Chapter 46

A Shadow

“They come in chains, clanking like thunder, and appear ignoble. Aye, they do… they do…”

Mind of the Heretic, Vol. IX

Noah waited patiently in the shrubs, his eyes observing the mansion keenly. After obtaining the magic of his own, he realized that his sight during the night had improved considerably, so much so that he could make out minute blemishes on the mansion's façade well up above him. Using it, he also looked for any potential entry points beside the main gate which was guarded aptly. No matter how well he camouflaged, he knew he wasn't getting past that set of guards looking at their surroundings like hawks.

It didn’t matter, however, as he saw two potential entry points, and that was just from the front; one was a window on the third floor that was pried open slightly. The problem was that he didn’t know whether it was someone’s room, or just any other, random room, and climbing to the third floor might consume a bit too much time for his liking if it turned out to be a dud.

The other point of entry was to vault above the guards as there was a peculiar architectural design when it came to the main gates. Above the doors, there was a rendering of a spherical ball, held up by chained threads. The opening was shaped like an elongated triangle, and the ball itself held up two-thirds of the space, but he definitely knew he could wiggle his way through to the other side. Access to space wasn't that difficult, either, as he could scale down from the second floor and enter that way.

Throughout the mansion, he only noticed two windows flicker with a faint gleam of light thus far, indicating someone was awake. Otherwise, neither the light nor the sounds made any way out, which led him to believe that mansion was in a deep sleep.

As he was a man of action as much as of thought, he didn’t deliberate on his options for too long; the entrance above the gate was in a blind spot, and so long as he didn’t make a sound he’d be completely safe. There was no need to gamble on the purpose of the room on the third floor, and even less reason to run around the mansion in hopes of remaining unseen, seeking other points of entry.

Waiting until the moon above went behind a set of clouds as to further lower the natural sources of light, he skittled out of the shrubs and onto a short opening, shadows folding over his figure and blending him in. After a short, three-second sprint, he made his way to the mansion’s wall; the stone was rough and dry, reminiscent of cement, though certainly not cement. Feeling around, he found a few dips he could use for the supports and slowly began climbing.

His figure moved lithely, and he even found it much easier to maneuver around within such narrow scopes. Though he prided himself on his agility even back on Earth, he found that he had also grown even more nimble here, or at least after acquiring magic. He could bend his body further and could reach out with his arms at odd angles, enabling him to climb up a somewhat unorthodox route, but a far stealthier one.

He entirely avoided windows, instead only using cracks in the walls and the breaks between the layers to propel himself up. Measuring carefully, he reached the second floor relatively quickly and began scaling the wall horizontally. It was a bit trickier, causing him to move up and down at the time due to there being nothing else to hang onto to his side.

A little while later, around fifteen minutes per his calculations, he reached the area above the entrance. It was full of nooks he could hang onto as it was decorated through hand-carved motifs, though he didn’t have time or desire to pay attention to them, merely using them to begin scaling down.

The opening was arched, roofed by a smooth stone that he sat onto, relaxing his muscles for a moment that had grown a bit too tense. The openings down below, around the ball, were minute, and he couldn’t afford to have tense muscles before attempting it.

The view from his makeshift seat was rather beautiful, he mused for a moment. A complex set of gardens stretched out in front of him, forming a maze of sorts, beyond which a city sprung, and further beyond the massive wall of the fort. It reminded him of his earliest days as a child soldier, when he’d sneak out of the wet and stench-infused camps during the night, finding the highest tree in his surroundings, and climb to the top, just to observe the world around him.

Quickly jolting himself out of the macabre nostalgia trip, he took a deep breath and peaked down. The guards down below, totaling in eight as far as he could see, set apart by three-four feet, were still entirely unaware of him. Bending over further, he came eye-to-eye with the ball; to his surprise, it appeared to be built out of some sort of glass, though he didn’t recognize the make as the thickness went beyond anything he’d seen back on Earth. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have taken it for a bulletproof sort.

Looking to the side, he saw the triangle-shaped opening, with space next to the ball being the widest. He quickly took off his coat and stuffed it against his chest; the small protrusion was more bearable than the flapping piece of cloth that righteously obeys the laws of physics. He exhaled halfway through to make his body as narrow as possible, before vaulting over.

He held himself completely horizontally by his arms, like a gymnast, for a moment before pulling his legs in and through the opening. With them, he sought any points he could latch onto, finding a small opening in a wall quickly. Letting go with one of his arms, he felt the pressure increase as he stuffed the tip of his boot into the small opening on the other side. He pulled, swaying his body for a moment, before temporarily letting go of wall with his other hand, entering a free fall for a second, latching onto a small protrusion in the inside part of the makeshift chair he was just sitting on.

Half of his body hung on the outside and half on the inside, but he was almost there; he was yet to make any noise, consciously preventing himself from grunting. His muscles, however, were slowly beginning to tense once again, so he didn’t rest for too long, He pulled hard with his leg using the one that wasn’t latched onto a small dent to gain more momentum, before vaulting through the hole in one fell swoop.

On the other side, he crashed lightly against the wall, though with only making a minute sound; he hung upside down, held up entirely by his single foot stuck to a small protrusion. He quickly spun his head around and jotted down everything in his sight; a grand hall he entered was barely lit, though he could still make out the most important points. The main staircase, which appeared to be something every large building he entered shared, surrounded by a set of decorated walls leading to the side rooms.

He didn’t know precisely where the Duchess’s room was, but he assumed it was on the topmost floor. Seeing that there were no guards on the inside, or at least not here, he still didn’t dare drop down, instead pulling himself up and latching back onto the wall, climbing a few feet up until he found a steady, horizontal beam that he used as another chair, relaxing and letting taking a few quick, deep breaths to recover.

His muscles were aching slightly which he didn’t find strange; he exerted them more than he thought, but at least he was in. Getting out would still be a problem, but at least he could put that worry away for the time being.

He sat for a good few minutes, recovering and planning his route. Luckily, there were quite a few beams that he could use as vaulting points to completely ignore the stairs and climb through the hollowed center of the mansion. He'd have to use the terraces here and there, so he'd have to watch out for any potential patrols, but it didn't appear too difficult.

Settling on a route, he got up onto his feet and nimbly walked to the edge of the beam, latching onto the wall and scaling it to the side before jumping up and off, grabbing onto another beam above. He vaulted himself over and wound up in a crouching position, balancing himself quickly before moving on. He repeated this several times over before reaching the first floor, using the railing’s balusters as means of climbing further up before jumping off the railing itself, latching onto the cracks in the wall above, resuming the process of using the supporting beams as means of climbing further up.

The climb itself was extremely exhausting; he had to sit down and rest several times over, burning through the clock. By his estimates, dawn was just a short two hours away. Despite having given himself plenty of time, he had already been inside for three hours, but, at the very least, he had reached the topmost floor – sixth. If the Duchess's room wasn't here, he'd have to bail on the mission entirely and do so immediately as, otherwise, he wouldn't have enough time to escape.

Though he didn't pay much attention to the other floors, in comparison he realized that the sixth floor had the fewest rooms and the least amount of space at that. Unlike other floors, that were either rectangular or squared – similar to centrally-hollow hotels back on Earth – the topmost one was radial. Luckily, there were no guards anywhere, though that didn't prevent him from continuously using magic to mask his presence as much as possible.

He quickly reached the nearest door and peered into the lock; it was open, he realized and slowly latched onto the handle, opening it. The invading stench immediately made him realize that it certainly wasn’t Duchess’s room – but her firstborn’s, Sunnder. Glancing at the figure on the bed, he was halfway over, still fully clothed with shoes on. Tempting… but nope…

He ignored the distant voice in his head and closed the doors silently, skirting over to the next room over. This one was unlocked too, and a single glance inside had him sighing in relief – it was the Duchess’s room. On the bed, he saw two figures sleeping on the opposite sides. The bed itself was rather lavish, draped over with silken curtains. He snuck in silently, closing the doors behind him, and went to the other side of the bed where he saw the nightstand.

Still maintaining the magic, he approached with the utmost care, ready to bounce back and run at a moment's notice, but it appeared nobody was aware he was here. He stopped by the bedside for a moment and contemplated another chaotic action, settling against it quickly and taking out the sealed letter, putting it down onto the table.

Paying one last glance at the two figures, he was ready to quickly retrace his entry route before something that caused his heart to freeze momentarily came into his sight – an open balcony. Right there, entirely in the vision of the world. He looked up and covered his eyes, for he was crying. All those hours… all these pains… he exited the room sobbingly, hanging his body over the railing and realizing it was on the backside of the mansion. There were no guards down, and he could have easily climbed it. No… he continued weeping silently as he once began his descent slowly. It can’t be that I brought my shitty luck from Earth to over here? Please… no… no…

On occasion, he would cry out loud, though luckily nobody seemed to hear him. Outside of the few nighttime maids that would later retell the stories of the 'Weeping Ghost' that had them avoiding nightshifts for years.