Ralnor

(aka Larn)

(aka Dar Eherdir)

Ora’s mark is forever.

Green and white. More white than green, and old rust.

The fat carrion fly hid behind the bleached white teeth, avoided one that was pure gold, disappeared for… four seconds, Ralnor counted and came out an empty eye socket. It flew briefly, staying masterfully inside the gibbeting cage and then returned to the rotting body. Not much flesh was left on it, the best parts already eaten away, and the rest on their way to petrification.

A waste, Ralnor thought. Dar’s irritated flapping alerting him and he turned his head to the busy street. People were hurrying to their work, the crowd of decent size, Lorians were a good portion of it, a lot of Issirs as well, very few Cofols and mixed breeds. A lot of that apparently. Nobody paying any attention to him, or looking his general way, but for a short old woman that quickly lost interest and walked away. A man on his horse, a traveler, pausing to admire the view, before entering the town… was it suspicious?

Hmm.

He clicked his tongue and the horse slowly started down the road leading inside Altarin proper. Left the rotting corpses behind. Seven they were. Ralnor kept the number, to see if it was important.

He entered the large busy stable belonging to a tavern, right next to the Golden Bird inn, went straight through and exited out the back, traveled four blocks chancing the numbers and left Dar to a smaller stable there. Walked the distance back to Golden Bird, entered from a side door, but not before pausing to check, who shadowed him.

Because someone was.

Ralnor could feel their eyes on his back. The alley was empty, shadows everywhere and the sun fighting a losing battle.

Where are you? He asked the shadows, but nothing breathed.

A professional.

Interesting.

He pushed the door open, the man behind the counter reading from a scroll, lifted his eyes to check who it was. Ralnor walked towards him, a maid getting up her chair on his right hand, small-nose, cute eyes and long chestnut hair, braided into a fancy ponytail. Practical, but for the touch of vanity, Ralnor thought.

Seven steps it was, door to counter. The man cleared his throat, put the scroll he was reading down, numbers and quantities on it, oil-colored eyes on a Lorian face. Mid thirty. A bit of Cofol mixed in there as well. Perhaps a quarter, Ralnor decided.

One fourth.

“Hello there…” The innkeeper greeted him, tending a hand, but Ralnor flicked a coin on the table instead of taking it. He sent it spinning on the polished surface, reaching the edge fast, before making a sharp turn and returning to the middle. The innkeeper put a palm on it and stopped it. “I take it traveler, you want more than a room?”

“Why traveler?” Ralnor asked him, playing along.

“There’s a lot of road on that cape,” The man explained, his words as old as the guild, a small smile on his lips, when he glanced under his palm, to check on the coin. “A bit of sea as well.”

“I can’t name the road, nor speak of the sea,” Ralnor droned, voice barely audible. “Shades have no tongue, and all dead sound alike.”

“To the Servants of the Fading Light,” The innkeeper added. “Welcome to the Golden Bird, traveler.”

Ralnor nodded, sensing the woman pretending to be a maid, relax behind him.

“Where’s Kise?” He asked taking a key the man offered him.

“Dead. Four summers back,” He replied with a small grimace. “Poison in the wine, or just the wine. Name’s Dean Kutas. I was asked to run the inn.”

There it was again, he thought. Four.

“The girl?” He probed, working the numbers in his mind.

“Mezera, she helps out,” Dean explained.

“Pfft,” Mezera snorted. “Slaving more like. Got a name handsome?”

Ralnor smacked his lips and turned to stare in her eyes. She took a cautious step back, the smile wiped off her face.

“Wow. It’s okay. I’m gonna…go clean your room, now.”

“That would be number seven.” Dean said, as she run up the stairs leading to the second floor two at a time, showing quite a bit of agility. Ralnor found it interesting.

“Anyone else in town?” He asked, when Mezera disappeared up the stairs.

“Huh? No one but you. It’s Altarin. Not much to see here.”

“Were they bandits?”

Dean narrowed his eyes.

“Ah, you mean… no, pirates. No one important though, from what I learned.”

“Why not hang them in Altarinport then?” Ralnor asked patiently.

This well was empty of useful information, it seemed.

“Well, who knows? That’s the usual. I have a bit of gossip about it though, if yer keen to listen,” Dean said, with a glance back at his scroll.

Ralnor sighed, the sound of something breaking coming from above.

“She hates cleaning,” Dean Kutas explained self-consciously.

“What’s the gossip?”

“Lord Reeves has a grandson apparently, brought them as a gift is the word,” Dean replied and Ralnor flinched surprised. The well apparently not quite empty. “The old man didn’t much like it, who takes a pirate as a slave? Hanged them all the next day, but for one.”

“How do you know?” Ralnor asked, the detail interesting.

“Well, half the city saw them leaving, about a month back. Spotted him still breathing. Mezera did, that is.”

Ralnor licked his lips, tasting the road on them.

“Where were they going?” He asked, voice neutral, despite his blood screaming excited and Dean raising a brow knowingly, told him.

Not a day’s rest, he thought, patting Dar’s long snout with a gloved hand, several hours later. A distant thunder announcing the coming of a night storm. Later though, the night is still too young, he decided. There was light coming from the entrance of the small stable. The torches were burning bright enough to illuminate much of its interior, especially near the entrance, but left the back walls near the exit dark and drown in shadows.

Ralnor pulled the reins to get Dar out of its stall, dropped them when the horse started moving and walked behind its large body. The horse snorted, made a couple of steps towards the dark opened door, before stopping. Raised his large head and shook its mane in a warning. Ralnor following behind it, dropped to one knee, something whistling over him, too crude to be a bolt and took out one of the torches on the other side.

He was moving the next moment. One heartbeat and he rolled into a shadow, another to climb up a beam and touch the ceiling. Three to find the opening, the hatch left unlocked, a clue he missed. He pushed it to reach the tiled roof, his soft leather boots making almost no sound as he run across it.

Almost.

Ralnor didn’t pause when he reached the edge, a tile breaking when he leaped to the building across the street, arms flailing wild, and his feet kicking at the air.

Almost made it, but for the difference in height; this being a two story house. It’s not easy to calculate, much less elect properly, when running in the blind to escape an assassin’s blade. His hand grabbed a window door, its hinges snapping a moment later, but it was momentum enough to adjust, walk vertical the remaining two meters up the wall, as nibble as a lizard and reach the roof.

The small-statured killer pretending to be an old woman, snickered in glee from where he waited for him, when Ralnor almost collapsed with bated breath on the cold tiles. He’d a thin silver pipe on his right hand and he lit it with an oval firestone. Ralnor hadn’t seen one of those in almost two hundred years.

“Dar Eherdir,” The assassin said mockingly, in the old tongue. Ralnor could see him now, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, thinning washed out pink hair, and gaunt painted nose-less face. He brought his left hand back, fingers touching a throwing blade, but decided not to use it. Allowed himself to breathe deeply instead.

He’d recognized the aromatic smoke. Burning blue-veined Redleaf was a delicacy he’d dabbled with himself in his youth, but only one other assassin had the audacity to carry with him on the job.

“Dar Vranga,” He hissed, too surprised to even utter the words, his trained heart losing a beat. “You tried to kill me.”

“Just call me Flix,” The Gish assassin said, blowing smoke out his nostrils. “I knew you’ll dodge.”

“You are not dead,” Ralnor said.

“I’m almost there,” Flix replied nonchalantly. “If the Gish, lived as long as you, we would rule the realm, twice over.”

“Are you here to collect?” Ralnor asked, the whole meeting unsettling.

“Always selfish you were,” Flix said, drawing at his pipe, eyes closed. “Dar Nym’s best apprentice.”

“Where have you been?” He asked.

“Is he alive?” Flix corrected it for him, in the manner of his species.

“I assumed he went down, when Goras burned.”

“Ah, Goras is gone alright, Elauthin as well,” The Gish said, with a shrug. “Nureria still stands though, for the most part.”

“How could you possibly know?” Ralnor hissed, hearing the names of the old places hurting him, more than he ever expected.

“I never left,” Flix replied. He got up with a grimace of pain and emptied his spent pipe. “Some of us never did.”

“Lies. You’re lying Gish.”

Flix put the engraved pipe in a pocket of his female tunic and pressed his lips tight.

“Silent Servants is a two words title for a reason, Dar Eherdir. You like the first part, made a guild of it. Left the other part out though, which is a little hypocritical. Who do you serve now?”

“I serve the Fading Light.”

“Are you? Ora’s mark is forever, is it not? Ye teach it differently now?”

“I kept the faith alive. What did you do?” Ralnor snapped, not liking being questioned by an ancient lackey.

“Where is she then? Is she still breathing?” Flix asked, again steering the conversation towards the truth. Ralnor’s hand went for his blade again.

“I don’t know. I lost her,” He lied. “Why the sudden interest now?”

“Have you stopped looking?” Flix enquired, dodging his query.

I never had to look, you fool.

“No.”

“Is that what you’re doing here?”

“It’s another matter this, or it isn’t,” Ralnor retorted cryptically with a sigh, and let the blade rest again. “The trail has gone cold centuries ago anyway, Dar Vranga. It’s perhaps time we moved on. Is that why you are here?”

The Gish laughed annoyingly, replying much as he had earlier.

“I’m here on another matter as well, unless I’m not. Fortunately this trail is still warm.”

Climbing down from the roof, was less eventful than jumping on it from across the street. Ralnor found Dar waiting for him, where he had left him. An hour later he was on the road again. The small delay due to him wanting to send two messages, before he left Altarin behind. Everything was convoluted. The numbers all wrong. Ancient doors had suddenly cracked open, old enemies and dangers had risen from their slumber.

One message went to the Desert Lake and the city of Yin Xi-Yan, the other to Dia Castle. One message for a mark he’d spared, before the world had burned; the other for the pupil he’d created, after it did.

The numbers not matching, showing how dire was the situation.

Ora’s mark is forever.

He didn’t mince his words.

Both missives were short.

Both were warnings.