Chapter 7

The shop was claustrophobic. Despite the blustery cold outside, the room was oppressively hot. Four sooty wall sconces cast off a weak glow. The rest of the light came from two stone hearths in opposite corners of the room banked high with logs, radiating uncomfortable warmth. Several braziers were set around the room, adding to the heat. They threw off a heavy shroud of incense and scented smoke, cloyingly sweet. Behind the sweetness of the incense lingered a pervasive mustiness, the smell of old things becoming older.

The sense of cramped closeness was probably due to the fact that, in addition to being a tiny little box of a shop, the entire space was atrociously cluttered and messy. The room consisted of book cases lining the wall to the left and right of the entrance. Two short, squat rows of shelves were set in the middle of the room, low enough to see over to the back of the room, where there was a counter space with two chairs behind it, and a stairway leading up into what was likely living quarters, not-quite obscured by a curtain of brightly colored beads. There was barely enough room to walk between the shelves and around the room.

There were objects, nick-nacks, accoutrements, paraphernalia, and bits-and-pieces of every conceivable sort scattered around the environs. There were more books piled up in random heaps around the shop and on the counter than were on the book cases, which seemed to be designated to housing anything at all in the world, as long as it was not a book. Shelves were heaped with figures and relics and mystic talismans, fetishes of wood and grass and flint.

Strange, exotic stones were arrayed on one shelf, only instead of being displayed or separated by their various types, they were thrown in a haphazard pile in a basket, so that a seemingly precious crystal was lumped with a stone that glowed scarlet and orange as if lit from a fire within, both of which were covered over by a rock that looked for all the world exactly like a rock.

The proprietor of this fine and strange and untidy shop was a gnarled old gentleman named Mithayu. Mithayu was a Sorcerer, a merchant, and a businessman, all while looking more like a hermit and a recluse than any of the former. He had heavy, bushy white brows and set over squinting, rheumy eyes and a bald, pale pate that he occasionally kept covered with a floppy wide brimmed hat that seemed too big for his head. His robes were a deep brown and voluminous, hanging from his small, thin frame and blotched liberally with many stains of mysterious and questionable origin.

Rael looked around the shop with sinking hopes. He was dressed warmly in plain commoner's clothes similar to what he'd traveled home in, a heavy wool tunic and breeches, with a thick fur lined traveling cloak wrapped about his broad shoulders. He'd managed to give his concerned and protective guardsmen the slip, claiming he was riding out into the countryside to hunt for game and then circled around to Trelling's Rest. He knew his guard meant well, but his purpose was a too sensitive in nature to let word get out, and he knew that even the most well intending guardsmen were notoriously loose lipped.

Which begged the question, why he'd allowed Silmaria to know the nature of some of his studies and inquiries. All good sense pointed to it being a bad idea, yet somehow, he felt sure that she wouldn't speak of it to anyone else. He could not explain why. But Rael was usually inclined to trust his intuition.

This was not the first such outing he'd taken, nor the first shop of Sorcery, mysticism, witchcraft, or hedge magic he'd visited. In the two months since his return home, Rael hadn't been idle. Between putting his House and fortune back together and caring for his people, Rael had been researching and studying, digging persistently for answers. He'd already scoured through all the tomes related to magic in his Father's study, with Silmaria's tight-lipped but confident assurance that all tomes she knew on the subject had been brought out for his review.

Rael expanded his search to Trelling's Rest, pursuing resources outside his halls. He had to be cautious and selective about his inquiries. The Knight Captain was cautious of his search being noticed by the wrong set of eyes and ears. Since his return to his home there'd been no sign of his assassins following him, no suspicious activity or untoward disturbances in his day to day life. Rather than feeling relief, Rael actually felt more paranoid, his every waking moment filled with tension and suspicion. He found it inconceivable that having failed such a strange attempt, his assassins would simply let him be.

And so, the Nobleman avoided the obvious sources of knowledge such as the Royal Libraries, the Halls of Lore and Record, and the Magi's Sanctum, the home and hub of magic and mysticism in the North. He trusted mages little, and the dangers of someone taking note of his search was too great in one of those more public and populated places.

Instead, Rael searched the Hedge Wizard shops, the small sorcerer peddlers, the private libraries and lore collectors. He scoured any place he deemed safely away from scrutiny for any information on the dark and twisted spells tied to the deadly arrow. He kept circumspect and gave little information away, but as visit after visit was met with puzzlement and confusion and little else, his patience wore thin. Every lost opportunity and fruitless attempt left him feeling more keenly the blade at the back of his neck. With each new day, Rael felt more and more like a cornered animal.

He wasn't overly fond of the feeling.

In an uncharacteristic moment of frustration, Rael asked old Lirena if she knew anyone familiar with old, unusual magic or lore with the excuse of continuing his father's studies in lost magical arts. Mithayu's name came up.

Rael stepped through the cramped shop, looking around dubiously and trying very hard not to knock over, well, everything. The shop wasn't built for someone his size. Hell, even a Dwarf or a Halfling would find the room uncomfortably crammed together. The Knight looked up at the leathery old man and cleared his throat. "Excuse me. Master Mithayu, I presume?"

Mithayu looked up at the much larger man as if noticing him the first time, despite the loud jangling of bells tied to his front door. He over slightly, the book he'd been nudging through still clutched in age spotted hands. He squinted up at Rael, then leaned far back, his neck craning with an audible pop. He looked thoughtful, pensive, his face screwing up as if contemplating some great mystery in the Nobleman's strange, silvery shining eyes. He stared at Rael with such intense scrutiny, and the wisdom of ages seemed to dance in his old, fading eyes that saw without seeing.

Then, the old sage blinked, opened his mouth, and said, in a crackling, harsh voice, "Huh?"

Rael stared at him and barely suppressed the urge to turn right around and walk out the door. He stepped closer, placed his hands flat on the counter top, and said, louder this time, "I'm looking for information, Master Mithayu. Of the magical sort."

Mithayu frowned and then spat off to the side behind the counter. Rael wasn't sure there was a spittoon back there, and he didn't much care to find out. "Information? Go find a library! Or someone who has time for questions!"

Rael arched a brow cooly and said, "You're a Sorcerer, are you not?"

"Yes, a Sorcerer, precisely. A Sorcerer, not a Library, which is where you should go. Go, go on, off with you, I'm a Sorcerer as you said, a big oaf like you doesn't scare me. Big, small, it doesn't matter, you'll only be a bigger cat, or pig, or frog or rat or ... you know. Who cares what I turn you into? I'll turn you into it if you don't leave. Go find a Library!"

Mithayu said all of this while flitting about behind the desk, poking his head into a drawer, flipping through books, and rummaging about in a pile of charms and totems from the Johake Grasslands, or so a scribbled sign in front of the pile claimed. The old man pretty much busied himself with anything and everything aside from looking directly at Rael.

The young Knight set his jaw hard and with a will, he pushed his temper down. Somehow he felt sure that Lirena was laughing at him right this moment. "Forgive me for disturbing you, Master Mithayu. It's simply that I am looking for a Sorcerer possessing old and expansive knowledge of spells and magic craft. And I was told you were just such an exceptional Sorcerer. And I'd brought sufficient means to make it worth your time, too."

He accentuated his words with the solid clunk of his coin purse dropping onto the counter. The sound brought the old man's frantic activity to an almost comically sudden halt. "Of course," Rael continued, "If you are not the man I am looking for..."

By the time Rael's hand closed on his coin purse, Mithayu was a man of drastically different temperament. "Ah, I am that man, yes sir, I am that man exactly! That Sorcerer! Good Sir, please, have a seat and let the great Mithayu answer your questions! I know many spells, many! I am a Master of the craft, have no doubt."

"Of course, you must be," Rael said dryly as he sat in the small chair in front of the counter. The old Sorcerer's weathered old face splitting into a wide grin that showed more than a few missing teeth and one of gold flashing in the corner of his smile. His eyes were hidden under the weight of his bushy old brows. The effect was strange to say the least.

"I am looking for information on certain spell. I'm not very familiar with magic, but I'm given to believe that it's a very rare and uncommon sort of spell," Rael explained.

"M-hmm, M-hmm, I know many uncommon spells," Mithayu nodded matter-of-factly. "Go on."

Rael leaned forward and stared intently at the old man. "Mind you, I've only heard whispers of this spell. My Father spoke of it, once. He was no mage, but he was fond of researching magical arts, you see. He spoke of a spell that was both a spell of wasting, and a spell of sealing at once. He saw it used, in his youth, to cause a man's wound to seal up over itself, while rotting and festering and decaying from the inside. Some way to seal the rot inside the body and let it corrupt and eat away at a man while masking the rot under healthy flesh. To keep anyone from detecting it, I suppose, or letting the rot free."

Mithayu listened to him, blinking. His mouth gawped open a moment, then he looked petulant and annoyed. "What is this? You think me an old fool, is that it? Well, old I am, but fool I am not! Such a spell is a faery tale, nonsense! Take your tall tales and foolish talk elsewhere and..."

Rael silenced him by removing a silver from his coin pouch and clacking it onto the counter top, sliding it toward him. His eyes, colored to match the coin, never left the old man, and never wavered in their serious gaze. "No tall tales, Master Mithayu. My Father said this spell was very much real. He was not a man to lie."

"Yes, well ... I see," Mithayu muttered as he took the coin. He rolled it in one hand and with the other rubbed his chin where likely a beard had once been, but now was not save a wispy little patch. He considered the coin thoughtfully. Rael, praying he was not wasting his time, sat and waited.

At last, Mithayu admitted, "I do not know such a spell. If it truly exists, then a spell of that sort would be a thing of secret and shadows."

"Meaning?" Rael pressed.

Mithayu glanced about as if making sure they were alone, then leaned in closer, though he did not drop his voice at all. "Black Magic. The Dark Arts. Curses. These things are not commonly shared and practiced, even among powerful Magi. Spells such as they are old, and powerful, and closely guarded. The Magi's Sanctum dabble in these magic's, but they fear to delve too deep, and those mages who explore more than the surface of the Dark Arts are viewed suspiciously by their fellows. A spell like you describe ... that is Black Magic deeper than any I've heard of."

Rael sat back in his seat and let out a deep breath. He'd heard this before, of course; every Mage and Sorcerer he'd visited thus far had told him the same thing. "Can you tell me anything else?"

"Hmm, huh, hum," Mithayu muttered to himself, rocking slightly in his seat, distracted. "Perhaps I can, maybe I can, but I don't know. This spell, this Dark Art ... you said your father saw a man struck down of this wound, yes you did. How did it happen? How long did this festering take, and how deeply did the wound foul?"

Rael leaned forward once more, his hands resting on the countertop between them. "According to my father, the man died very shortly after receiving the wound. Maybe half an hour. The wound itself was grievous, but not immediately fatal. The rot was extensive. In half an hour, the wound had sealed itself, forming scar tissue over the flesh. Almost his entire chest cavity was rotted out under the first few layers of healed tissue. He said the tissue resisted being opened and exposed, like it was trying to protect and preserve the rot coursing inside."

The man appeared to shudder a bit, and spat in the same spot he had before. "That is Magic most foul. Dark spellwork indeed. I cannot help you young man. I do not know that spell, and would never want to know it. Such Magic is corruption, an old, evil thing best left to be forgotten and fall from the hands of Man."

As Rael listened to the old man, he teetered on the edge of decision, weighing whether to tell Mithayu more. He considered the risks against the payoff. The risks were great, and the payoff unlikely.

Rael couldn't shake the feeling that he was running out of time, and desperation won out.

"One more thing," he said. He reached for his belt and pulled the black shafted arrow from where he'd hidden it. He laid it upon the counter between them. "This is the arrow that struck the man down and caused the wound that was effected by the spell."

Mithayu looked at the arrow, then back up at him. He made no move to touch the arrow. "How do you know it wasn't poison, then? A poisoned arrow is much more likely than an ensorcelled one, yes it is."

"What poison makes a man's wound close over while rotting him from the inside?" Rael returned.

"How should I know?" The old man snorted. "I'm a Sorcerer, not an apothecary."

Rael ignored him and nodded to the arrow. "There are runes. There on the shaft just beneath the arrowhead. Etched into the wood. Strange runes I've never seen before."

That seemed to pique Mithayu's interest. He plucked the arrow up, frowning curiously, and brought the arrow up closer to his squinting eyes. "Yes, I see them. Curious indeed. They are runes of power, that much is sure. They..."

The arrow slid from Mithayu's fingers, falling to the countertop and resting on its side between them. He stared down at the arrow, his squinting, rheumy eyes wide now. His hands trembled violently.

"What is it? Do you recognize them?" Rael asked as he gripped the edge of the counter, tense and eager for answers.

"This ... those ... how dare you! How dare you bring those words into my shop, into my home? You blighted fool! They are anathema! The language of abomination! You will bring ruin to me!"

"Calm down, I meant no disrespect. I don't understand," Rael said, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace as he tried to calm the old man.

But it was no good. Mithayu slapped the arrow away from him and jerked to his feet, backing away as he leveled a shaky, clawing finger toward the bigger man. "Take it away from here, take the misbegotten words and be gone! Do you hear me? Get out! Get out!"

Rael stared at the man, frustration and confusion warring inside as he struggled to calm himself. He wanted to grab the man, to shake him and pry the answers from him. He clearly recognized something about those runes! But as he stared at the panicked man, he recognized the crazed look in his old eyes as an expression of abject terror. He was scared beyond reason, and pushing him would only make it worse.

The Knight Captain gathered his strange, terrifying arrow and left old Mithayu's shop with a 'good evening', all the while swearing to himself he would return. Later, after the Sorcerer had a chance to calm down, he would visit again and get his answers. The man's strange reaction was different shades puzzling, intriguing, and disturbing. What could have caused the man to be so terrified, simply by seeing the runes alone? He'd been odd, certainly, but in those last moments he seemed a completely different kind of strange.

Rael wondered, but in the end, it didn't matter. He'd finally found the lead he'd sought for months. He could be patient. The time would come, and Mithayu would talk.

Silmaria was on dining hall duty. This consisted of cleaning, wiping down, and polishing the large dining table and accompanying chairs, checking those same chairs to be sure the cushioned seats didn't need replacing or stuffing, washing any soot stains out of the wall sconces and replacing the candles in them with fresh ones, dusting the portraits of House IronWing's founding fathers, sweeping the floors of any debris, and going through the tea cabinet and silver drawers to make sure everything was not only organized and in order, but also polished to a shine.

Really, it was all rather pointless, she thought. Lord Rael entertained guests even more rarely than Master Edwin had. In fact, Silmaria could only think of two instances since his return Lord Rael had received guests at all, and both times they were representatives from the Knighthood come to check on his health, or his recovery, or something of a similar nature, Silmaria wasn't entirely sure. Whatever the case, the man's visit had been brief on both occasions, not even necessitating the use of the good silver wear or tea pottery.

Plus, Lord Rael took almost all his meals in his room. It was rare for him to eat outside of his room, and when he did more often than not he went down to the barracks to join the Guardsmen for dinner. He felt a certain kinship with them, she supposed.

Silmaria stopped in mid chore, leaning across the table and wiping it down, and gave a half-hearted scowl, annoyed with herself. Here she was, thinking about Lord Rael again without any intention to do so. It was vexing. She continued to try her damnedest to avoid the man to no avail. Sure, most of their encounters were brief and happenstance, but that didn't make them any less uncomfortable for her. She saw him about the Manor; it was impossible not to as he seemed to always be up and about doing something. The man seemed completely unable to be still, and when he sat for any length of time it was always with a book in hand or a sheaf of parchment and quill at his fingertips. He was as restless as his father had been and more, always needing to be doing. His projects and pursuits seemed endless. It made avoiding him difficult, as he seemed to be everywhere all the bloody time.

Still, she had to admit, in two months the man had made a wealth of changes at House IronWing, and most of them pointedly for the better. The house was finally running with a full staff of servants again. Workloads were reasonable, allowing each servant to focus on doing a proper and thoroughly job of their duties. Food was plentiful and the larder and pantries were stocked and full once more. Cook doled out hearty rations, and where once the serving folk had been wasting away to skin and bone, now everyone was hearty and robust and well fed. Even with winter now fully settled in, the Manor was kept warm enough to chase off the chill, the servants quarters included.

If she were honest with herself, Silmaria recognized that Lord Rael had kept his word and worked hard to turn his holdings around. He'd brought them from the brink of ruin, and if House IronWing was not yet as wealthy or well established as it had been at its height under Master Edwin, it would be there again soon. She saw it, she knew it, and she was even thankful for it. The Gnari woman was still unable to fully forgive the man, but when she allowed her stubborn pride to relax a bit, she could admit there was some good in him.

She resolved to put Lord Rael out of her mind, the matter too complicated to dwell on with the day so fine and life at last good again for a time. Silmaria took a deep breath and smiled. She began to hum the tune of a bawdy old marching song Master Edwin taught her that never failed to lift her spirits. The Gnari girl finished with the dining table and padded across the dining hall on bare, graceful feet, the wooden floor warmed by the hall's hearth fire. She walked to the hearth, wiping down the mantel above it, basking contentedly for a moment in the warm glow of the fire as she did her work.

The perfect, pleasant day shattered. A scream ripped through the Manor, high and stricken, coming from the direction of the foyer. Silmaria dropped her cleaning rag and bolted toward the front of the Manor, her heart pounding wildly.

Panic had already broken out by the time Silmaria dashed into the foyer. A number of servants had come running just as she did to see what the scream was about, and now ran scurrying this way and that in fright. Silmaria jumped out of the way as one of the men nearly ran her over in his haste to get away.

Looking past the dispersing cluster of servants, Silmaria clearly saw why. There was a group of strange men, half a dozen of them, standing in the middle of the foyer. They stood in a semicircle, and Tomar, the young Elven boy was sprawled on his back at their feet, one hand lifted in feeble defense. Blood dripped down into his frightened face from a deep cut on his upraised arm. The stranger standing foremost held a wickedly curved short sword that dripped wet and red with the Elf's blood.

Thinking quickly, Silmaria reached out and grabbed the next servant running past, who happened to be Margle. The woman was so panicked she didn't even give her usual sneer of distaste when she saw Silmaria.

"The Barracks! Go to the Barracks and bring the guards, quickly!"

Margle nodded and with a wordless cry, rushed down the halls. Silmaria turned and took a deep breath. She willed her feet to move forward and did her best not to shake. She hoped the men couldn't see her tremors, because she felt every one of them. The Gnari girl walked toward the unfolding scene, grabbed Tomar and pulled him back, shifting the lad behind her and shielding him.