but the slave trafficking is another matter entirely."

White mist began to billow from Rehtul's form as his anger chilled the air even further than the statue had.

"They deserve no quarter. Even if this wasn't affecting the Guild, I'd gladly wipe them all off the face of Althanas myself."

"This…seems familiar…"

Crystal's consciousness floated up towards the traces of magic. Her vision faded back into her still open eyes as she looked ahead toward its source.

The ice encasing her form had muffled her hearing, but through it and her hazed mind, Crystal could make barely make out two voices. She didn’t recognize one, but the other…

"Rehtul…? What is he…?"

Crystal hadn’t seen him since their meeting in Raiaera. Back in the library where she assumed he was hunting her and attacked him.

As her consciousness faded once more, she caught a brief glimpse of the mist surrounding the almost imperceptibly enraged Rehtul. She remembered how the same would happen with herself during times of joy.

"Heh… That's funny…"

And she slept once more.

Shinsou pursed his lips and clicked his tongue at the report offered, absorbing the information whilst noticing a sharp change in the mage’s demeanour. Rehtul’s knowledge of the workings of underground Corone was far more diverse and wide reaching than his own, and the Telgradian found it useful to have the intelligent mage’s insight on matters that were more difficult to wrap his own head around without all of the intricate “pieces” of knowledge required from the inside. But, it wasn’t just that which impressed the leader of the Brotherhood. It was how coolly and carefully Rehtul always handled the information at his disposal. So it was rare, and perhaps even the first time, that Shinsou had seen Rehtul’s emotions slip through that icy, intellectual exterior and into the Whitevale office.

“Well,” Shinsou began, taking a final sip of his tea before placing the empty cup carefully on the silver tray, “With that in mind, let’s look at the big picture here. For starters, this new – and, frankly, crudely assembled – group of Dhethean traffickers will be vulnerable without the protection the guild has denied them. While they might currently have the local authorities tightened up, it won’t be long before their lack of friends and connections unravels their operation.”

His gaze found once more the frozen statue, which stood idly in the centre of the room as Rehtul’s aura coated it with a thick, glassy frost.

“So, I’m suggesting we apply a little ‘oil’ to these tightly wound screws. But that said, I understand your, and the guild’s, situation more than anyone – you have to keep your head below the parapet. However, the Brotherhood does not. We don’t run in many political circles and because of that we’ve the freedom to be quite direct with our methods. So, perhaps we can do something more publicly to get these traffickers off the streets, and allow the authorities to loosen their shoulders a bit without putting you guys in the crosshairs?”

To Shinsou, direct and unsubtle action was the obvious play. Rehtul was a friend, and whether the Telgradian liked it or not the guild and their workings were a vital part of both their friendship and Corone’s northern lifeblood. Helping him and taking any potential heat off of the guild would inevitably build bridges with both them and the authorities, too, and stop a horrific trafficking ring. Without another thought, the spellsword reached into the inner pocket of his white coat to grab a small flask. The water within gave his tongue a welcome lather, but the Telgradian could feel small crystals of ice cascade down his throat. He glanced at Rehtul, whose eyes were already locked on the bottle.

“…It’s better with the ice, don’t worry. Now,” Shinsou paced towards once more towards the icy cocoon that lacked any hint of thawing, “How about this? I figure that if we can thaw her out, she’d be able to give us a better idea of what we’re dealing with…”

Rehtul had the good graces to blush when he realized he had partially frozen Shin's drink. His emotions seemed to be affecting his magic more and more these days, and that didn't quite feel like something that should be happening to him, considering the amount of effort it used to require for him to summon up even the most basic of spells. He had thought to talk to his father, the world's foremost magical researcher, but had balked at the idea of asking the man for help considering the current state of their relationship.

Eh, it's probably nothing anyway. Time to look into the problem at hand, then we can begin to work on those traffickers and I can blow some steam off. Rehtul stood up and began to speak as he walked across the room.

"Yes, it's often better for those in my profession not to make themselves publicly known. However, I don't particularly need to worry about that. Including you, there are only three people in the world who know of my affiliation with the Colors. So long as I can trust in them... and you, everything will be fine if I'm seen in my public persona. It'd be far stranger if I disappeared, considering I'm one of the last remaining officers of the Ixian Knights who wasn't killed in combat or tried in court. The benefits of the Corone Rangers thinking I was little more than a paper pusher, I suppose."

If the government of Corone had known that Rehtul was in fact the de facto commander of the Ixian Wetworks division, he'd have been killed outright long ago. It was the entire reason that he had come up with the pseudonym "Black" in all of his dealings with the assassins of the Knights, and had never allowed them to see his face nor hear his true voice. To the authorities, they would assume the name was either complete bunk, or if they were lucky the surname of the leader of the wetworks team. When none of the captured spies and assassins had ever been able to identify him, he was released as though he had merely been a clerk working on behalf of the Knights and keeping track of their expenditures and other important documents relating to their operations.

"Now, let's see what I can do here," he muttered under his breath as he faced the statue.

He brought his magic to bear against the forced enclosure of the fae creature trapped within and smirked slightly.

"To think we'd be meeting again under circumstances like this, Crystal," he said as invisible tendrils of his magic worked their way into the ice encasing her and probed for weaknesses. As his magical power circulated through his body, he could feel his hand tingling. He shook his right hand absently to recover the feeling.

As his magic went to work on the statue, he felt imperceptible cracks starting to form in the encasement. Slowly, those cracks widened enough to be seen and worked their way through the entirety of the body before finally shattering completely. A loud crashing sound combined with the tinkling of small pieces of glass hitting the floor echoed out into the hallway. Rehtul brought out an arm and caught the fae before she was able to hit the ground. As he looked down at her, he noticed something, however.

His hand had seemingly been completely covered in the crystal ice that he normally created using his magic.

"No... it's not covered..." he whispered, barely able to comprehend what he saw. The appearance was fading back to normal skin, but he could see clear through the ice to the other side. His hand had become crystal ice.

With a loud crash, Crystal could feel the ice encasing her form break away, allowing her limp body to fall forward. But something stopped her descent.

She let out a groggy moan as her eyes fluttered, their vision gradually returning. Her fingers pressed against her first pair of eyelids and rubbed away the sleep.

Crystal's first sight upon awakening was the plain wooden floor beneath her. A far cry from the stone floors of the Durklan Ruins.

It was then that she realized she was being held up by somebody. With her wings too drowsy to flutter, Crystal instead pulled herself away from the person's arm by standing under her own power.

Her own still-recovering power. She staggered to her feet only to quickly lose her footing and stumble backwards into the podium on which she was displayed, the impact launching flurries of snow from Crystal's body and undoing her Glamour for a split second.

She held herself against the podium to keep from falling and regained her balance. Rubbing the sleep away from her hidden remaining eyes, Crystal finally spoke in a hoarse voice.

"Where am I?"

The shattering of the ice on his office floor assaulted Shinsou’s ears like the smashing of a tray of spilled glassware. The Telgradian rose out of his chair as the fae in question emerged from beyond the broken shards, the heavy taint of frost clinging to her skin. Rehtul briefly supported her with an arm, just before the fae regained her composure and took herself to the podium. It had not gone un-noticed that Rehtul had very briefly referred to her as “Crystal” out loud, insinuating that the two had met before. Whilst the ice mage inspected his hand, Osiris circled the desk and gave her a look over at close range.

“You’re in a town called Whitevale, at the offices of the Brotherhood, and you’re safe.” Shinsou declared. His brow shone with a thin layer of frost, but he was unsure whether Rehtul’s magic or the chill from the fae’s former prison was responsible. His eyes flitted momentarily to Rehtul, who met his gaze. “You mentioned that her name was Crystal before you worked your magic, yes? Is she in good health?”

“No apparent injuries.” The mage confirmed to him, still pre-occupied with his hand.

“Good. Please, take a seat for a moment, Crystal. I’ll try to explain what’s happening here.” Shinsou answered as he reverently retrieved a chair from the corner of the room. He guided the fae down from the podium, gently, and slipped it underneath her with a barely audible rasp. Compared to his own frame, the chassis of the fae felt feathery and fragile.

“A couple of days ago, my militia got word of a convoy heading through Underwood. Smugglers from Dheathain, new players in Corone who seem to get their kicks from trading exotic animals and suchlike.” The Telgradian started, wiping his icy hands on his heavy leather coat and looking the fae directly in the eye. “It’s part of our remit to put a stop to this trade in this part of the country. When we ambushed the convoy, we found you.”

Shinsou didn’t wait for the young fae to respond, “Now, it’s one thing to be trading in animals and the occasional spice. It’s another thing entirely to trade in intelligent life. I call that slavery, which is a very unique – and unwelcome – market here.”

His golden eyes fell upon the fae, who finally looked up once more, taking in everything he was saying to her. “Obviously our concern is twofold – firstly, your wellbeing, and secondly stopping this rather disturbing new development from growing into something larger. I’m keen to make sure that you didn’t suffer any ill effect from being cryogenically frozen, and so I’m hoping you’ll accept my invitation to rest up here for a bit, free of charge of course. Perhaps then, when you are more able, you could share any information that may be helpful to us?”

The words were spoken softly. Shinsou, too, took notice of the silent agreement in the intelligent young man’s eyes. The young man replied with a smile and yet another acquiescent nod.