Chapter Text
It’s been a long, slow slide down to rock bottom for Essek Thelyss, but now that he’s here, he’s finding he doesn’t mind it at all.
The drow wizard regards the view of the sweeping verdant hills and valleys of the Dwendalian hinterlands below, squinting in the bright sun of the high Ashkeepers.
The view of this strange green land had once made him vaguely nauseous. So disorienting were the profusion of unfamiliar flora and fauna and the bright, cutting rays of the sun that he had kept mostly indoors and only came out at night.
Two years into his time in the Empire, he is more at home here than he had ever thought he could be. His days and nights are still suffused with the omnipresent dread of a haunted, hunted man - but now his fear is a fear of his own people, his own homeland.
And here he is, going back, like the self-righteous fool he’s always been.
So lost is he in his own thoughts that he forgets the Archmage of Nowhere is with him until the human speaks.
“Tell me if you need a rest,” the man says quietly.
The drow shoots him a distrustful glare. It’s always easier to deal with the Archmage when he’s being suspicious and cold. When he tries to be kind like this, it fills Essek with a deep sense of dread.
“I will say something if I need to,” he says between gritted teeth.
“You never say something,” Caleb replies. “That is why I have to keep asking.”
The ancient karst topography of the region was transformed by dwarven hands centuries ago into rough-hewn steps and landings which are mingled with the natural outcroppings to form a winding set of hitchbacks and landings. Even in his prime, Essek admits his level of conditioning would never have permitted him to make such an unforgiving climb with anything approaching ease; after the two years of self-neglect since his escape from the asylum, the ascent has been an incredible ordeal.
“I was ill for months when Molly dragged me out of the brig where I’d been imprisoned,” Caleb says, like he’s commenting on the weather, and the man suddenly has Essek’s complete and utter attention. “When a sickness is in the mind as well as in the body, it takes time to heal. This exercise will strengthen you - but I cannot afford to have you come to harm in the meantime, nein?”
A bitter laugh escapes from Essek. “I suppose you cannot, Archmage,” he says.
****
Caleb has spent the last four days as Essek’s constant shadow. He doesn’t trust the man to be out of his sight for long. He even makes sure Dairon and Essek camp close to the tiny hut each night.
While it’s impossible to entirely soften his affect around the man, he’s tried to make his mantra, “What would Mollymauk do?” and hearken himself back to his early days with the crew of the Suckerpunch. He doesn’t want to let Essek think he’s absolved himself of suspicion - but he can’t push the man too far, either.
Essek’s expression always goes hard when Caleb tries the tactic of being considerate, but he tends to gain ground with the man when he talks a little about himself. He doesn’t like showing so much of himself to an adversary, but it seems to be the only thing that Essek consistently responds to favorably.
Caleb mentally sorts through his options here, and is just about to proceed with his chosen recourse when Essek speaks.
“Did I understand correctly the other night - did Mollymauk and his crew free you and your two compatriots?”
Caleb nods. “Yes. It was purely by chance; had they found some other ship to chase, I would have been doomed to a captivity without end. I was on my way to a prison that no one returns from.”
“How long were you kept captive?”
The human pauses. “Eight months. Four in an asylum, four on that ship. I spent the latter four in a collar.”
He sees that Essek is unable to suppress a shudder.
“That is how I recognized your scar,” Caleb says. “Molly wore a collar too, you know. For a year.”
Essek’s eyes meet Caleb’s briefly. The drow has a huge smudge of dirt on his face yet again. “That is…a long time.”
“A minute in the collar is a long time,” Caleb says darkly. “Tell me: did you kill to deserve this? Or did you merely defy someone no one says no to?”
“I killed,” Essek says, “but it was the defiance that earned me my fate.”
They walk together in silence until Caleb gets tired of listening to Essek work to breathe while refusing to ask for a reprieve, and pulls off to the side.
“I have rather lost sight of Mollymauk and Nott below us,” he says mildly, “and I have yet another stone in these boots of mine. I insist you sit and rest.”
Essek makes an annoyed huffing noise but obediently sits down a few feet from where Caleb has found his own boulder to rest on. The human makes a show of searching his boot for the alleged pebble. There’s no doubt whatsoever that the incredibly observant Essek has noticed that there was no change in his gait to suggest a noisome pebble was present, but it’s the pretense of the thing that matters.
“You know,” Caleb says as he looks into the boot, “I never thought I would be dispatched to Xhorhas. My preceptors at the Academy always railed that war between our two nations was inevitable, but my school friends and I thought that both the Night Queen and Emperor Dwendal had grown too comfortable over the decades to upset the status quo. While I have no taste for war, I am excited at the prospect of actually seeing Xhorhas - especially as I have the uncommon opportunity to walk among your people as an ally.”
“Well,” Essek says, “not precisely an ally. A captive. A trophy of war. It is not the same thing.”
“To play the part of a captive is even better,” Caleb says. “There is no position more advantageous when gathering intelligence than that of a beggar or a slave. One is below the notice of even the most lowly of common people - and so one passes almost unseen where others may not. Have you never done this?”
“There was a time when such a role would have horrified me, but during my time in the Empire, the appearance of being a poor, friendless urchin had become a welcome refuge. As you know all too well, a wizard draws too many eyes.” The drow gestures over toward Caleb’s hands. “Is this why you keep your hands bandaged? To disguise…something? I know it does not hurt you when you use them, so if there are injuries there, they are not fresh.”
Caleb winces. He has to pause to get his emotions back in check, to school his expression back into one of unbothered calm. “Nein,” he says. “Like you, I have certain marks which cannot be seen.” He gestures vaguely in the direction of Essek’s neck. “To show them would be to risk my life.”
Essek nods. “The fact that there is not one among your little band that can show themselves wholly to the world allows me to rest a little more easily at night.”
Caleb gives him a sad smile. “I am glad that you can still get your rest. Most of us cannot.”
****
Late that evening in the blood-red dusk, Molly and Nott finally catch up to the rest of the group where they have pitched camp for the night.
Caleb and Essek appear to be having a minor argument. A disagreement of some nature has become their nightly routine.
Molly ruffles Caleb’s red hair as he walks past. “What’s the fuss this time?” he asks.
Caleb shoots him an annoyed look and returns his attention to the drow. “This is exceedingly silly,” he says. “You are perfectly welcome to join us.”
“One person would need to sleep outside your hut anyway,” Essek replies, arms crossed over his chest as he scowls at the other wizard.
“Reani prefers to sleep as a dog! She prefers to sleep outside!”
“Dairon and I are accustomed to - “
“Verdammt - why do I even try?” Caleb turns and makes his way over to where Beau has been stacking up logs and kindling in anticipation of his arrival. With a casual flick of his wrist, he lights the fire, purple flames blazing a little higher than is strictly necessary.
When Caleb sits down on the nearest log, Molly is quick to sit down far too close to him just to rile him up, gleaning from the man a small sound of displeasure which he happily ignores.
“You are being a pest, Mollymauk,” Caleb says.
“It’s my favorite pastime,” Molly says. “Fighting again, Caleb?”
“We are always fighting,” Caleb says. “Our foundational manner of relating to one another is fighting.”
“I knew it would be fun having two drama queens in the group,” Molly says, and he throws his arm around Caleb’s shoulders.
The human grumbles again and pretends to hate it. He doesn’t, but he’s a wonderful liar. It’s one of his best qualities.
Molly lowers his voice so that only Caleb can hear him. “You don’t have to be his nursemaid, you know. We’re all here. We’re all watching. We can trade off on keeping an eye on him.”
Caleb sighs. “Technically, this is correct. Functionally, it is something I would prefer to do myself. I dislike the idea of giving this task to someone who can do little more than raise the alarm if things go wrong.”
“Caleb, really?” Molly says. “Do you really think he’s crazy enough to snap on us without warning? He’s not alone. He’s with Dairon.”
“And I was with Nott,” Caleb says.
“You were in a collar.”
“Mollymauk,” Caleb says, “I will not let any of you come to harm - nor, quite frankly, do I wish Essek to come to harm. I merely know his mindset all too well - and I know how volatile a history like his can make even the most rational man.”
****
Fjord has dreamt of dark water many, many times.
This dream is different.
It begins much the same as it always does: the cold water swirling around him, the grip of an unseen creature pulling him downward.
He doesn’t drown this time. He breathes the water in - but when he does, it does not choke him.
As the tunnel vision of panic begins to fade, he looks around him in the water, confused.
He sees another person there, suspended in the dark.
It is Caleb.
****
Caleb wakes suddenly, and the curious thing is this.
As he sits up with a gasp from the dream of the flames, he looks over and sees that Fjord is sitting up as well, looking at him in disbelief.
“Did you - ?” Fjord gets out, voice still rough from sleep.
“Ja,” Caleb says. “Ja.” He remembers to lower his voice. “Come outside. Let us talk.”
“Won’t the hut disappear?” Fjord whispers.
“Verdammt - yes. Thank you. I am sorry, I am off-kilter.” He lowers his voice a little more. “Did you just have your dream, the dream of Uk’otoa?”
“Yes. It was different this time. I saw you there in the water.”
“In the water,” Caleb repeats. “I saw you there in the fire with me. I have never seen anyone else there before, not when Fenhuan’toa is speaking to me.”
“Well,” Fjord says shakily, “that’s…that’s…something? Something bad? Something good?”
“My patron spoke to me,” Caleb says. “The words were different, too. ‘Explore. Reclaim.’ Then the usual word, his name for me: ‘Firebug.’”
“Fuck,” Fjord says. “That’s - that’s the same thing Uk’otoa said to me. The first two words, anyway. The last word was ‘Reward.’”
Caleb lets out a small sound as he makes a connection. “We had always thought that word was his promise to you,” he whispers. “Perhaps it is what he calls you.”
“Well, that’s bloody weird,” Fjord says.
“The accent is…interesting,” Caleb says, and Fjord looks horrified.
“I - um - “ the half-orc begins to stutter.
Caleb holds up his hand to stop him. “I do not care, Fjord the Tough, unless you wish for me to care; I was merely making you aware so that you could switch back if you so choose. What I care to understand is what this dream means.”
“Did you see the black hall?”
Caleb frowns. “The black hall?”
“One moment, we were in the water; then, we were standing beside each other in a huge room made of black obsidian. At first I thought it was the Shattered Hold, but other than the type of stone, the architecture was completely different. It looked more like a mansion than a temple - and it looked more new than old. Everything was crisp lines and angles. In front of us, under glass, there were stone orbs. There was one amber orb, and with it there were two black orbs.” He looks at Caleb curiously now. “We’ve been apart for some time. Have you…have you come across another one of your orbs yet?”
Caleb raises his eyebrows. “No,” he says. “The word ‘yet’ is a curious addition to that sentence, my friend.”
Fjord nods. “We need to catch up on this in detail,” he says, “but a few months ago, after Molly died, the dreams were really plaguing me. Uk’otoa wanted me to go to a specific island and he was being damned persistent about it. After it just kept getting worse, the crew agreed to go there with me and…and I came across the next amber orb. Apparently, it’s one of three - and what happened to you with your first orb happened to me this time. It, uh, wanted to go inside of my chest, and I couldn’t really say no, not with the orb thing already in my hand.”
Caleb nods, processing this. “Well,” he says. “It seems your patron now has a new directive for you - and this time, my patron is sending me on the same journey.”
“Did your dream give you any inkling of where we’re supposed to go?” Fjord asks. “I saw the black hall, but I didn’t get a sense of where it was.”
“Nein. Give him time, though. If he is anything like your patron, he will enjoy keeping me in suspense.” Caleb pauses. “Though it is hard not to draw the logical conclusion: on this first night that we look down on Xhorhas instead of the Empire, we have both received this vision. It must mean something.”
“Are we going the right way, though, or the wrong way?” Fjord can’t keep the anxiety from his tone.
“Only time will tell.”
****
Morning comes, and the eleven begin their way down the craggy limestone mountain path. The descent is slow; overnight, the rain has made the terrain doubly treacherous.
Essek walks with Caleb.
Now that the going is mostly downhill, he does not have to cope with the man’s pity nearly as often.
Today, Caleb is looking ahead at the pillar of dark a hundred miles hence.
“It truly is stunning,” Essek says at last. “I grew up looking at it, of course - but the day I stepped into the Endless Night it was a revelation. Some liken walking into Rosohna to a religious experience. I am not one of those people - but I can see the reason it attracts its own peculiar brand of worship.”
Caleb nods, stealing a glance Essek’s way. “It must be doubly striking to one with your physiology. I cannot know the joy of never being blinded by the glare of the sun in one’s own city.” He looks back to the path ahead. “As one who is darkblind, I imagine the religious experience would be one of terror rather than one of joy.”
Essek finds himself unable to contain a surprised laugh.
Caleb looks over to him curiously. “What was it that I said, Herr Thelyss?”
“I have simply never heard a human with a Zemnian accent say ‘darkblind.’ Your people use the opposite term: ‘nightvision.’ As though we are the exceptional ones, rather than yourselves.”
“Zemnians are exceptional,” Caleb says, “but primarily in our skill at convincing other people to act as though our eccentricities and idiosyncrasies are normative.”
They trudge on another mile or so, and then Essek asks the question that’s been stuck in his head for days.
“Are you going to kill me, Archmage?” he asks.
The man does not answer him right away.
When he speaks, his voice is soft, his tone almost meditative.
“I would prefer not to, Herr Thelyss,” he says, “but if you insist, I will oblige.”
****
Molly spends the day walking side by side with Yasha.
He feels as comfortable with her as he feels with Caleb or Nott - perhaps more so, in certain inexplicable ways, ways so subtle that they must remain nameless.
Her habitual silence leaves him the space to think.
It’s just a word, he thinks to himself.
He worries the word over and over in his mind like an anxious man might worry at the hem of a garment, pulling at the letters like fraying threads, trying fruitlessly to divine the word’s meaning.
It’s just a word, he tells himself. It doesn’t mean anything by itself. Just ask her.
He’s not a shy man, not by longbow shot - but it takes him an incredible amount of time to work up his nerve to ask.
“Hey, Yash?” he says, using the nickname he has already so effortlessly re-adopted. He coined it, apparently, but Beau uses it too.
“Yes, Molly?”
He watches her face carefully as he asks the question.
“Um, does the name ‘Lucien’ mean anything to you?”
Her brow creases. He thinks that even if he didn’t have an intrinsic sense of her emotions and expressions, it still wouldn’t be all too hard to read her; she is not one for artifice.
Frowning a little, Yasha says, “No. I’ve never known anyone by that name - and neither did you, to my knowledge.”
“And you were with me the entire time I was alive before,” Molly repeats for the tenth or eleventh time, even though he already knows the answer.
Yasha nods. She’s stealing little glances at him, clearly trying to get a sense of why he’s asked the question. She’s still affording him his privacy, though; Molly knows she has a great deal she prefers to keep to herself, so she’s trying to grant him the same courtesy.
Molly likes to be an open book. He wants people to look at him and know the full story.
That’s just one of the myriad reasons he hates this so fucking much.
“I remember that word, Yasha,” he says. “I remember that word - and if you don’t remember that word, then there’s only one place it can come from.”
Yasha lets out a breath, a sigh that’s on the verge of being an audible groan.
They walk together for quite some time, caught up in separate thoughts about the same dilemma.
“I’m sorry, Molly,” Yasha says. “Do you want to take the talisman off?”
Molly thinks about it. He’s been thinking about it.
He takes the carved ivory swirl in his hand, and runs his fingers along the smooth red silk cord that he’s already in the habit of fidgeting with.
“No,” he says at last. “I bought the ticket; I’ll stay to watch the show.”