Hope

Desir groaned as he slowly sat up, feeling a stinging pain in his gut. It wasn’t helped by the coughing fit caused by one of his teeth turning to dust. Small grains of exhausted magic that would soon return to nothingness as Finity took hold. Not that he had any right to complain given that it had just saved his life. And took him out of Abonisle while at it. Beyond the Void Lake and a good chunk further. Escape treasures were a wonderful thing… especially when you planned to use them. Now, the situation was a bit improvised but it went almost exactly as he had hoped it to. The almost being the hole going through his lower torso.

“Damn ghost,” Desir muttered as he took the best look at it he could. A puncture going front to back but as far as he could feel and see it hadn’t pierced anything important. Good thing that given that seeking professional help might be rather difficult in the nearby future since he didn't want to take any additional risks. Instead he placed his left hand against the front of the wound, then released just a bit of Life magic.

“Any rend,

Mend”

The muscle of the arm quivered, hurt for a moment, then shrunk. Not so much that the effect was visible but it sure felt damn uncomfortable. Merely stitching the wound would only close it for a time before Finity reopened it. Rather, he had performed a more permanent graft. Of course, that required materials. Suitable biomass that the body wouldn’t immediately attempt to reject. A proper healer could force less than suitable meat to serve. Desir with his skill at Life magic had to cannibalize his own flesh. Metaphorically speaking, of course. With his other hand he reached towards the back of the wound and recast the spell. The muscle he had to lose was lesser as the first cast had gotten maybe three quarters through his body. It still stung and left his arms feeling uncomfortable.

He took a deep breath. At least he wasn’t bleeding anymore. His clothes were still ruined but he would have had to burn them even if they weren’t. Nothing traceable could be left. That included more than merely items. Desir reached into his pockets finding his portable makeup set which included a mirror… only to find that said mirror had shattered at some point during the day, mixing with the dies. Cursing, he took the biggest shard that was somewhat clean and wiped it against the grass until it would somewhat start to reflect again. Which it didn’t.

“Here, pro bono,” a familiar voice sounded in his ears. Desir looked up, finding Bhaak standing there just next to the man’s wagon - neither having been there a moment prior. The trader was offering him a simple but competently made hand mirror.

“Thanks,” Desir nodded, not quite standing up as he looked into it, he was a bit of a mess after all the sweat, soot, and blood he had encountered. Thankfully he didn’t use makeup before jobs otherwise it would have been much worse off. “You know, I am surprised you carry mundane junk like this.”

“It eats souls,” the merchant shrugged without a change of tone and Desir almost threw it away reflexively before he could reign his reaction in – just barely keeping it in hand. He glared up at the other man who now wore a light grin.

“It’s not nearly as funny when it could be true,” he sighed then looked back down at himself. Two blue eyes, objectively handsome features, an enviable nose, and so on. He liked how he looked, indulged in vanity… alas survival came first. He took a deep breath, then spoke:

"

B s i o n

r u

e l

a e

k t h e d

"

His mind recoiled and he flinched as the glamour wore away. His toes and thumbs prickled, then spasmed. He coughed up sweat, then spat it out. A worm crawled out from his armpit, then promptly vanished.

“You have gotten better since last time,” Bhaak commented.

“Fuck off,” Desir managed to grunt, realizing that his voice had risen about 3 pitches. Hopefully only momentarily.

“I am serious,” Bhaak insisted. “Faen magic is no joke, especially for someone who is not a fae. I wouldn’t dream of trying it.”

“It’s really not fun if your body can’t just ignore the side effects,” he sighed and took another deep breath, looking down at the mirror. His features had changed… slightly. A bit less perfect, a bit less nice to look at, though not beyond recognition. What was distinctly different were his eyes though:

While one eye remained blue, the other turned to bright pink. And not just the iris, but the sclera and pupil as well - not to mention the newfound soft glow. The kind of thing every man, woman and child would notice and remember you by. Therefore, Desir waited a few moments for the side effects to fully fade, then spoke again.

“

“

Desir keeled over, hearing the smell of blueberries. His tongue had turned to sugar cane which really did not go well with the salt rocks that his teeth became. The entire world shifted towards the shade of yellow in his eyes and he gained a sudden distinct impression of a third arm he did not have touching something very fluffy somewhere else. Not to mention the horrible itch on his liver and whispers of impossible shapes.

Of course, those faded away. After a few dozen seconds his body returned to normal - besides the aftertaste of overpowering salt and sugar staying behind. Desir looked back into the mirror and found himself… changed. His eyes were green now. Not piercing emerald, just good old mundane green. His features had shifted as well. He was - unfortunately - a lot less handsome than before, his visage far more common and less pleasing… But completely unrecognizable. And that was what mattered.

“I certainly hope it will be enough,” Desir sighed deeply, though mostly to give an opening to the much more powerful mage standing right next to him to provide an opinion.

“If I try to divine your pursuers it will just alert them to something being amiss with your ‘death’,” Bhaak simply shrugged. “But from just a mundane perspective, Irwyn had accidentally already spread the news of your supposed demise. By the end of the day, the whole Guild will probably be convinced you died… and in a large-scale incursion like this no one will even bother looking for a body.”

“That bad, huh,” Desir sighed, properly standing up.

“Just look up,” Bhaak shrugged, his chin rising away from Desir and up towards Abonisle. Desir followed the man’s gaze. The Spires still stood, towering above the already ridiculously tall buildings and city levels. What gathered the attention was between the roofs and the peaks.

It looked a bit like a sandstorm at first glance. Desir had encountered one when traveling at the outskirts of the glass desert a while back, though that had been more yellow than white. Of course, it was too… contained. Staying in one place, perhaps shifting left and right but not deviating particularly far from the space it occupied – more like a cloud than a tempest. And the space was quite massive indeed. Then in it he spotted black smidges of something. It was too far away for him to tell what they were… but in the Duchy of Black it was a safe guess that anything of the same color was on the side of House Blackburg.

“I suppose that is the… guardian occupying the lich,” Desir resisted the urge to gasp. He could not feel any magic from this far away but the sheer scale was insane. Inhuman. Two mages fighting in the skies in an area that had to be at least several kilometers across for hours without pause.

“Quite. It is relatively rare that Domain mages are so equally matched and fight in the open like this,” Bhaak nodded.

“Good thing I am out of there then,” Desir shrugged.

“Are you sure you don’t want to leave Irwyn a message?” the merchant looked away from the battle. “You have already guessed that he is among my clientele.”

“No,” Desir shook his head, not even bothered that Bhaak knew about his assumptions. “Now, Irwyn is a right lad and if it were just the friendship maybe would. But - and don’t take this the wrong way if she is also on your list - but the girl absolutely fucking terrifies me. And he would probably tell her.”

“That bad?” Bhaak raised an eyebrow but elaborated. “She is not a customer. The Duke of Black had personally warned me to leave his progeny alone when I had approached his firstborn son. And I take warnings from mages within a walking distance of claiming a Name seriously.”

“I don’t know what it is. It might honestly be just me because of my circumstances,” Desir tried to put his thoughts into order. “Actually, I am pretty sure it was just me since no one else was freaking out. But the first time I met her, the Void in my blood roiled and screamed. Bowed down in supplication. Like a damn Archdemon was telling me to kneel - but she did that without even meaning to.”

“Hmmm,” Bhaak frowned and thought for a moment. “That is fascinating.”

“Do you know something?” Desir asked hopefully.

“I could tell you for… let’s say all your credit,” Bhaak said after a second.

“I don’t have credit with you?” Desir had to raise an eyebrow, confused. At least he was pretty sure he didn’t.

“You do, Irwyn just - as he often does - forgot to mention it,” the merchant shook his head. “I have recovered the arm’s dealer’s stock to resell. By right the two of you should split that half and half. Now, they are not the most useful things but you are not asking for a particularly expensive secret.”

“Give me a moment,” Desir sighed and thought about it. Whatever he got in credit for a good chunk of crates in magical weaponry… probably wasn’t that much in the grand scheme of things. He could get something else worthwhile for it, sure, but nothing he needed. He had made preparations to fake his death and had everything ready in his spacial bag. And - even though it frightened him - a connection to House Blackburg could be damn useful if he could reveal himself in a few years when he was no longer hunted or felt quite as vulnerable. He wouldn’t even need to lie about how he escaped too much. “Fine, a secret for my credit.”

“Excellent,” Bhaak smiled broadly as his iris widened infinitesimally, just like the man always did when trading. Desir was pretty sure that Bhaak got off on the concept of exchanging goods, though was polite enough to not mention it. “It is a somewhat forgotten truth that the lineage of House Blackburg does not originate just from the Duke of Wrath taking a mortal courtesan. In truth, children are quite difficult to conceive the conventional way for beings so powerful. The real ancestor of the entire bloodline was a certain pure-blooded elf - whose name, I am afraid, would be rather expensive to learn. Given your constitution… well, I don’t think I have to explain.”

“That was what, half a hundred generations ago? More?” Desir frowned. He didn’t actually know how old the Federation was but the Duke of Wrath had been at its foundation, already a Named mage then. “How could that bloodline not have been diluted beyond the slightest reaction, much less such a strong one?”

“You make the mistake of thinking about high magics with common sense,” Bhaak shook his head. “What do the raptures of time matter to a Named one? Why should their heritage be interruptible by such petty concepts as attrition? It is not unheard of - at least in my circles - for bloodlines founded soon after the Great Crusade to have an inconceivable resurgence in the recent decades - often to parents who had no inkling they even had such ancestors. I am not an expert but for all we know she could be more pure-blooded than first-generation half-elves.”

“Isn’t that a frightening thought,” Desir shuddered. Most people didn’t understand what ‘first-generation’ really meant in this context. He did. And just the possibility was another item on the list of reasons to stay away from Elizabeth von Blackburg.

“Although I enjoy chatting that is not what I came here for,” Bhaak said after a moment of silence. “The city is quickly approaching a crescendo.”

“Yes, yes, I have it right here,” Desir reached into his inner pocket and retrieved a small cube. The moment he took it out it expanded to three times the previous size. “You could have just taken it yourself without involving me.”

“Now, now Desir,” Bhaak chided. “I do not steal. I am a merchant after all, it would be going against my very nature to barge into someone’s home or hideout to simply take whatever I wanted.”

“But you have no trouble getting someone to steal it for you,” Desir grinned and threw the box over to Bhaak. It was surprisingly light.

“It is uncouth to phrase it that way,” the peddler shook his head, passing his hand across the bottom of the box which immediately began to open. “I simply provide information and resources at a discount then mention what I would be willing to buy certain goods for and where one might find them. I am not so scrupulous as to care how they are obtained.”

“Well, I won’t complain about profiting from it,” Desir shrugged. He couldn’t see the inside of the cube from where he stood but knew what was in it. Or rather did not really know because looking had given him an instant headache. But the low ethereal singing was familiar. “What is it anyway?”

“A living song,” Bhaak nodded and closed the cube again.

“Did the Singing man make it then?” Desir did plunder it from the Fowl’s secret storehouse after all. Even felt a bit bad about how he borderline duped his partners in crime. But he really needed what had been offered and a wasted evening wouldn’t even bother the two ridiculous prodigies. Not to mention they accidentally stumbled exactly into what they had been looking for.

“HAH!” Bhaak exhaled a laugh. “Did a mage barely halfway through conception make it? No, Desir. At least not intentionally. This is a much rarer collector’s item.”

“How was it made then?” and why did Bhaak want it?

“It is an anomaly, an error in very reality that allowed this thing to come into existence,” Bhaak announced. “You see, since the time of the aspects themselves only sapient beings have souls. And that includes only a select number of species, distinctly excluding any and all monsters. But think about it for a moment and realize that there must be some kind of system or fundamental law that creates and distributes souls among newborns. And sometimes, rarely, this great integral part of reality is mistaken and gifts a soul to something inanimate.”

“Something like a song,” Desir nodded, looking over at the cube, suppressing a frown, “So you are dealing even in living things, huh.”

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Bhaak closed the cube, making it disappear in his hand when Desir blinked. “There is a Singer who has built a sanctuary for these to live in about as happily as a mistake against the very nature of reality can. Also pays for any I find through the nose.”

“Feels like I am getting a pittance in comparison,” Desir sighed. But that was how intermediaries worked and he wasn’t really complaining.

“I assure you it’s much more than anyone else in the Duchy Federation would pay you for it,” Bhaak shrugged and Desir easily believed that. The man was very evasive about where his other customers might be from. To the point Desir suspected they were not necessarily all from this Realm. The man had a tendency to teleport across supposedly impossible distances.

“Speaking of,” Desir dismissed the meaningless musings. He should not forget that time was still ticking.

“Right here,” Bhaak was already holding his prize. A book. It didn’t look thick or particularly interesting at a glance though that could be deceiving. For Desir had bargained for a tome. “A complete primer on Fate and Time magic up to and including the basics of domain formation you should be aware of in advance. As we have agreed, it is bound to you and you alone. Anyone else opening or attempting to read it will cause it to turn to dust and reappear somewhere among your belongings within a month.”

“As always, pleasure doing business with you,” Desir couldn’t stop his grin as he touched the mundane and seemingly cheap cover. Bhaak trembled slightly as the goods passed hands and their trade was ‘concluded’. “What would a ride cost me I wonder?”

“For you?” Bhaak thought for a moment, “Given the situation I am willing to take you somewhere close enough on credit. Not further than the neighboring duchies though.”

“How about north then?” Desir asked.

“Leaving the Federation altogether?” Bhaak raised an eyebrow.

“Even I can guess a Lich war is about to break out,” Desir shrugged, nodding towards Abonisle. “No shame in not wanting to end up as involuntary fodder for one side, then the other.”

“You have a point,” Bhaak nodded. “It is just unusual for anyone to leave. Natives to the Federation can have quite the shock when seeing the outside world… though I suppose that won’t be a problem with you.”

“When are we leaving?” Desir nodded.

“As soon as I know the city doesn’t fall,” Bhaak shrugged, turning back towards Abonisle.

“I thought you were unwilling to help,” Desir frowned.

“Do not mistake inability for unwillingness, Desir,” Bhaak replied, and by the serious tone not happy about Desir’s comment. “I am a merchant. A trader. To interfere in a battle, to help one side in a war just on behalf of my ideals rather than profit… it is anathemic to my very being.”

“And yet you haven’t left,” Desir noted.

“If I intervene even in the slightest way… it could cost me decades,” Bhaak nodded. “And yet, and yet… What would be the consequences of Abonisle falling?”

“You are the better diviner among us,” Desir shrugged but noted a different thing. Bhaak did not know whether Abonisle would fall. Normally that shouldn’t even pose a challenge to the man. Either the undead had deployed some extreme measure against divination or Irwyn’s resistance to prophecies of any kind Old Ibis had complained about was much more potent than Desir had thought.

“We are about to find out,” Bhaak said.

“They couldn’t have even started storming the Spires yet,” Desir frowned. It had been just a few minutes since his close escape.

“I have been speeding our subjective time a bit,” Bhaak shrugged as if doing that completely unnoticed was a simple thing. Then he stared into the distance and fell quiet. So did Desir. The silence was rather oppressive given that he had no way of perceiving things that far away hidden through who knew how many layers of mortar, concrete and enchanted metal. But although it looked serene from the outside, the city was hanging by a thread.

“It seems like I am not needed,” Bhaak suddenly sighed deeply after a while and Desir mirrored him just from the sheer tension. “Best we leave.”

And so they did.