Awake (44)

[Zadown]

This is absurd. Surreal. Even with all my training, I never wanted to be ... this.

 

Face set to a grim mask, she twirled her practice sword just so, sending her opponent's wooden blade flying away. When Jankiize took a few steps backwards to give the hapless soldier room to retrieve his blade, she saw her grimness relfected as nervousness on the young soldier and made an effort to twist her mouth into something resembling a smile.

 

"You made a valiant effort, sergeant. Just remember the blade is your life - you'd better grasp it more firmly from now on."

 

"Yes ma'am!"

 

"Think about these losses. You made at least one mistake every time, each one unforgivable in a real fight. Next time I don't want to see any of the same mistakes, Nater. Dismissed."

 

"Yes ma'am."

 

He bowed and she nodded back with distracted air, thoughts already in the hot bath she was heading to next after she could get rid of her leather training armor. Jankiize waved a dismissal to the few other pupils who had been watching the training, smiled briefly as she watched them go. Her hearing was far better than the young men could have expected, allowing her to catch their crude if flattering mutterings about her. A ten years younger version of her might have even blushed, but then again ten years ago she had not honed her body-enhancing enchantments to their current state yet and so would not have heard the faint words at all. Now ... now, she even had some errant daydreams about some of the leaving muscular soldiers, not that she would've never let anybody know it.

 

Hearing was not her only enchanted sense. She could feel a disturbance in the local layline network, turned around with lazy, relaxed motions, now with a genuine smile on her sweaty face.

 

"Hey Marc, what brings you here? Nothing but us brutes here at the barracks."

 

"Brutes and cheaters, m'lady. Have you told them you aren't really as strong as you seem?"

 

She looked around, saw nobody was within hearing range any more, shrugged.

 

"Do you think I'd make a better captain of the militia if my own soldiers could beat me effortlessly? I know it might be amusing to you, but I do need all the respect I can get to do this."

 

Her voice had been serious, the smile faded away. Marchello spread his hands in a gesture of apology or surrender.

 

"I'll not speak of it, then. Fion sent me, she ..."

 

Jankiize lifted one finger in a gesture of silence, frowned as if listening to a far-away voice. Marchello looked puzzled but knew better than to interrupt. Jankiize's face changed slowly from the questioning frown to disbelief, then something close to anger. She whispered, so silently Marchello could barely hear the words even in the still air of empty dojo.

 

"No ... never."

 

"What is it, Jankiize? Is it ... the Dreamer?"

 

She was startled and focused her gaze back to the present.

 

"No, it's not him. He is ... gone."

 

"Gone?"

 

"The link is gone, the connection from the Grail to him, severed from his side, first time ever in over fifteen years. Maybe ... no, it does us no good to second-guess him. I hope you two did not expect to go home soon."

 

She was angry, now, and still distracted as if not sure what to make of it. Marchello sighed.

 

"It would have been nice if we'd been able to hold the naming ceremony of my son home, yes. But there are worse worlds to be stranded in, and not many better."

 

He managed an uncertain smile.

 

"I doubt it is anything permanent, m'lady. Links like that could be vulnerable to any number of things, or perhaps the Grail found a new champion. Fionella wanted to see you, if you have time. We'd both better go - she'll want to hear this with both of us present, I'm sure."

 

Jankiize shook off some of the uncertainity she was showing, once again visibly pulling herself back to the present.

 

"You are right. Let's go, Marc."

 

The two of them exited the dojo, not wasting any words. Jankiize's face was set in a rigid mask of anger, Marchello looking slightly worried as was his habit, but the silence between them was the comfortable quiet of two friends.

 

"Captain!"

 

They turned and saw two city councilmen walk towards them with purposeful stride: Regher Akalmas who had been the commander of the milita before Jankiize and Petrus Chevor, the president of the council. Regher still looked like half soldier, half merchant, a sword hanging from his belt. Petrus was an older man with hair gone silver before its time, heavy and ungainly body a mark of his wealth, sweating in the warming spring day. Petrus smiled at Jankiize with the full force of his diplomatic charm, all but ignoring Marchello.

 

"My lady!"

 

"Just captain will do, president."

 

"How fortunate we could find you here. The closed session of the council has been debating some issues that require your expertise. May we request your presence at the next meeting, tomorrow at the second bell?"

 

"You pay me, Chevor. I'll be there."

 

Petrus looked slightly taken aback with the brusque tone of her words but rallied quickly, Marchello almost wincing and Regher merely looking impassive.

 

"Ah ha. Splendid. I hope we'll see you in an attire more fitting to our hallowed halls, however."

 

His friendly grin showed he didn't mean it as an insult, and Jankiize managed a faint smile in response, a look of indulging somebody else's tepid joke on her face that was uncannily akin to the Dreamer's usual humorless grin.

 

"My scale mail of precious metal, then - it should be perfect uniform for a mercenary of this city, don't you think?"

 

"If you wish, yes. Until tomorrow, then."

 

Petrus turned to leave, but Reghar stayed there, waiting for the stocky man to pass beyond hearing range.

 

"Well?"

 

"You know, I never wanted them to give this job to you, m'lady. I don't think it is a woman's job."

 

"It isn't, really. But it is my job, never the less."

 

"And maybe you have what it takes, m'lady. Still, I'm not sure if you will like where it will lead you. Good day."

 

He nodded, polite and a little sad, then hurried away with long strides to catch Petrus. Marchello frowned after the two receding councilmen.

 

"What was that all about?"

 

"I don't know ... but I have a feeling it will nothing good. They've kept the militia in higher alert than usual, despite the end of our ... usual threat."

 

She sighed at the direction the two men had vanished to and turned to go.

[Zadown]

"I was right. It was nothing good."

 

Still partly obscured by the shadows of the dark hallway, Jankiize looked like the very archetype of a soldier, if a little short: the light spilling from the brightly lit room glinted on her magnificient armor and showed her gauntleted hand resting on the hilt of Winter's Kiss. Her medium-lenght hair was on a military ponytail and her posture was more rigid than normal, the martial attire bringing out a part of some other Jankiize. She had always had a slightly boyish body and the armor had no blatant curves to show it was made for a woman.

 

For a fleeting moment she seemed a stranger, somebody they hardly knew, and if she hadn't spoken in her normal everyday voice, a bit tired but not otherwise strained, Marchello felt like he would have been startled. He glanced at his wife but saw Fionella's thoughts were on their son, knew she wouldn't be very talkative when she was like that.

 

"Some sort of military expedition?"

 

"You could say that."

 

Jankiize tugged her gauntlets loose and removed them, sighed.

 

"They want to occupy Thakelmia."

 

She sat down on her favourite chair, exhausted by more than just the weight of her armor. Even Fionella turned to look at her, concerned.

 

"They want you to lead troops into the city proper? What did you tell them?"

 

"I asked for a higher pay, of course."

 

Jankiize closed her eyes, a figure of defeat now, sighed again and opened them.

 

"Mind if I loan your husband? I know it is not a good time, but ... I don't want to do this alone."

 

"As long as our guardian angel stays here, I'll manage here, at least a while. It's not a permanent post, surely?"

 

"No, no ..."

 

She frowned and dragged herself upright.

 

"Now there might be a problem."

 

"Ah! If he is really gone ..."

 

"Yes."

 

Jankiize walked to the children's room's door, knocked it softly and opened it. Mendra looked up from her book and smiled brightly at her mother while Jannal was already asleep in her small bed with Óellaeh-Ân sitting next her, a look of guarded concentration on her angelic face.

 

"Laeh?"

 

"Yes, mistress?"

 

She stood up, towering over Jankiize. Her wings weren't visible except as faint shadows to the sixth sense, but the dim celestial glow she eminated was easy to see when you were looking for it, a part of her unearthly beauty. Despite her looks, anybody with any skills at reading body language could have seen an edge to her, an odd contrast to her apparent form. Óellaeh-Ân was their public secret, never venturing out of the tower but seen by numerous employed guards and a few visitors, enhancing the reputation of the Witch of Jalar insomuch as it needed any.

 

"Do you know if something has happened to the Dreamer?"

 

"No. I haven't received any new orders from the Master."

 

"What ... would happen if he would die?"

 

Óellaeh-Ân smiled like the sun, adding to the brightness of the room. When she spoke it was in one of the heavenly languages she almost never used, intelligible to the three mortals only through their translation enchantments.

 

"I would not know, not for any mortal lifespans at least. His last order to me was to respect your wishes, m'lady, and to protect the occupants of this tower. Dead or alive, his words will continue to bind me until the leash is broken by a stronger force, he returns to alter his command or there's nothing and nobody left to protect."

 

Fionella shook her head slightly.

 

"It doesn't sound like much of a life, being leashed like that, no matter how long."

 

"There are far worse places for angels both before and after a capture, fates lonely or torturous or both. Just how free you end up being, m'ladies and m'lord, in the end? Do you relish the work you have accepted out of your free will, mistress?"

 

Maybe the first sign of his passing is a lessening of restraint for his old servants.

 

Jankiize shrugged, felt curious discomfort at how outspoken the usually silent angel was being tonight, even if there was only mild curiosity and no rebellion in the questions.

 

"We'll see. Maybe I can do some good in there, soften the blows of whatever happens. You may return to attend to the children, Leah."

 

"Yes, mistress."

 

The angel curtsied perfectly and tiptoed away, moving with silent grace. After the door closed, the three friends shared a communicative look with each other but none of them said anything. A faint frown remained on Jankiize's face when she broke the silence.

 

"Well. That's one worry less, then."

 

"We'll manage here just fine, Janki. Just look after Marc for me, will you?"

 

She nodded and left to remove her armor in private, thinking of Fionella's last words.

 

One widow is all we need, here. I'll keep him alive for you, Fion.

[Zadown]

Sometimes her enhanced senses could be a curse.

 

Marchello was in a tent, asleep, as was most of their makeshift army. The last light of dusk was just fading from the sky leaving only the stars, their light distant and insufficient for any normal mortal. Jankiize could see well enough not to carry a torch or a lamp, could hear what her lieutenants were talking about her around a camp fire. She cursed in her mind and hastened her step, made some noise to announce her arrival. The men fell silent.

 

"Gentlemen."

 

"Captain."

 

Their reply was murmured, hesistant, most of them remaining staring into the dancing flames. She felt tired and lonely under her softly glinting armor, but did not show it.

 

"Don't let me interrupt your campfire stories, men. Do carry on."

 

She sat down near the fire, her scalemail tinkling, and tried to see the faces of her officers without staring at them. Tried to judge whether their talk had just been idle words or whether she should be more afraid of her own than any possible enemy. Jankiize was not surprised when it was Irro who spoke first.

 

"We think you've taken this charade far enough, witch-captain."

 

Oh Seventh Abyss, this is the last thing I need right now.

 

"'We', eh? Would this 'we' be all of you, gentlemen?"

 

Her eyes narrowed into a sneering glare as she now openly judged the men one by one. There was still hesistation there, and one or two of the seven might have been on her side as long as she showed her strength, but overall what she saw made her feel chilled to the core. Some of them stared back, open hostility in their eyes now. She had felt some of this resistance to her rule earlier, but now that it was staring back at her she realized she hadn't paid enough attention to these young officers. For a brief moment she wondered what they had heard of her, what they believed and what they didn't, then she abandoned the line of thought as a luxury best saved for later.

 

"Yes it would, 'captain'."

 

Irro's sneering voice matched hers. Nobody had stood up yet, though. She forced something akin to a smile on her rigid face, knew she did not succeed too well. He continued.

 

"Nobody would blame you if a ... womanly ailment would prevent you from continuing tomorrow. As the most senior of those officers who are left, I would complete the expedition as an acting captain. You should take your scribe with you - we do not need anybody in a dress for this."

 

A hundred images whirled through her head, from the defense of Arkstâd, from her sparring with the Dreamer and from bloody battles of the Grail War, from the skirmishes of her work as a caravan guard. She was a hero in those images, or at least a winner, a survivor, and she drew strength from them to be a hero for a while, even if she felt a pool of gloomy, chilly darkness spreading inside her guts. Her fingers trembled inside her gauntlets. Her voice did not.

 

"Got it all figured out, have you? How about this, Most Senior Lieutenant Irro - we'll have a little sparring duel come this morning, to the first blood like is only proper for us manly officers, and should I lose, my wound would ... prevent me from continuing. You can hardly lose to a mere woman, m'lord."

 

"If that sort of theater is what it takes, sure. We'll assemble the soldiers to see this rousing match, then, a full bell after dawn."

 

The atmosphere felt relieved. They might not like her, but their dislike was not hatred, not yet. Except perhaps lieutenant Irro's, but she could see in his face that he looked forward to humiliate her openly and was thus all for her suggestion. That made grinning easier.

 

"Until morning then, gentlemen. Sharp steel and real armor, Irro."

 

"Captain."

 

Less of a murmur now, even if they wished her defeat. When she walked back to her tent she felt the old ghost ache pulsing inside her leg, had to resist the urge to limp again.

 

*

 

Butterflies in her stomach. None of her body enhancements helped there. Sword in her hand, the curved, short blade as alien to this world as her face, as her Art. The hilt was cool even through her sturdy gauntlets. She could see the blade itself smoking gently, colder than any winter she had ever witnessed. Jankiize drew a long breath, focused on the runes and words of power dancing inside her trained mind. Getting them wrong in the heat of the battle would not be an option.

 

She could barely understand the words spoken by somebody else outside her head, the world contracting. The army of spectators dropped out of the area she was focusing in, vanished from her world. Only a few things remained: the uneven field of grass, the already triumphant face of Irro, her Winter's Kiss, his ordinary sword.

 

He lunged, anxious not to show any cowardice at the face of a mere woman. Despite her nervousness it was easy to parry the hasty attack. The swords clashed and now both of them smoked with freezing cold. It would've been too easy, too minimal, if he had dropped his blade then. She moved forward, remembered what had happened to Galle's blade and tried the same trick. Another metallic clang, a transparent cloud of ice expanding from the point of impact. Irro's sword did not break, however. Only his triumphant grin vanished.

 

Irro attacked again, but when she tried to parry he pulled his attack short to avoid her blade striking his. It made him look clumsy - the spectators could not see the intense cold slowly seeping out of his sword, the icy pain in his fingers. They jeered at him and cheered her on. Among the soliders she was more liked, it seemed. When the distance opened up between them, Jankiize took the opportunity to whisper a sibiliant series of true words, pointed with her open left palm a spell of clouding directed at Irro.

 

The others saw him hesistate, then look around like a drunken fool, his sword wavering in his frost-bitten fingers. Jankiize walked forward with a leisured pace while Irro's eyes darted this way and that, a panic growing on his face. She did not stop at a sword blow's distance but walked closer, just to show she could - and then, lightning-fast, her sword snaked out to nick at Irro's ear.

 

"First blood, lieutenant Irro. I win."

[Zadown]

Their soldiers trundled ahead next to her horse, a thin column of men wearing the lightest armor she had ever seen any invading army have, so far. Leather armor, the trademark of caravan guards, narrow swords hanging from their belts, their spears coming along in a cart. Some with crossbows, a small number of skirmishers with longbows or hunting bows. Militia indeed, and even if their morale was high enough those of them that had seen real war were far and few between. Jankiize knew her face had a frown on it to answer any of her cheerful soldiers who turned to look at her but she could not help herself.

 

Not much of an army, but at least they have nearly indestructible captain if it helps them any. Come to think of it, as long as I have my magic gifts from the Dreamer I might well be the most powerful mortal in this world ... ha!

 

Marchello guided his horse towards hers, as well as he could with his poor riding skills. You could see on his face he was afraid he'd fall or make a fool of himself. He was wearing local clothes now, but he still looked out of place with his foreign features, his civilian garb and bearing.

 

"You look almost manly in those pants, Marc. You should try riding more often!"

 

"Hah! I'd leave this and swordplay to you, captain, if I could. Speaking of which, you were brilliant this morning."

 

Now they were next to each other, speaking softly in a language nobody else around here could understand, the noise of a marching army obscuring it in any case. Her frown that had begun to ease came back, twisted her face.

 

"I hated it, hated every second of it. I'm not sure if there had been another way, but this seemed to work at least."

 

She sighed, turned to watch the marching men.

 

"They seem cheerful."

 

"It is easy to follow somebody of perceived power. I've read that there's nothing quite so frightening for a foot soldier than a weak, cowardly leader."

 

Jankiize laughed in disbelief.

 

"They expect me to do their ugly work for them? This whole world is mad - I should've taken Galle Jalar's offer, as bad as it was. At least I wouldn't be killing men for money."

 

"Hasn't been much of that, yet."

 

"You think it'll stay this easy, Marc? Armies have tried to fight the Dreamer, far past a sane point to quit and run. A short woman in shiny armor with a rag-tag army? You really think they'll just kneel and give us their metal?"

 

Marchello blinked once at the unfamiliar expression, then shrugged.

 

"From what I heard they were crushed pretty bad by your uncle. Might be they have the fight beaten out of them at last."

 

"In my daydreams, maybe."

 

She watched one of her lieutenants approaching on a horse and stopped talking. Marchello did not trust his riding skill enough to turn his horse and turned himself to look instead.

 

"Lieutenant Parem."

 

"Captain."

 

He grinned, looking like a young boy when he did that. Of course, that's what he really was - Jankiize and Marchello were a lot older than anybody else in the whole army, leading this young men's crusade by the orders of men far older than even them.

 

"Irro got his rousing match, eh Captain? Even if not quite the sort he was expecting."

 

"Sorry to disappoint him, then."

 

"To be honest ... ah. We weren't really sure, with all the stories ..."

 

"You thought the council would put a woman to lead the militia as some sort of joke, that my skill at the dojo was some sort of fluke? That all the stories my own guards have spread were false advertisement?"

 

"There's some wild tales afoot, captain. Believing them all would be as bad as ... not believing any."

 

"Huh. I'll have to find somebody to tell me a few of them, one of these days. Would be nice to know if I'm rumoured to be a half-dragon in disguise, or perhaps I bathe in the blood of virgins, or ... you tell me, soldier. What evil secrets am I supposed to keep in my odd tower?"

 

She smiled then, softening her words. A dazzling smile that left poor Parem almost blushing and Marchello grinning at the other man's discomfort.

 

"Pack of lies, captain, that's what any of the evil rumours are. We'll follow you, me and the men."

 

"Of course you will."

 

She dismissed the embarassed lieutenant with a gesture, turned back to regard the column of passing men with thoughtful air. Parem rode away.

 

"I'm not sure if my followers or my enemies in this army worry me more. Like herding a pack of cats, this is."

 

"Don't sell yourself short, Janki. Like it or not, you are becoming rather good at this. Captain Jankiize Towikae Vangaijuua, hero of the hour, saviour of the weak .. oof!"

 

Jankiize elbowed Marchello so hard he almost fell off, grinning viciously as she did so.

 

"Cut it! Don't give me any nightmares of having to do this for the rest of my long life!"

 

He laughed and rode on, towards the head of the column.

[Zadown]

The Dreamer had taught her well. He and his world - the Eternal War of Chaos and Law, of Good and Evil, Balance struggling to keep the vast planar forces in some sort of equilibrum. She had never been one to seek conflict, yet war had followed her everywhere, shown its bloody death's head grin over and over again, both in her nightmares and in her reality. Even so, whenever she could see a problem ahead and had time to get ready, she did not have to follow the brutal and cold ways of her teacher. But when Jankiize Towikae Vangaijuua was surprised ...

 

A flicker of movement through a tiny window too small to see properly through, barely big enough for the crossbow bolt that had probed against her thick wards and was found wanting, the projectile swerving aside like a stunned bird. Shock and anger coursed through her without time to temper those emotions. She pointed and snarled a word that was lost in the crackle and boom of the lightning it conjured, a word that was lightning, the True Name of it.

 

Another shock of what she had conjured: the blinding flash, the deafening boom, the spray of broken masonry and burnt bricks. And of the death at the wrong end of that bolt, invisible through the explosion but nevertheless almost a physical blow to her. Jankiize's horse shied and backed away from the damaged Thakelmian building. Their grim column had already stopped, the cracking noise blowing a wind of alarm and suspicion through the already tense ranks of Jugatt militia.

 

A smoking, blackened corpse fell out of the wound she had struck into the building, holding a ruined crossbow. Too small to be an adult man. Jankiize cringed, then quickly took control of her facial expression as her men surged forward, towards the corpse and the building, swords in hand.

 

"Secure the building!"

 

She could barely recognize her own voice, felt her body almost shaking from the force of the shock. Her men rushed on, leaving her time to get control of her trembling fingers.

 

"You alright?"

 

It was Marchello, never far away from her. He would've been the last figure she could think as a rescuing knight on a white steed, but he had an air of quiet reassurance that made it easier for her to surface out of the slightly unreal state the sudden ambush had pushed her in. Jankiize took a deep breath and focused her gaze on her friend, nodded at first.

 

"More or less. I should know better than to ... be so startled."

 

"When somebody tries to kill you? Only people who can remain calm through that are hardly people any more."

 

"I was taught better."

 

She tried to smile, to make a joke out of it, but whatever her facial muscles managed was far from a smile. Marchello gave her a disapproving look.

 

"He did not think that highly of his own distance from humanity, and you should not try to emulate him either. If I ever see his reckless smile on your face when we are in mortal peril ... I'll be afraid for you, for us both."

 

"Hah. Yes, you are right. That would be scary. I don't want his pink eyes either."

 

Now she managed a smile, and he smiled briefly in response. The wave of militia that had surged into the broken building washed back, reported that there was one another corpse inside but nobody alive. Another teen that had been too young to die in the slaughter the Dreamer had brought here, the bitter fury visible on the face of all of them, on all of the boys. The girls, the few rare ones who dared to come outside at all, looked wary or scared, already given up. Older people wore unreadable trader's faces but she could imagine the anger swirling behind those facades. Not a happy place, Thakelmia. Not at all.

 

She hadn't suffered even a scratch, of course. But her soldiers weren't walking around twice-warded, and there had been incidents not long after the short and pointless skirmish they had had to suffer through before they were able to enter the city. Crossbow bolts from hiding, excrement-smeared blades stuck into soldiers by seemingly harmless civilians, urchins throwing stones and rotten things, an air of insufferable tension over the whole miserable affair. Jankiize had some tricks to reduce the worst of it, to blunt the sharpness of both what the locals wanted to do to the soldiers and vice versa, but she could not be everywhere, could not attend to every little detail.

 

New rumours will spread, now. The Witch of Jalar, commanding the forces of lightning itself to kill young boys ... will that make them fear me more? Respect me? Or just add more fuel to the fires of hate?

 

Their patrol kept on walking the streets of the sullen city. There were marks of the Dreamer's displeasure still everywhere, worse marks than what her tiny bolt of lightning could do. Some entire old houses were destroyed, the house itself crushed to rubble with the family lines reduced or gone. Some still stood without a mark on them, great houses with storage rooms, inner courtyards with attached stables, workshops and forges, houses the size of small villages now standing cold and empty. Or even worse, a few cold pairs of eyes watching their patrol from upper store windows, the curtains swishing shut if she tried to see who the observers were.

 

What would the Dreamer do?

 

She lifted one gauntleted fist to hide her twisted smile at her own thought.

 

He would rule with such a spiked iron fist even these grim Thakelmians, those that might survive, would be shocked into trembling obedience. Of course, I do not have even a fraction of his power ...

 

She blinked, feeling an odd disruption in the laylines of power like a shadow had just walked through them, a ghost. Jankiize glanced at Marchello who seemed to be in his own thoughts, more than likely thinking what to do now that he and Fionella and their son were all stranded here. Her heart started accelerating, a fear far greater than the shock she just had had coursing through her. The fear of a unexplainable mystery, an unexpected noise in a locked house, or at least a shade of such terror. Then it was gone, leaving as suddenly as it had struck, and if she had not been taught better, she would have dismissed it as a trick of her own mind.

 

Perhaps it was a ghost ... his ghost, here to see I do as I was taught.

 

She swallowed empty air and kept her eyes open for more mundane threats.

[Zadown]

The House Galdir was their main camp in this city of ghosts, biggest and most central of the abandoned trader houses. Sometimes she felt like it was their prison, the only safe place for her soldiers and Marchello, a besieged tower in the middle of a sea of hostility. Jankiize could not blame the locals either. Only the mental image of assassins sneaking into the bedroom of her own little girls kept her hard enough for this work, sometimes.

 

Their patrol arrived to the courtyard through the heavily guarded gates and she relinquished her horse to one of the soldiers in charge of the stables. Jankiize left the details of after-patrol chores to the sergeants - that was what they did best, and while they would have followed any orders she would've given, they would have resented that sort of meddling into their work. In any case, the young ambushers and the weird disruption in the laylines had left her submerged in her own thoughts, her gaze focused somewhere beyond this world, a frown on her brow.

 

She nodded informal acknowledgements to the salutes her soldiers gave her as she walked towards her own quarters. Soldiers had taken over the areas nearer to the courtyard where servants, caravan guards and other hirelings had lived, leaving the upper floors of the trader nobles to the officers. Jankiize had the master bedroom, of course. The adjoining sitting room was converted to a meeting and planning room with maps of the city spread on every available table. Nearest to her own room was Marchello's, then Lieutenant Parem's, with the other lieutenants in clear order of their closeness to the bright sun of her affection. Irro had not even ranked a place along the same corridor.

 

One soldier was guarding the long corridor to which most of the bedroom doors lead to, snapping into attention as she finished climbing the stairs to this floor.

 

"Anything out of ordinary, corporal Wemner?"

 

"No ma'am."

 

She wasn't sure why she had asked in the first place, but the slight note of hesistation in the corporal's voice told her whatever hunch it had been, it had been right.

 

"No little details whatsoever?"

 

"Um .. ma'am, does a cold wind blowing through here count? There's no windows so ..."

 

Jankiize's frown deepened.

 

Cold as the Void, maybe.

 

"When was that?"

 

"Hard to tell in here, ma'am. Half a bell ago if I am permitted to guess."

 

Same time as I felt the disturbance, then.

 

"Very good, corporal. Next time I ask I'd prefer to be answered the first time around, however. Still, tell the quartermaster to give you a dose of aqmaranth tonight by my order. Wouldn't want you to catch a chill."

 

She smiled, nodded to the relieved-looking soldier and walked to the door of her room, hesistating just before she was about to open it.

 

Ah, Abyss! If it is somebody hostile that can walk the Lost Paths, it'll find me anywhere and asking for soldiers to accompany me to my own room would be at best like holding a shield of paper between me and a bolt from ballista, at worst making me seem paranoid and silly if there's nobody there. And if it is friendly, I do not need any witnesses.

 

Steeling herself she tugged the door open but there was nothing alarming in sight. The room was gloomy in the afternoon light with the thinner curtains closed, her bed was the usual mess and the writing table even worse one with parchments and sheets of paper spilling over its edges ... and there, on top of that pile of half-done work, a seemingly innocent iron crown.

 

Jankiize froze.

 

It had been roughly ten years since she had last seen the simple, spiked thing of black iron but there was no uncertainity, no way for it to be mistake - it was the Crown of War the Dreamer had worn in lieu of a helmet during his time as a commander of Chaos armies, infused with rage and change, burned with the fires of the eternal meta-planar conflict. A poisonous snake poised there, ready to strike, would've been less hypnotizing. What little part of her still remained fully functional and not tempted and horrified by the artefact by equal measures made Jankiize to slowly shut down the door, leaving her alone in the gloomy room with the crown.

 

What is it doing here? My ... inheritance?

 

Now that she could see it, she could also notice the little ripples it made on the local laylines, the glow of warm Chaos magic it radiated, signs of its raw power. She managed to tear her gaze away from it to look around again, to see if whatever had left the item here was still here or had at least left some marks, but nothing else in the room seemed to be out of the ordinary. Even the crown itself looked fairly innocent just laying there: a piece of metal with no ominous runes, no wicked stains of blood, no uneven arrows of Chaos triumphant.

 

Jankiize opened her mouth to shout for Marchello, then shut it. Her pulse was racing.

 

He seems so even, so calm in the face of temptations of power. But he is still an Adept of the Art. He could think that thing is a tool that would get him home.

 

"A fraction of his power ..."

 

She cut her muttered sentence short and curled her hand that had almost by itself been reaching towards the crown into a fist. Jankiize snarled in mounting frustration.

 

Now what? I can't throw it away, can't leave it here unguarded or carry it around with me ...

[Zadown]

"There's something I need to show you, Marchello."

 

Using his full first name got his attention, just as she knew it would. He had been 'Marc' for her for months and months now. Jankiize's face was serious as she pointed towards her own bedroom. Marchello started, then put down the pile of papers he had been carrying and followed her. He was wearing his red robes of a Chamanian demonologist again, looking like a mousy scribe to anybody not familiar with what the robes signified. The effect was magnified by the contrast to Jankiize's armored form - while she wasn't any taller than he was, she looked a lot more dangerous and capable to any ignorant observer.

 

He didn't know what to expect when entering the bedroom but seeing Jankiize point at an unadorned iron crown resting on top of a pile of unfinished paperwork seemed anticlimatic. At least until he recognized the aura of swirling Chaos roiling all around it, like the black crown had been so hot it was making the air waver.

 

"What is that? Some artifact of the Dreamer's?"

 

"Yes. By the time you first saw him, he had already relinquished it along with Chaos. He wore it at the front line of the endless conflicts of the Grail Wars: at the Battle of Golden Fire, at the Defense of Bhalbet, at the Iron Raid ..."

 

Her voice faded a bit and she stared at the crown, lost in thoughts, then she spoke louder again.

 

"You should know how infused artifacts work."

 

Marc nodded and moved as if to lift the crown for closer examination, but Jankiize slapped his hand aside. The small man, usually radiating the air of scholastic harmlessness, seemed more surprised than hurt, a reflected gleam in his eyes that made her uneasy.

 

"Hey! Didn't they teach you any caution, back in Chaman?"

 

"Oh. Ah, yes, yes they did. You think it is infectious or even cursed?"

 

"With how powerful it might be, how it could be anything but. Not to mention it is of the Chaos."

 

Marchello rubbed his hands absently together while staring at the simple iron crown.

 

"But why would the Dreamer send something so potentially hazardous to you? And does this invalidate our theory he is gone?"

 

"Your questions might answer each other. Who knows what is set to motion when somebody like him passes away. We'd be better off thinking what to do with it instead of wasting time wondering why it is here. You know I can't leave it alone or carry it around."

 

"You'd end up using it."

 

Jankiize glanced at the crown, then sighed.

 

"Yes, yes I would. Sooner or later. You almost grabbed it the moment you understood what it was, or might be."

 

"And if you'd leave it here ..."

 

She nodded at Marc.

 

"Anybody entering might put it on. Even a layman would be touched by whatever it contains."

 

"Maybe ... maybe you are selling yourself short, Janki. Maybe the Dreamer was sure you'd be able to handle that crown, saw the required willpower in you."

 

There was not much joy in her smile. She glanced at the crown again, like having trouble keeping her eyes away - a gap in the teeth that had to be explored with the tongue every few minutes, just to be sure.

 

"You just want to see what happens when I wear it. Mad, you and your people, all mad. I'm surprised there's any of you left."

 

He grinned, then turned to look towards the window. Some noise they had been ignoring so far was getting louder and more violent, and both of them realized at the same time any noise like that was not normal around the headquarters. The locals usually never came even nearbt except as prisoners, and left as soon as they could if let go. Marchello sounded anxious.

 

"A riot?"

 

"That bolt of lightning might've been the last spark into a dry haystack."

 

Right then the door to the corridor was knocked loudly several times and the familiar voice of corporal Wemner could be heard:

 

"Captain! You are needed at the walls, ma'am!"

 

"Coming!"

 

Without thinking, she grabbed the crown, and the two of them hurried towards the growing roar of the crowd.

 

*

 

She had had nightmares like this. A vengeful crowd shouting at her, torches and improvised weapons held high, screaming like maddened animals that she was an abomination. A freak, not human like they were. Somehow the bolt of lightning, striking down two too-young heirs of two different Houses still fairly high on the social ladder of the city, or what was left of it, had been the last straw. The history could be debated, could be forgotten or ignored, the deeds of the Dreamer passed aside as those of a crazed mercenary, a conjured power that she had been unable to contain. But wielding naked lightning inside the city, at the forefront of a military patrol - that meant the subjugating power was not of men, but of demons and sorcery out of dark fairy tales. And against a power like that, there was nothing else to do but riot, even if it would mean one last futile clash with superior forces.

 

That was not the worst part.

 

Worst part was trying to decipher the sidelong glances his own soldiers were giving her when they looked away from the boiling mass of enraged humanity seething below them. So far only a few stones had been flung, all aimed at the Witch of Jalar, Captain Vangaijuua, all missing of course. Jankiize knew the riot would soon escalate from that, perhaps in quarter of a bell, perhaps in a blink of an eye. The locals still had crossbows and slings and her soldiers weren't protected. Marchello wasn't protected in any way either, but at least he was behind her, ready to duck completely out of sight if necessary.

 

Time seemed to stretch, the movements of the crowd and her own soldiers slow, their speech low and barely understandable. Even through her gauntlets of adamantine, she could feel the sharp spikes of the crown, the warmth of Chaos magic pulsing and swirling inside its narrow band. It was the third unknown - she had no idea what she would do if she'd put it on. At one extreme end it would push out her personality, make her frothing body leap down with a unsheathed Winter's Kiss to kill and kill and kill until she'd be wading through blood. At the other end she'd Ascend into demi-godhood the moment the crown would land on her brow.

 

The crowd seemed to be shouting for her to put it on. A wicked grin split her face in two with bared teeth at the same time a tiny part of her mind growled in anger, yelling that the crown's subversive spirit was seeping through already. Briefly she wondered if the whole riot was a hallucination, not really letting it stop her from lifting the crown up. Marchello's face, seen in the very edge of her field of vision, had a weird look to it, halfway between hunger and terror. Weird enough to make her realize this was all real, not weird enough to make her stop her from placing the crown down on her head.

 

The world plunged into blood red liquid. What little she had been able to understand from the bellowing of the crowd and from the angry shouts of her own soldiers was gone, the sounds replaced with distorted moans. People were mere black specks in the sea of vibrant Chaos, the only ones coruscating with any sort of visible power being Marchello and her. And even the demonologist's aura was barely visible so close to her own roaring blaze of power. She had never felt so happy in her life, never so in control, and Jankiize spread her arms to hug the world one last time before she would have to chastise the unruly monkeys clamoring at her footsteps.

 

"BWHAHAHAHA!"

 

"Jankiize!"

 

"Die, witch!"

 

"Captain, what ..."

 

"Ye have to focus, m'lady Jankiize Towikae Vangaijuua. Unite yer body an' mind, stop driftin' like that. We've done what we can ... so th' rest is up to ye."

 

The words, dredged from some deep part of her memory or spoken by the crown, disturbing that moment of sheer unrestrained bliss struck her with an impact belied by their soft tone. It was shame that dragged her back, that allowed her to wrestle control back from the crown, as abruptly as she had lost it. It would not have been enough if the crown had been sentient in any way, but it was merely a part of a planewalker's attire, a mindless soak of magical energies.

 

Jankiize landed back on top of the wall, barely conscious that she had been afloat, that she had been shining with unshackled energies. Chaotic lightning crackled around her armor, straining against its immutable form. Gasping air, she stared at her hands burning with brilliant mana, confused and feeling growing pain breaking through her earlier euphoria, the pain of a body trying to channel too much magic. Even in the mounting agony she knew she would have to do something with it all.

 

What would the Dreamer do? Hah!

 

Tears fell from her open eyes as she strained to give shape to the contained power. Jankiize hissed in pain, not trusting herself to speak. Where she had a moment earlier been wreathed in an aura of crimson, darkness blacker than any mortal night poured now out of her outstretched hands. The crowd tried to back out of its way, but it was way too fast, the riot packed too tightly against the walls. The sea of ink engulfed them all, flowing to all directions as an ethereal tsunami.

 

She fell first to her knees, then to the side, fading to a darkness of her own.

[Zadown]

Epilogue

 

The sky was overcast but not brooding, the wind brisk but not dangerous. Normal weather for this part of the coastal sea, the marching clouds above majestic if you paused to contemplate their massive, regal forms, utterly mundane if you did not. Jankiize was leaning on the railing of the small caravel 'The Blessed Mollusc' soaking the intermittent rays of sunlight, not minding the occassional spray that rose high enough to touch her. She was wearing brown traveller's clothes cut for a man, her armor glinting underneath. From her wide leather belt hang a black iron crown looking slightly out of place against her more mundane pieces of attire, her sword hanging on the other side of the belt.

 

A few sailors were about, doing their tasks that were incomprehensible to any trader used to land caravans. Jugatt was far enough from any larger body of water most trader families based on the city did no or very little seafaring during their extensive travels, and despite how many weird worlds Jankiize had seen, the Dreamer had never taken her on a sea trip. She felt a moment of unease when she thought about the sheer depth of the salty water beneath them, then cast that thought away.

 

That's half the point of the whole trip, isn't it. With no magic here only outsiders can reach the crown once I fling it away, outsiders I couldn't have defended the stupid piece of junk against in the first place.

 

Marchello appeared from below and made way towards her. Jankiize turned her gaze from the sky and sea and looked at the occultist as he slowly made way past the ropes and other impediments strewn on the deck in apparent disarray. He was utilizing his masking charm, looking a lot more like a native of this plane of existence than she did with her exotic slant of her eyes, with her slightly wrong skin tone. He was wearing clothes similiar to hers, brown and unassuming traveller's garb, except of course he had no armor beneath it.

 

"Feeling sick yet, Marc?"

 

"Not quite."

 

He grimaced, then gestured a dismissal of the subject, looked at the view for a moment.

 

"No sign of the land any more."

 

"We passed out of sight of Foess just a moment ago, and at this speed it'll take a few days to reach the Spice Isles."

 

"An expert already?"

 

"Nah, I asked a sailor."

 

They were both smiling slightly, both relieved to be here, out of the oppressive gloom of Thakelmia. He nodded, turned to look towards where they were heading while leaning on the rail next to her.

 

"I see you still have the crown."

 

"Yes, for now. I'll throw it overboard tomorrow. I'd claim nobody will ever find it, but these things are in the habit of being found ... one of these days."

 

"Could be a few thousand years."

 

"I hope so."

 

A silence, punctuated by the creak of the ship and of the voices of the sailors - their language comprehensible through their enchantments, the actual words so deep seafaring jargon they were meaningless to the two. Sun was getting redder as it sank towards the horizont. He broke the silence first, again.

 

"It all worked out in the end, didn't it?"

 

"Yes, by luck or the Tri-Fates, but it was far from pleasant."

 

"At least you were out a part of it. I had to defend you ..."

 

"I'm sorry about that, Marchello. I owe you my life, I know."

 

He shrugged, uncomfortable. She gazed deeper into the spectacle of sinking sun, looking so calm he felt a sudden certainity she wouldn't be tempted by the power infused in the crown again.

 

"So ... there's been a thing I've meant to ask."

 

"Hmm?"

 

"How are we going to affoard these spices you claimed you'd buy?"

 

"Oh, I did one last thing with the crown. Easy to transmute things, with the power of Chaos."

 

She grinned and a dawn of understanding appeared on Marchello's face.

 

"So that's why our luggage was so heavy!"

 

"Quite. They say money can't buy you happiness, but if it is the last thing the Dreamer will ever give me, I'll be happy to take it."

 

Far above the two a seabird with Astral blue eyes circled one last time around the ship, then vanished into the marching clouds.

 

The End