The owner of The Silver Spoon inn was a stout, angry man. His wide face had layers of wrinkles, and he squinted at Mara with disdain. He placed a thick hand on a large, leather-bound book on the counter that he stood behind. Its pages were yellowed and folded with age.
“There’s no vacancy,” he said.
Mara peered up at him and clasped her hands behind her back.
“I find that hard to believe,” she said as she swept her gaze across the nearly empty common room. A lonely man sat at the far end nursing a dark bottle, graying hair falling over his face and obscuring his features. He appeared to be either asleep or dead.
The owner looked past Mara, eyeing Rykker and the rest of his party with a discerning look. “They look like troublemakers. I don’t take in troublemakers.”
Mara reached into her pack and brought out a pouch that sagged heavily. It clinked as she emptied its contents onto the innkeeper’s countertop, triangular flat chips of glittering metal clattering against the smooth wood.
“This should be enough to rent all the rooms in your inn for a month,” Mara said, her voice tinting a shade towards frustration. “I just need three rooms for a week, and use of your private dining room.”
The innkeeper picked up one of the chips. In his hands, the piece looked miniature. His brow furrowed and he held it up to his face. He looked from the coin back to Mara with dark, suspicious eyes.
“It’s Gyish coin,” she noted. “I’m sorry, I haven’t had time to see a money changer since my arrival in the city. I can assure you, it’s worth what I say it is. Take it to any blacksmith and they’ll pay you handsomely for it.”
The owner of the inn grumbled, then placed the coin back down on the table. “I know what it is. What are you doing with it is what I am wondering.”
“I’ve been... traveling abroad, lately.”
“That so?”
“Indeed it is.”
For a long moment, he simply stared. Then he glanced down at the rather large pile of coins atop the table and licked his lips. Evidently, the innkeeper’s greed surpassed his distrust. He began to collect the coins, stacking them neatly into piles ten high. He then took each stack and carefully placed them into a wooden tray on a separate counter against the wall behind him.
Once he was done, he reached for something beneath the counter, retrieving two brass keys, their ends looped with lanyards made of coarse yarn.
“Two rooms,” he said flatly. “Wait here, the dining room will be ready soon.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned, picked up the tray of coins, and retreated into the back room.
Rykker’s stomach growled audibly as the sweet aroma of hot food wafted into the dining room. The last decent meal he had was back in Valla, and he’d barely even appreciated it since he was so focused on his research at the time. He resolved to enjoy every bite of this one.
A server entered through a door towards the back of the room carrying a large round tray filled with plates of steaming food. The server placed the large bowls of food at the center of the table, then gave everyone a clean plate of their own, along with silverware. While the innkeeper had been boorish with their accommodations, Rykker could not deny that the display was impressive.
Not one for pretense, Rykker reached for one of the plates, helping himself to a large portion of the dish. It seemed to be some kind of breaded and fried meat, coated in a sticky red sauce, laying atop a bed of long grains. He took a bite, and although the steam filled his mouth with heat, the food was delicious. He gave a start when Marcus nudged his arm.
“Oh,” he said through a partially full mouth. “Sorry.”
He slid the serving plate to Sev, who sat to his right. Sev looked at the plate for a moment, then passed it along. Rykker had never seen Sev eat anything, or even give any indication that he could.
Others around the table took more serving trays from the center, helping themselves and then passing them around in a similar fashion. The meal included a variety of cooked vegetables, a different kind of meat, this one grilled with brown gravy, and dark, fluffy bread, round in shape and mostly hollow on the inside.
For a time, they ate in silence, only the occasional clink and scrape of silverware against ceramic. It seemed to Rykker that the others felt similarly to him—it had been a long while since they had had a moment of peace. A moment to relax.
He studied Mara, who sat at the head of the table. She had taken some food but had barely eaten any of it. Rykker wasn’t sure what to make of her. In the presence of Vanen, there had been an overwhelming sense of wrongness. Marcus and Viggo had mentioned it as an almost physical reaction, and while it hadn’t been that extreme for him, there was something. A feeling that he had. To him, the feeling was akin to walking through a house that was on a slant, as if it hadn’t been built properly. Something broken that couldn’t be fixed unless it was destroyed. On the other hand, Vanen had known what Sev was. An Aeonnar. He seemed to have answers to questions that Rykker had been asking since the day he had dug Sev from the dirt.
If Mara was anything like Vanen, he wasn’t sure the answers would be worth the cost. She didn’t give him the same feeling, though. She was, admittedly, rather odd, but not in the same, dark way. Perhaps she, too, had knowledge of the Aeonnar and the years before the Dark Age. Her eyes had lingered on Sev for quite some time during their encounter in the alley, though that was not uncommon for folk who saw Sev for the first time. Still, if there was even a chance he could learn more, he had to try.
Shortly after the food was gone, Mara cleared her throat, making a curt noise. All eyes in the room turned towards her, and she tilted her head slightly, flashing a brief smile.
“Thank you all for agreeing to come with me,” she said. “I know your experiences with strangers of late have been... less than cordial.”
At that, Viggo snorted. “You could say that.”
“I can assure you that I have nothing to do with Vanen and his ilk,” she continued. “In fact, my associates and I act in opposition to his organization.”
“Organization,” Marcus asked, leaning forward in his chair. “There are more out there like him?”
Mara grimaced. “I’m afraid so.”
“By the trinity,” he muttered, shaking his head. “What do they want?”
“That is the golden question, isn’t it?” she said. “One that I’m not entirely qualified to answer. There are great machinations at work in Asdel, far greater than the kidnapping of any one person. There are, though, puzzle pieces that may fit the larger whole. I admit I’m still working out how they fit together.”
“Alright”, Viggo chimed. “But what can you tell us? Why did they take Annet? What do they want with her? Did it have something to do with her Entra?”
The air fell silent, and Mara drummed her fingers against the wooden table. She stared at Viggo for a long moment. “It seems the medic knows more than he’s let on. Where did you hear that word?”
He floundered, clearly losing his nerve. “I overheard someone say it a long time ago.”
“Before I answer,” she said, speaking slowly. “There is something you must understand.”
She swept her eyes across the room and received a chorus of nods in return.
“What we are to discuss in this room is not to leave it. I tell you only because Vanen has let you live, and clearly taken an interest in you. You will likely cross paths with him again, and I hope that this knowledge will aid you in his defeat. However, if the general public were to learn these secrets, it would cause nothing short of mass panic. Another war with Antuza is bad enough without needing to worry about monsters masquerading as humans coming to steal you away.”
Another round of nods.
“The truth is, whether you like it or not, you are now a part of this. Every one of you.”
“We don’t even know what this is,” Rykker blustered. The woman was nearly as bad as Vanen, dancing around answers without ever getting to the heart of anything.
“I’m getting to that.” Mara ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. “Where to begin? Vanen, the creature that you met and fought with, is what we call a Scathe. Human, once, but no longer. The Scathe are both more than, and less than human, in some ways. They mostly retain their human form. Physically, at least. But their humanity, much of that is lost in their transformation.”
“Transformation?” asked Viggo.
“The Scathe are born of a pact with a terrible being, not of this world. This pact changes them, but it also gives them a particular aptitude for the arcane.”
“Arcane, like... magic?” Sira had been quiet for most of the meal and conversation, but now she leaned forward eagerly.
”Exactly like magic.”
Marcus tilted back in his chair and puffed out his cheeks, then blow out the air with a sigh. “This is beyond me.”
Mara stood up and began to pace her side of the room, hands clasped behind her back. “I know this is a lot to take in.”
“Where did they come from?” asked Rykker.
“To answer that, we must first go back to a time when magic flowed freely in Asdel.” At this Mara almost sounded wistful. “Before Ilris, and the Antuzan Empire, before the Dark Age, even, great empires ruled, and the Veritas Guild, an order of great magi had influence on nearly all six continents across the world. Then, in an event known as the Excidium, the world collapsed, taking many empires, including the guild itself, with it. Many theologists and scholars alike believe that this incident coincides with the exodus of magic from the world, or as it was known then, Entra.
“It was thought that this mass departure of magic was like a great blip, as if all the sudden all the lakes and rivers and oceans of Entra in the world were all of the sudden dried up, never to be seen again. But that is not how it works. It’s more like... the faucet was turned off. What we already had we could keep, but very slowly, it would drain from the world, spiraling into nothingness.
“For now, at least, not all Entra is gone. But where it was once in abundance, now is terribly scarce, found only in the smallest of quanitites. Residuals of an age long past. To most, almost gone and gone are indistinguishable. But for some, they have an extraordinary gift, and aptitude to sense these residuals, and, in some cases, harness them. Annet is one of such disposition.
“The Scathe, are, by many definitions, a perversion against the natural order of the world as we know it. I do not know when they came about, only that it was some time after the Dark Age began. They worship a dark god—it has gone by many names, but the one you may be familiar with is Odeth. A Scathe is created when a human makes, willingly, a deal with Odeth. With this pact, they are free to consume the Entra within others in a way that gives them power far beyond mortal capabilities. What their greater scheme is, I do not know. But one thing is clear: they are growing in numbers. All across Ilris and beyond, individuals like Annet are being taken. Individuals that I have kept a careful eye on—and yet they manage to spirit them away all the same. I fear the capabilities of a Scathe with the innate talent of someone like Annet.”
“So, what? They are going to turn her into one of these... things?” asked Sira.
“There is a catch. To become a Scathe, the human must be willing.” Mara sighed. “Though they do have... compulsory ways of getting what they want.”
She sat up a little straighter in her chair. “Annet is strong. They can’t force her to do anything.”
Mara grimaced, clasping her hands together. “There is ulterior motive for the individuals they hunt. If they cannot be coerced into joining their ranks, then I’m afraid they are consumed.”
They way she said the word made even Rykker shiver. He did not know whether she meant it in the metaphorical or literal sense. Maybe it was both.
“Annet must be saved,” she said. “But these events will start a chain reaction. The empire invading Ilris. The Scathe growing at an exponential rate. A war is brewing. A war that will be fought on two fronts.” Mara paused, holding her gaze on each of them for a moment. “And all of you in this room are involved in some way.”
Rykker laughed. He couldn’t help it. He tried to stifle it, and he snorted through his nose.
Mara did not react. “You realize this is not a joke.”
“No, no... I know,” Rykker said. His fit was over, and he regained his composure. “It’s not that. I completely believe you, after what we’ve been through this past few days.”
“Then what?”
“It’s just... you are pitching this whole thing about being important after telling us the ‘world is in danger’. It’s just so rote. I have a life. I have a job. Don’t get me wrong, I feel bad for the girl, but in what capacity could I even help? What makes you think I want any of what you’re selling?”
Mara smiled at that. “You have a very skeptical mind.”
“Thank you.”
“But you are also very quick to blind yourself. I’m not selling you anything, Rykker. I think you will find that you more than most are tied to what will unfold, whether you like it or not.” She addressed the table again. “I know each and every one of you will have your own doubts and fears at what I have to say. But I also see in each of you a hunger. A drive to know. Let me assure you that the path I offer has what you seek.”
Rykker thought about Sev. About the countless years he had spent trying to understand where he came from. Libraries all across Ilris—access to universities and personal collections of scholars, governors, and socialites. None of it had turned up a shred of insight into the nature of Sev’s being. And then, after all that, Vanen had just known. How much knowledge was locked away, hidden within this clandestine world of Magic and monsters? The possibilities of what he could learn where limitless.
“I guess I’ve got nothing better to do,” he said, adopting a mock casual tone.
“You’re quick to change your tune.” Viggo eyed him with a look of distrust.
Still, though, Rykker could tell his heart wasn’t in it. The craving was there, too, behind his squint.
“We can’t just desert the army,” asserted Marcus. “Unless you want to be court marshalled when you get back to Achenar.”
“The city of Valla is turned to rubble. It would not be uncommon to assume you are simply another casualty of the seige,” offered Mara.
“We’ll be back eventually.”
“Perhaps. Though the world may look differently by the time you do.”
“What exactly are you asking of us?”
Mara tapped her finger along her jaw. “Now that is the question, isn’t it? In the simplest of terms: Find Annet. Save her from a fate worse than death.”
“Simple terms, yeah.”
“I said simple, not easy. At this point, you all know the conditions of what I ask. For what you seek—knowledge, power—I offer in exchange for your complaisance. If that is not enough, know that you will be serving a greater good. I am not alone in my crusade against the rising darkness to the West. You could think of it as joining a sizeable but decentralized organization dedicated to fighting the war that your armies cannot. A terrible fate awaits your lands at the hand of the Empire and the Scathe should you not act.”
Before anyone could answer, a sharp, formal knock rattled the door.
“Ah, about time,” Mara said. She stood and skated to the door. “I was beginning to worry.”
A tall, slender man wearing a plain but well-cut long coat stepped into the room, bird-like eyes surveying the room with a swift efficiency.
“Hawthorne, I’m glad you could join us,” said Mara. “This is the cohort from Valla I told you about.”
Hawthorne placed his hands behind his back and gave a curt bow in the direction of the table. “The honor is mine.”
“I’ve told him he doesn’t have to do that here,” Mara dismissed. “He’s from Sohntu. One of my associates and an invaluable asset to our cause.”
After a round of introductions, it was Rykker that spoke next. “Let’s say we agree to do this. What’s our next move? I saw that... rift Vanen opened. One second they were there, then nothing. Gone. We have no way of tracking them down.”
At this, Hawthorne stepped forward smoothly, like a reed blowing in the wind. Mara had offered him a chair, but he refused. He spoke softly, but with a deep reverberating basso. “Our intelligence has narrowed Vanen’s location to a region south of Saurkar, in Western Antuza.”
Saurkar was a long way from Senna. Rykker had never been to the continent of Kador, but it lay across the narrow Plys Sea and required the charter of a ship to make the journey. “Wouldn’t that take weeks?”
“If you’re taking a direct route, yes. But we will not be,” explained Hawthorne.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s easier to show than to explain.” Hawthorne spoke with a finality that indicated he would say no more on the matter.