097 – Karen Starts Investigating

The Viceroy continued. “That tells me you are good. And I remember your father, Oleg. He was as good at his work as you, but a pain in the…”

  Karen interrupted again, partly to salve an old wound. “His daughter is much better.”

  “Good,” the Viceroy responded. “That is what I wanted to hear.”

  He snapped his fingers, loudly, and his man entered. The man put down a parchment and a bag, and departed.

  Karen read over the contract, and was surprised at it.

  “No sense going halfway,” he responded to her look. “Your job is to join with the parents and mage. Take them to where the kids are, and get them. Teach the family how to kill The King and Queen, and her daemon. Be sure that they are able to. Remove the mage, and deliver the family into the hands of my troops.”

  “Simple enough. Where are the kids?”

  “The girl is in Chigoria, a village of the Chithare elves. The boy is in the talent’s village of Kadomu.”

  “Anything special that they need to be taught?”

  “The Queen is magically bound to the daemon. The daemon needs to be driven away before The Queen can be killed. But only the daughter can kill The Queen. The King can only be killed by the son.”

  “I think I can figure the rest. This is going to cost, though. And I will not go into any caves. Five times The Queen’s fee, you say?”

  “Or more, depending on my satisfaction.”

  “Do you think that is enough?” Karen wanted to be sure of his motivation. His reputation was of being a good leader and loyal, concerned about those he had charge of. And when all else failed, he got by with brute competence. What he had said about The King and Queen needing replacement was correct. The Queen being the real problem.

  “Instigators of a coup, and traitors, get paid more than patriots.”

  “Which do you think I am?”

  They sat quietly for a moment, looking at each other. A smile lurked at the corners of his face.

  Karen broke the silence. “Have your men ready. But they will wait until I give the signal that the family is ready. If they come too soon, they will have to face me.”

  “They will be instructed.”

  Karen signed the contract. The Viceroy rolled his copy of the parchment and pocketed it, left his payment for his drink, and contract, and departed.

  Karen had never taken a counter contract before. It was generally against guild rules, and ethics. But in the case of this job, it wasn’t so much a reversal of the original contract, as a modification, and minor extension of terms. The Queen wanted the parents delivered, and the wizard killed. She could do that. The Viceroy wanted the family taught what was needed to do to kill The King and Queen. She could do that, thought she needed a bit of research first. Whatever happened after that was none of her concern. And what about patriotism?

  Karen had heard rumors about The Queen for much of her adult life. Now she was tasked with killing her, via these half-elves of prophecy. So first she needed to learn of the specific prophecy, in its entirety. Problem was the prophet had been killed, executed at the order of The Queen. So next was the official record. That was not public knowledge. But The Guild had a copy.

  It was a routine exercise for guild members to sneak into the palace and copy parts of the court's records. One summer, the guild and guards had made such a commotion about it that an open brawl had occurred on four different occasions. The guild had compassion in the fights, and none of the guards lived to face punishment. They would have been executed anyway. The guild just did a quicker, cleaner job.

  At any rate, this evening Karen went to the Guild Hall, and to the library. This only cost her two bruises. She quickly found what she wanted and copied the passage. The language was prophetically clear, for Karen’s exposure to prophets and scripture. Point blank, the prophet said that the Harbingers of the Chaos Bringer would kill this king and queen. Male for male, female for female. And this would happen before the Chaos Bringer came into mortality. Annotated to this was all that was known about this Chaos Bringer, including a copy of the original prophecy about that person. Karen read and copied all this, then went back to her primary residence.

  This did not answer the question of how, but it did tell for sure who; just as the Viceroy’s contract stated. So she needed to learn about The King and Queen, and how to get some children to kill them. That meant a trip into the palace. While the guild kept tabs on how to kill everybody of note in the area, they had to update this regularly, and that meant surveillance. Karen had kept her extra senses suppressed when she went in to receive her contract. But her eyes and ears had told her much. Her best target would be among the bodyguards of each monarch. The longer lasted the better. So she got her costume together, and went down to the river: it was going to be a cold swim.

  The Palace sat on a large island. The guild found the easiest approach was from the Garmad river side of the fortress. But to get there meant starting upstream, swimming the river, and fighting the current to the fortress wall. At that point the choice was four easy ways, and one hard way into the fortress. The hard one was the only one not guarded regularly.

  Karen swam across the river carefully, avoiding the eddy currents while also not making any big splashes. She had to concentrate some to stay warm, as her clothes waterlogged and started to drag her down. She got around the fortress wall to the down-river side, and began counting bricks. On twenty one from the corner, she dove down and to the grate. Pulling herself down it, against the current coming out of it, she found the hole at the bottom and went in. She had to pull herself against the current in the tunnel. Along the way, Karen’s air began to give out, and the tunnel began to collapse on her, as panic looked for a way into her concentration. The current lessened and the water was warmer, and the tunnel ended as Karen got to the end of her air. She got her feet under her, and pushed up. She quickly surfaced. The air was a bit foul, the water dirty. The chamber was a final mixing point for water from the river and fortress sewage. She could track up the sewage lines and get to many of the secured areas of the palace, but Karen did not want to risk any further encounters with claustrophobia. She got over to the one walkway in the room, used by the service sector to keep the place running. Karen pulled herself out, stood on the stone and concentrated.

  She focused her mind on pushing all the water out of her costume; her balaclava, canvas jacket and trousers, the cloth pieces under those, and out of her socks and out of her low boots. The rolled up cape wrapped around her waist took a bit longer to wring dry, but it was before she left. The water ran down her and off leaving a puddle. Her leather components retained a little water but were all but dry to the touch. As she left the puddle she shook the last drops from her boots, leaving no foot prints.

  Karen quickly made her way out of the utility area and up to the garrison barracks. She listened carefully the whole way with all her senses. The hard part was looking like a shadow on the wall for the few guards standing watch. She simply paced the patrolling ones. Finally she got to the barracks, and found where The Queen’s personal guard stayed. She had to wait for the right moment, but was able to cleanly slip into the bedchamber of the second in command. Unmarried, he was wrapped around a harlot on his bed.

  Karen moved around the bedchamber, a cat would be noisier. First she reached for the harlots head, and gave her a quick scan, confirming her asleep. Then a psionic push to deeper sleep. No sense having her disturb this. Karen then put her attention on the guardsman. She touched his mind. He dreamed of this harlot. Karen took a soft hold of his thoughts, and put the idea of The Queen in the harlots place.

099 – Within The Queen's Chambers

  Karen had to prowl the palace wings and corridors a bit and pace the patrolling guards, before finally arriving on the second level of the residence wing, and the chambers set aside specifically for The Queen. These were directly adjacent to The Kings chambers. At first, Karen was surprised that there were no guards standing outside the doors to either chambers. She put that aside and set to work. Here Karen had to break in. She focused her talents and senses and felt the mechanism, then focused on the tumbler that the key would engage, aligning its lock pins, turning the tumbler, and causing the mechanism to open. She took the door handle, and carefully opened the door enough to slip through, and closed and then relocked the door.

  These were not the rooms Karen had officially visited earlier; those were in another wing. These were the unused Queen's Bed and Dressing Chambers. These had been unused since she took up residence in the Arbor. Karen recognized these chambers from the guard's dream.

  This first chamber was a wide, narrow sitting room; the inner wall behind Karen and two at either end of the chamber rose two floors worth to the ceiling. The opposite facing wall of this part of the room only went up one level and traversed the room the long way; the side facing this part appeared to be lined with shelves, contained a fire place for either end of the room and had arched double doors in the middle. The overall chamber was spatially subdivided into rooms.

  This chamber was open for its width, with two sitting rooms to either end clustered around the fireplaces and shelves that lined all the walls. In between was a greeting foyer. Almost half of the furniture had been removed over the years, the rest was covered by loose fitted dust covers. All the hangings and painting that would have hung on the walls had been removed.

  Her senses identified the outer two thirds of the overall chamber on this main level was divided into three approximately equal rooms.

  Karen went through large double doors between the shelves and into the center room, it being a changing and dressing room. These three rooms were only one story tall. The dressing room opened through arches into the other rooms on either side, on the left was a bathing room, on the right the bed chamber. All three of these rooms had large windows looking out into the gardens below. The window curtains had all been removed. Moonlight came through the partial overcast of clouds lighting the chamber dimly.

  Karen moved deeper into the dressing chamber, looking in the chests and wardrobes. Everything in the room was covered in dust. Some periphery memories from the guard said The Queen rarely wore any fabric now, so what little was here was too old to be of use to Karen’s investigation. Karen dug through what she could find, but the majority of the psychometric information was of the attendants who had last handled the cloth.

  Moving on from here, Karen looked over the bath chamber, but it was clean, though covered in a layer of dust. A medium sized fire place mirrored the one on the other side of the wall. The larger pieces of furniture, chairs, tables, and such, were covered in dust clothes.

  In the bed chamber, the large four post bed was bare. The mattress had been removed, and the canopy taken down. From the memory of the guard, there were several pieces of furniture absent, probably moved elsewhere, or possibly destroyed. As in the bath chamber, there was a fire place that mirrored the sitting room side.

  Karen went back to the sitting rooms. The two conversation areas were defined by groups of couches and chairs around tea tables, each facing one of the fire places. Now there was enough in the room to make one complete setting, and a little more, but all spread out. From either side of the double doors into the dressing chamber, behind the bookshelves, a pair of stair cases ascended up to the floor above, over the outer rooms. There were support pillars that echoed the arches between the rooms that rose from the wall, demarcating the space above in thirds. Karen figured the fire place chimneys must be diverted to go up those.

  Karen climbed up the stairs over the bed chamber and found an open area across the whole, like the sitting room below, though with pillars and arches demarcating three areas two stories high. The inner wall extended high enough to have a comfortable bench along its whole length. The fireplaces up here echoed the location and size of the fireplaces in the bathroom and bedroom below. The windows on this level were taller than the ones in the three rooms below. Also two sets of doors led out onto the battlements of the fortress.

  As Karen looked over the furniture and arrangement, and compared the memories of the guard, this was The Queen’s primary study and sitting room, and private eating and entertaining area. Again some of the furniture had been removed. But some work tables and book shelves were arranged into an office or study and library over the bed chamber.

  Karen moved into the study and found that while most of the furniture had dust clothes, about half of the shelves here were still occupied with things; like below most of the shelves had been cleared of books and decorations. It looked to Karen that this part of the room was still used occasionally, as one book shelf did not have any dust on it.

  Karen opened the dust free books and found a journal of several volumes. She paged through it looking for the entries about the transformation. The text was almost impossible to read in the dim light, but Karen’s psionic senses helped; she could read the ink on the page, as easily as see the dark on the light. She also took psychometric impressions with her other senses as she went. The early ones were of the same black-haired woman from a teen up to her mid 40’s. It was in a slightly stilted script. Not the flowing script of a trained scribe. This was The Queens own handwriting. The Queen was a complex, though straight forward personality. She wanted much, and moved methodically to get it. Then in the middle of the last volume she found the transformation notes and some of the setup.

  Paging slowly through it Karen found a detailed record of The Queen’s preparations and of what she expected would happen. The last entry was from the morning that she performed the ceremony. This entry posed the one note of fear in the whole sordid array. Fear that the daemon would not do as she desired. There were no further entries past that point. Karen put that volume back and pulled out the next one.

  The first entry was the day after she first emerged. It was a joyfully incoherent rhapsody to the daemon. Evidently The Queen had an initial hard time filtering between her own thoughts, and the daemon. The subsequent volumes were of the transformed Queen. They radiated a guiding of malevolence to all else within them. This confirmed to Karen what the viceroy had said. The two were bound; killing The Queen would first require banishing the daemon. There were ways to do that.

  Karen’s senses suddenly alerted. She sensed a strong presence scanning in her direction. Karen first jumped to the ceiling above her, concentrating on inverting her personal gravity. She turned to face the presence, while instinctively moving to a darker area among the stone rafters, and psionically shielding herself further. The two moons casting light into the room showed nothing in the room with her, short of some kind of invisibility. But magic or more so minds were still detectable, at least in presence, to a psionic talent. And she sensed none in here with her. She found herself looking out the windows and at the tree.

  There was a bastion wall between here and the arbor. The tree stood nearly as tall as the tallest tower on the fortress around it. Its branches did not spread far from the trunk. Only about three lengths of a person, splitting several times along the length. And they were spaced evenly around the whole of the central trunk.

  A sense of some kind of general scan seemed to come from it. But on a magic level that Karen had never experienced before. She had directly experienced a kind of magic similar, once, recently. That was not a pleasant memory.

  Karen moved to the darkest area of the room, and dropped two stories back to the floor. She then concentrated on the journal, memorizing the last entries, about The Queen’s transformation and the bond to the daemon. That done, she moved back to the study area and put the journal back on its shelf.

  Karen then scanned the room, to be sure she was not leaving any residue of her own. Beyond in the hall, two guards were approaching, on patrol. And yet the tingle of mortal danger lingered. She dismissed going through the fire place, and chimney. Those were barred against such, and finding the hidden bolt hole would take too long.

  Karen blocked the brooding malevolence and focused on the hall outside. The guards had passed, the next set was not yet to the corner. Karen worked the lock, eased the door open, tripped the lock, and slipped back out of the room. She psionically held the door latch to keep it quiet, then slunk down the hall pacing the patrolling guards, shrouding herself as she went.

  Karen made her way into the garrison of The King’s Guard. This was in a different wing from the Queen's personal guard. She put aside what she had learned about the Queen to focus on what she could learn about the Kind and his potential weaknesses.

  After surveying the garrison's barracks, she selected a member of The King’s Guard, and dove into his dream as she did the member of The Queen’s Guard. This was a simpler probe.

  This one had not been in attendance at The Queen’s doings, he was too young. However she did learn from him that The King had long since given up any hope of a relationship with The Queen, beyond a formal one. Even before she transformed she had left his bed. He had expressed regular hope to grow old with her. Now he quietly hoped to outlive her, that someone might figure out how to kill her, and banish the abomination from his castle.

  Also the King treated his guardsmen like fellows, honored them, and was loyal to them. As such they were professionally loyal to him. The King seamed to long for the battlefield, and still wore armor regularly. He tried to dress as the guard did, but accepted that his station required fancier dress. He practiced on the same pitches and fields as the guard.

  She also found that the King kept a regular concubine.

  Karen knew as well as anyone in Krogg that the armed services were co-ed, and mostly segregated by sex. She was mildly surprised to learn the open secret among the guards that the King's concubine was an officer on his Personal Guard. She passed by this information as it did not appear to have any current bearing.

  Deciding that there was nothing to learn here, Karen extracted herself from the man's dreams.

100 – Extraction and Debrief

Karen crept back out to the garrison, and headed back the way she came. At the maintenance room, she encountered a familiar tingle in her senses. The psionic that had been in The Queen’s Audience Chamber was in the water room. For a brief moment, Karen thought of going another direction.

Would confronting this psionic spoil her assignment? Would not? Karen guessed that the tree had alerted this other psionic, after it sensed her. So, not confronting would spoil things. This left one course: swift victory and departure.

Karen crept into the room. The psionic was examining the puddle she had left when she had wrung the water out of her outfit. So intent was the examination that the psionic failed to notice her presence. Karen lunged along the walkway, leaped into the person, and carried that person with her into the water flowing out of the room. The other person had turned and stood as she came and lunged. It was a male Chithare elf. One of the local subterranean elves, commonly called a black elf for their skin color, as opposed to the blue elves who mostly lived to the north. As she carried him into the water and crashed against the outer wall, Karen felt the elf smack hard against it, then again against the lip of the outflow tunnel knocking him senseless. The chilly current swept them into the outflow tunnel. Karen did a quick scan, and found the elf was out cold, and bleeding from his head. The water carried them the terrifying distance out to the catch screen. They slammed against it hard, the elf’s body struggling to breathe the cold dirty water. Karen’s panic proofing lessons paying off as she felt the tunnel beginning to collapse around her.

She assessed the elf as already drowning, so not needing any additional effort from her. Karen left him unconscious, pinned to the grate by the current, and pulled her way down to the hole and let it spit her out and away from the fortress, down stream. The elf would drown by the time she got out of the water. Clear of the tunnel, her claustrophobia stopped threatening to push her into panic, and she was able to marshal her remaining air to get a good distance away.

She stayed underwater for as long as the air in her lungs and the biting temperature would allow, before heading for the surface. She looked around and scanned, checking for pursuit and witnesses. Sensing and seeing none, she swam north for the wall to her right and along it to a storm drain hole. She got on the lip of this, and climbed out of the river. She psionically warmed her body, again pushing all the cold water from her costume.

To her left was a narrow stair built into the wall. Some of the river traffic used points like this as points to tie to during the day. The city cleaners used these to get into the sewer system to service it. Karen had explored all she could stand to of the sewers. Every time she got where she could not see the exit, or feel fresh air, she began to panic. As such she avoided using this system, unlike some others from her guild. Instead she preferred the roof tops, and shadows of buildings.

Karen carefully moved up the stairs. As she went she untied her cape from her waist and unrolled it. She first put it on dark side out. Then she pulled her balaclava off, fluffed her hair a bit, then pulled the cape’s hood over her hair. She looked around the concourse that ran along the east and west riverbank. There were constables off that way, and other street and night people over the other, but none looking this way. Karen shrouded herself, and set off north across the street, and into the shadows of the building. She moved quickly for several blocks, before ducking into another alley. This was the edge of the upper class areas.

In the darkness of the alley, Karen took her cape off, and opened the seam between the hood and cape, reached in, and pulled the cape insides out. It now showed the dark red velvet of a woman of means. She resettled the cape over her shoulders and started off into the streets of the district. She moved quietly along the main avenue to a tributary street, and turned up it. Nobody was out at this hour in this area of Skarg, and anybody that was, was generally left alone. She got to the street she wanted and turned onto it. As she walked, Karen formulated her report on what she had learned. It would not be turned in until her job was completed. But many assassins kept journals, at least of target information, in case anybody needed to follow in their path, and complete a botched job.

The structures in this area were the town houses of the wealthy merchant class, and the lower level gentry. Most of the houses were four or five stories with impressive facades and wings to the back, with closed balconies for privacy. They stood very close together, with only space for a carriage to slip between. Several had walls or fences around small front or side yards.  The constables patrolled this area regularly, but unless noise or weapons were in evidence, they would not bother people. Two constables on routine patrol did fall discreetly into step several houses away from Karen, after rounding the corner behind her. She went several houses along, to one with a small yard in front of it with a low wall and tall iron fence.

Two stone pillars flanked the gate, with a wrought iron arch above it; a decorative filigree of iron work vines filled the arch. A carved lion sat on either pillar looking down on whoever entered; the right hand one had a cub under its paw, the left hand lion had an orb. Karen opened the gate, closed it behind her, and went across the yard. The scents of winter wafted past as she climbed the stone stairs. Two more lions flanked the base of the stairs, and another set the porch; each set was increasingly intricate and ornate in its decoration the closer one got to the house. She pulled the bell pull by the double doors and waited. The constables walked on down the street, on the opposite side from her. They were two houses beyond when she saw a light through the windows coming to the doors. A small panel in the left hand door opened from within.

“May I help you?” An older male voice spoke from within.

“It’s Lady Konsalva. Let me in.”

“One moment please, my lady.” The panel closed.

After a moment, the door clicked as the latch was released and it swung in. The house keeper closed the door behind Karen as she entered.

“Welcome home, my lady. What may I do for you?”

Karen turned to the old man. “Nothing tonight. I will eat and tend to business when I get up.”

He bowed, and took the candlestick with him into the bowels of the house to his quarters, leaving Karen in the dark.

Older than her father, Jasper served the family since Karen’s grandfather hired him.

At that time the family was an up-and-coming merchant family. But a series of quarrels had led to Karen’s father Oleg, the third son, pursuing a second career as an assassin. The older brothers were murdered before they could start families. Of the two sisters, one had been brutalized and found floating in the river. The other had been kidnapped, cut open and her womb removed. She later lost her life while getting revenge on the group that mutilated her. That event ended most of the overt quarreling. Oleg had seen to the rest. Jasper watched it all. His only comment on the whole affair was that Oleg had unfortunately left no sons to carry the family name.

Now Jasper and his wife kept the house. Karen kept no secrets from Jasper. Karen had been taken into the guild and raised in their houses as soon as she could walk. Most of her childhood was spent outside of Skarg. Karen was raised with her older sister, and learned all the skills of her father, eventually surpassing him.

One time her older sister had gone on a trip with their mother, and was nearly killed in the attack that killed their mother. Oleg’s only overt comment on the subject was that his wife had acquitted herself well, killing all who attacked her. Covertly he mourned her greatly.

Karen’s sister, however, had an utter lack of stomach and skill for anything the guild had to teach. She could handle herself well enough. But she was loath to even slaughter dinner. She did excel in business and management. Karen helped her sister set up and improve upon the family businesses she now used to take care of her public means. This included four taverns; one which had a brothel attached to it, two that had inns. Also shares in two major and a handful of minor land and sea shipping groups. Finally the two merchant shops their grandfather had started with his brothers, which Oleg had inherited. In all the quarrels, Karen and her sister had been the only ones left alive. No cousins of any close relation. Then her sister had been attacked and killed.

After cleaning that up, Karen continued the businesses. And she used the taverns and related businesses to help facilitate her primary career. The result was that she only came home once in a while, spending most nights at one of the taverns or inns.

Growing up, she had many bittersweet memories of the house. Sometimes they were more than she could bare, and she would avoid the reminder of family. Other times she needed to rest, and let the world alone. She would come here and forget anything beyond the walls of the yard. Oleg had made a point of never bringing work home with him. Karen had followed that example. Unlike her other properties, no blood or poison had ever stained the floors of the house.

Karen crossed the foyer, and went up stairs. The first floor had the kitchen with an informal dining area, Jasper’s quarters with his wife, a receiving room and the foyer. A mud room at the back exited to the coach yard and shed, and a privy. The second floor had the parlor, drawing room, library, study, and formal dining room. Isolated where it would be unobtrusive was a rare indoor privy with a flush and pump mechanism. The third floor had two guest suites and the ball room, which was just as often an exercise and training room. There was also a small balcony off the ballroom. On the forth floor floor were the resident bedrooms and one medium sized bathing room, the tub fed from a roof top tank heated by the central chimney. The pitched roof covered the attic storage space, save for where the water tank rested. Water from the tank was primarily by precipitation, collected from the roof; there was a wind driven pump that tapped the local aquifer that also kept the tank topped off with relatively fresh clean water.

Karen sold some of the furniture that her family had collected. She had little sentimental attachment to most of it. In some cases, she sold it because it had too much sentiment. The few pieces she kept were of specific value. Her grandmother's and her mother’s chests were in her bedroom. A bureau that a great-uncle made by hand stood between the chests. Her father’s desk and chair were still in the study. Hidden behind some of the book shelves in the study was most of Oleg’s armory.  The canopy bed that her grandparents had used was in her private room at one of the inns. Jasper and his wife had taken implicit possession of many of the other things. The china, silver, and crystal were all still in the kitchen, or down in the pantry. Some of the other finer furniture was still about the house, where they had always been. Other pieces had been replaced by Jasper’s wife. As time passed, the house gradually took on more of their character, and Karen felt more alien to it.

104 – Welcome to The Party

  Journal of Steven Caplan: Day 137

  Going to this ball seamed  like a good idea at the time. Now, I wonder what we are expecting to happen.

  Caspian stood against the wall as the Caplan's sat on the bed. Steven had started the conversation. “What are we looking for?”

  Caspian answered. “Anyone talking about the reason for this ball. And where they were taken.”

  Rox's brief experiences with official happenings in Veradale were at the foremost of her concerns. “Remember, don't start the conversation about our kids, unless you can deflect any suspicion that may arise.”

  Steven brought the conversation back to his original concern.“So what's the plan?”

  Caspian had thought about this. “Spread out, find the important people, and discretely listen without attracting attention. I have not sensed any magical attention on us, but if they are using trackers like we have for your kids, then I wouldn't. I would presume that if they were aware of us, and considered us a threat, they would have moved against us by now.”

  Steven countered Caspian's initial idea. “Or we could listen for and to the chatterboxes and socialites. The problem then becomes distinguishing between the chatter and the facts.”

  As the conversation continued, Steven conceded to Caspian that authority figures were a good source, and Caspian conceded that the socialites were as well. Roxanne was mostly concerned with not attracting attention.

  That evening Caspian and the Caplan's set out from their hotel rooms with Roxanne on Steven’s arm. Under her cloak, Roxanne wore an illusory elfin looking dress attached to one of the smocks from Veradale, and taking its substance from it, with an amulet on a necklace around her neck driving the illusion. Her mane had returned to full growth thanks to some magic after having had it cut short on Earth, the sides being about a cubit long, tied in rope braids with costume gold bands at the bottoms; the middle stood up free of the hood of the cloak. Under the illusory skirt she had secured her staff into her belt by the lanyard she had wrapped around one end. Steven and Caspian wore suits of the local season’s flavor, with short coats, and pantaloons that cuffed and bloused mid-calf, and stockings and black buckled shoes below that. Both men had made it a point to shave and trim their beards carefully. Caspian had again changed the size  of his staff and stuck it into a pocket of his coat. All three were slightly chilled by the cool night versus the cut of their clothes.

  Cyrril was not in visible evidence, Caspian having instructed him to keep clear of the palace, after the little dragon had tried to get near on his own, and been scared off by something he could not clearly define to Caspian. In his spare time after, Caspian had simply remarked that there was a lot of old heavy magic about the palace fortress, most of it martial in feel. It should not interfere with their plans to go in an listen around.

  They caught one of the carriages that wandered the city as a taxi service. The leather and fabric top to the carriage had been deployed, but not the sides. Initially the three rode alone, but Caspian soon switched from his position in the passenger area to being on the bench with the driver as another couple was picked up.

  This was a local couple and initially tried to engage Steven and Rox in conversation. The woman wanted to talk about who did what since the last ball, the man about what business he might do with Steven. As soon as it was understood that Steven and Rox were from a long way away and just traveling through, the couple seemed to lapse into an uncomfortable silence, since  there was noting familiar to talk about.

  The carriage turned onto a main road heading south, and the whole way in, Steven and Rox had a good view past the driver and Caspian of the fortress/palace they were going to. The carriage joined a line traveling across the western most bridge over the Skarg River into the fortress. Other bridges could be seen crossing the river to the island, and from the city on the north to the city on the south. Also the river here was wide enough that there were shipping docks visible on both shores. The line of carriages went into a large court yard were it turned and lined up to some stairs. Here each carriage jockeyed into position, and the passengers  dismounted from the carriage. 

  The Caplan's deferred to the local couple to disembark first, then followed. Caspian got off the drivers bench easily, and adjusted his trousers slightly. The three then followed the flow of people. A squad of Palace Guards in polished breastplates over their fabric tunics and trousers stood with pikes at presentation as an honor guard lining the yard and a short formal staircase to a formal Palace Entrance. The Caplan's climbed the stairs and entered the palace.

  Karen wore a body hugging gown of very light tan. The gown generally allowed her full freedom of movement in the skirts and shoulders. She had ended up taking one of her three last-seasons gowns to a tailor and having it adjusted for this season, mostly in removing some of the trim, shortening the hem accommodating for the two less layers of petticoat, and slitting last season's puffy sleeves open from the wrist to the elbow with the cuff adjusted to still close at the wrist. Jeweled hairpins, large enough to be weapons, held her medium length brown hair off her neck. A small jeweled stiletto in its sheath hung as a necklace center pointing into her cleavage, in the wide collar. The rest of the necklace is a crescent style collar filling the open neck of her dress. She carried a small leather clutch hung on the sash of her gown.

  She rode to the palace in one of the many coaches that plied the city, with another couple from the block she lived on. These knew her as the unmarried and only surviving daughter of a prosperous merchant family. So Karen played this roll, talking up the wife on what was happening socially, and then turning to the husband and talking about his business, and their children. She was able to keep both chatting enough to avoid them asking her any substantive questions beyond her general condition.

  Within the palace was the usual Formal Hall. This had several stair cases and openings to the available wings of the buildings. There were paired guards with velvet ropes blocking access to the left hand wing entrances on all levels, a few of which were dark, and two that had curtains across them. Some people moved straight through the hall into a courtyard between the structures. The rest turned right/west and went into the wings there, whether by descending a flight, staying on this level and going along a hall, or by ascending to one of the three apparent levels above this one. Each floor was about three times the height from floor to ceiling as the average person here was tall. The walls were covered with assorted hangings trophy decorations, and paintings of various sizes. Some times the display was orderly and impressive. Others were just thrown up, almost literally.

  Aside from preventing passage into other parts of the structure, the guards were almost invisible, patrolling in pairs with swords at their belts, or standing watch with the pikes. As outside, these wore the polished breastplates over dress costumes. A few even paused to chat with the locals.

  Steven leaned to Rox as they walked. “This place reminds me of a mall, or The Pentagon.  Probably the latter, as I doubt the public is allowed into the office areas, without need.”

  Caspian interrupted. “How shall we proceed, and where would you like to set our assembly point?”

  Steven did a quick scan, speaking as he did. “Five apparent levels from here. No clear idea how deep any of them go for access into the structure, though it probably is not as deep as some suppose. There are probably but not definitely connecting stairways deeper in, but we have no idea if they connect to all the other levels. I would say that our rally point is that bench there.”

  Steven had turned and pointed to a bench beside a hallway on this level that was guarded by a pair of guards.

“It has a clear view of everything that is not directly above it. There are already others using it, so standing near it should not be much issue, mostly. And we all can find our way back here.”

  Rox nodded while people watching, studying  the crowd.

  Caspian looked at the bench, then turned to Steven. “Very well. Assuming we don't bump into each other sooner, meet there as soon after as possible after the tocsins sound one. I will start on the top, as that will allow me to clear my senses and get a better sense of the magics at work here, in order to deal with them the rest of the night.”

  Rox and Steven turned as Caspian went to the closest stairs and started climbing. The Caplan's strode into the hall on this level and followed the crowd wandering through it. Due to her novice skill with her magic senses, Rox barely perceived a buzzing at the back of her mind. Caspian needed to reset his senses, proverbially getting a breath of fresh air, or he was going to have a smashing headache before very long.

  Each of the levels, while arranged differently for their specifics, were generally arranged the same. The lower the level, the thicker the arches and pillars that demarcated the areas, but otherwise these lined up. There were large rooms with various buffet tables in array, several rooms appeared to be set for conversations with the furniture arranged in discrete arrangements. In one of these, Rox and Steven paused to listen to a man at the center of a spirited debate. There were three rooms on the east-west leg of the first floor with between four and a dozen musicians playing various forms of dance music as people did rounds and turns on the floors. The Caplan's passed a room that seemed to be just for sitting and drinking. This rooms outer doors were open to a balcony that looked north across the river. The bridge and its steady stream of carriages were easily visible. Looking up and down there were other like sized balconies almost at random on this section of wall. They passed one room on the inner side of the wing that had been taken over by the kitchen staff and was the local staging area for managing the buffets.

  At the end of the hall was a larger banquet room, with medium sized orchestra on the far left, a dance floor in the middle, a buffet to the right side of the room, and most of the wall open to a similarly large porch that occupied the western most tip of this part of the island. Looking up it was apparent that this next section of the structure was stepped back with each floor having variously sized balconies and porches that looked down to the one below.  The three floors above were accounted for, so also were the military battlements. Steven briefly wondered where the anti-ship artillery that would normally be deployed from this balcony was currently being kept.

  The hall inside turned south and the rooms repeated the same arrangements, with various social functions happening in each, and a few utility rooms here and there. They even passed one room with discrete booths and a few attendants at hand, that was well vented to the outside, with a large fragrant fire keeping the otherwise malodorous scent from disturbing anyone around it.

  A second large staircase was midway along the north-south running hallway. Here, Rox took leave of Steven and went to the next floor up. Steven continued to the end of the hall and found another balcony arrangement, this defending the south approach from the river. The hallway turned back east and ended up in another atrium with closed passages, and access to the inner yard that this structure section surrounded.

105 – Exploring The Party, Rox gets in a fight

  Steven went down to the first floor and continued his looking around. He soon found that the lower floor had no balconies that were not also docks, and that this floor in general was designated for the juveniles and teens that were not of sufficient discipline, or interested in joining the adults above.

  Roxanne wandered the second floor, pausing in one room to help herself to the buffet. She found herself making small talk with a few other locals, but most were apparently loath to approach her until she sat. Then she was set upon by a token few who took it upon themselves to interrogate and then properly introduce this elfin interloper.

  Rox did not have long to converse, before being taken from the third floor up to the forth floor and introduced around there. She was soon passed about a dance floor, and learning the local dance moves. As they went, she was able to learn little that was truly helpful.

  Caspian got to the top floor and strolled briskly down the hall, checking the rooms for a balcony, and then went out onto the first one he found, looking over the river. He paused and then seeing no one around he closed his eyes, and relaxed as best he could. Then he turned to his magic sense. The entire fortress was weighing heavily on him, but there was also a brooding malevolence pushing against his awareness. Caspian reset his senses, partially by remembering and concentrating on a ditty from his youth. Quickly it was as if a fog lifted, partially. The old magic that was virtually innate to the fortress was still there and dominating his magic senses, but it was now more bearable. The malevolence was also reduced to a peripheral level.

  Reinforced, Caspian turned and went back inside. As the bulk of the party had not yet reached this level in force, the room buffets were not yet stocked. But he found a staging table outside this levels kitchen annex and helped himself to the meat, fruit, bread, and other foods being prepared.

  Caspian then proceeded to explore the available area. This floor had more dancing rooms than the other floors below, with the bands still warming up. To his surprise, in one smaller sitting room Caspian found a few merchants that he knew from elsewhere, and was able to strike up conversation with them. To no surprise, they had no real understanding of the why's of this particular ball, and were availing themselves of the opportunity to socialize with some they might not otherwise have opportunity to, and perhaps arrange some new business. Finally Caspian excused himself and moved on, working his way down through the floors seeking for anyone worth listening to.

  Karen had her senses going sorting through the static and noise of the various minds to find 'Steven' and his wife. As well, she was partially shrouding herself from the other society matrons, who would no doubt try to bring Karen into their circles and hook her up with some man. Her clean range of pickup was the floor she was on, and either the one below or above; there were enough minds beginning to fill the rooms that to try to scan three floors at the same time was too much. So she moved quickly along the second floor first, with scant attention to the kids’ floor below and more attention to the merchants on the floor above.  Getting around the whole of the palace wing, Karen climbed up two levels and started back the way she had come. She thought she picked up Steven on the lower floor but was not paying enough attention to get a good reading, and was not going to break character by backtracking right now.

  This forth level had more diplomats and socialites to interact with, or avoid. The top level was developing a good mix of everyone, as the primary dance floors were on that level. Karen would have to scan that level on its own. Now she focused on everyone on this floor. She got partway around and got a solid reading on a non-local half-elf female. Karen entered the room and looked around. Sure enough there was the tall female with a white mowhawk that Karen had followed on the streets. She was on the dance floor being passed from partner to partner, as a reel was played. Karen took a glass of drink from passing tray for camouflage and sat at a side table to watch, and wait for an opportune moment.

  Roxanne worked along the buffet, taking a break from the dancing to have a bite to eat while considering how to make the talk go to the subject of the reason for the ball. She had kept up with her dance partners, and realized that most of the locals probably recognized her as a juvenile elf, and therefore maritally unattached. As she looked the fruit tray over, she realized that the fresh stuff was all melons, with a few other candied and preserved fruits from other seasons. This struck her as she was looking for the strawberries and blueberries to go with her melon.

  “Traveling through or settling?”

  Rox looked at the man next to her. He wore white over off-white robes, and tingled of magic. He was tall enough she could elbow his nose without raising her arm. His accenting was not quite local.

  “Passing through. We were conducting business and learned of the ball, and came to see.”

  “Oh, then you have some time?”

  “Not much. This has been entertaining, though we don't know quite what it is for.”

  “I sense magic about you. Do you cast?”

  Roxanne was feeling that something was wrong with this situation and she needed to get out of it. Behind her, the orchestra started a new dance number and the floor filled with moving bodies.

  “I have access to some casting. Why do you ask?”

  “I have long had curiosity about elves and their use of magic.”

  “Then perhaps you ought to visit one of our cities, rather than troll about for someone to bother.”

  With that Rox took her plate and stepped away from the buffet and toward a table, where a few ladies were sitting.

  A hand took hold of her arm, almost gently, and tried to turn Rox toward another empty table. The man asked “Will you join me for a bit more conversation?”

  Rox felt his hand wander over to her hip and rump.

  Across the room, Karen senses told her that this man did not have the best of intentions toward the half-elf. Then she saw him put his had to her rump. Karen stood up and started around the perimeter of the room to go intervene.

  Rox grabbed his wrist and pulled it away, squeezing the bones together. “Touch me again, and you loose the hand.”

  Before she let go, he tried to cast a spell. She felt a heavier magic pop and fizzle the spell of this man. Rox turned the rest of the way, smashing her stoneware plate into the man's startled face, and twisted her other hand away from his arm. The plate fell to the floor and clattered, but the room was noisy enough that the sound was unnoticed by most. She stepped away and back to put space between them. He followed, and lunged after her, grabbing her arm again. Rox felt him try to cast a spell again, and again his spell was crushed by a heavier spell.

  Karen peripherally felt the enchantments of the castle thrum, then settle a second time. Suddenly there were two guards with pole arms standing and visible at each of the two sets of doors to this room. Karen briefly wondered if they had been there all along, but somehow shrouded.

  ‘Grenade’ began echoing through Rox’s mind, as she tried to get him to let go. She brought her martial arts to bear, and knocked his hands off her, but he was quickly trying to get his hands on her somewhere, even the arms she was using to deflect him. He was also still trying to subdue her using a spell, as they grappled. She could not understand the words, but could sense the direction of the magic. It was not the same that had failed twice. This would try to affect her will.

  “Shields,” was all she got out as he finished.

  “Come with me.” His spell wrapped around hers and they sparked and spat, trying to drive each other to nothing.

  Roxanne was not waiting. She yanked on his wrist with one hand and punched him in his sternum with the other, through the magic between them. He fell to his knees stunned, letting go of her. His spell fizzed to nothing.

  Rox again tried to leave. He tripped her before she got from him. He then started clawing and crawling up her leg to stand while trying to physically restrain her. He pulled her over in the process. Later she would wonder why he did not try to magically restrain her, or teleport again with her. His hand got to her knee, when she kicked him again with her free leg. But he wrapped this up before she could pull away.

  Roxanne had enough of his groping her. “Shields.” Again her magic shields came on at full intensity, using the floor for a locus. “Grenade.”

  She focused her attention and idea on the base of his skull. ‘This is a dangerous way to practice magic,’ she had been told. ‘The idea you have had better be clear, or it could go awry.’ Roxanne had a clear idea. In moments his neck exploded, becoming so much vaporized tissue. His body stayed put, but went totally limp and fell over. His head came to a pulpy stop under the table next to them. Somewhere near by a woman shrieked in instant hysterics.

  Roxanne let her shields dissipate and pushed the body off her legs. Her ears rang, her thighs were numb from the concussion, but she was in one piece.

  She picked herself up, as she heard his voice.

  “That hurt. Very clever.”

  She turned as he stood up from reaching under the table and put his head to his neck, his neck still reintegrating itself, his head inflating back to shape as he held it in place. He then began to cast a new spell. Roxanne felt her hair start to stand on end and crackle.

  ‘Energy is energy’ and ‘Lightening rod’ flashed through her mind. As her opponent set up to cast a lightening bolt at her. Rox reached into her sash and through the illusion of the gown and grabbed her staff, activating the ends. She planted one end on the ground and tilted the staff toward her opponent. The bolt let loose as she got set. The thunder was deafening, and almost a physical force, knocking several people between and around them down. Her staff glowed white for a moment, but all the energy was directed into the floor. There was now a small burned spot where Rox had planted her staff, and she had some tingling in her hands. But she was still standing.

  Rox pulled the end of the staff off the ground, deactivated the length and pointed the staff at the wizard, letting loose with a barrage of magic darts, like a machine gun.

  She pinned him to the wall with this, then turned toward the doors again. He tried to grapple her from behind as she crossed the room to leave, but only got the butt end of her staff in his belly for his troubles. He collapsed on himself as she came back around with the other end, catching him just under his jaw. His neck gave an awful popping sound as his head whipped back, and he rolled onto his back, his body going limp again. His jaw was a mess, and this time he did not get back up. Evidently his spell was either exhausted, or only covered dismemberment and not internal damage.

  The fight had made a mess of this part of the room, right in front of the buffet. Once the guards had become aware of the fight, they had closed the doors they stood at and waited for it to finish. Likewise Karen had stood aside and pulled a few non attentive bystanders out of the way, and set up a spot of cover.

  Roxanne decided not to stick around for the cleaning bill as guards started to come at her. She moved for an exit, staff in hand when a brown haired woman in a light tan gown pulled Rox into a knot of people on the dance floor. “Come with me, if you want to get out. And put the staff away.”