Chapter 3: Beginnings in Ends

In honour of the path’s we all must tread.

Terror gripped Jane’s soul like a vice.

The darkness cascaded against her like an overpowering tsunami. It washed over her in waves of despair.

Jane’s hand moved around her person, searchingly shuddering, questing for that which might give her respite and hope. Her hand fell around the well-used hilt of the scimitar and images of a thousand hours of swords practise with her father shot through her mind like bright white bolts of light. The memories shored her up and cast away the darkness in her.

Jane began to stand, as she did so her eyes acclimated to the environ she was now inhabiting. The whole place seemed to grow brighter yet was still grayscale.

She was in a small room of a design that seemed quite alien to her. Some sort of warm metal surrounded her – it was similar to the oily material coating the ship, it was in the form of what appeared to be bunk beds, chests and various dinnerware such as plates and cups. Jane had never encountered such a versatile creation, although she was extremely curious she decided to proceed and headed towards the next point of ingress into the bowels of the ship.

The door, this time made of metal, slid into the wall with a heave of her shoulders. A scent of cooked food assailed her from the next room – so extreme was it that Jane was almost bowled over again. In the next chamber she could see a large table decked out with the dinnerware she had already encountered, again it was all set out in a dull grey.

As Jane puzzled over this peculiar place, she heard footsteps past the next room, she hid beside the door just in time to catch a glimpse of a pail human thrall cleaning away the evenings meal from what she now assumed to be the ships mess hall. The thrall moved with a seaborne gait which during anchorage was somewhat comical yet at sea made things far simpler. As she looked at the man’s features she could in no way place his age. A tired man in his twenties? Or a spritely man in his fifties?

After a few minutes of gathering items he ambulated away through a door on the left side of the room. Once he was away Jane made her way through the room… as she did so, she noticed the first bit of decoration on the ship – a contrast that only now seemed stark. There had been absolutely no personalisation in the bunk area, sailors usually went to great, almost obsessive lengths to decorate their berths with various mementoes of shore life and of the families they left behind.

Jane couldn’t move. She simply looked upwards and stared at the shockingly lifelike mural above her.

Stars. In a midnight sky. Lightning on the horizon. A flock of birds in solemn movement, driving away from a mountain.

A black mountain, with a city at it’s base.

The city was surrounded by a soft halo of light, as was the lighthouse on the side of the mountain.

In the strange glyph-like language of the Shadow’s was written a title or name. Below it there was a motto she could not read.

A voice broke Jane from her reverie

“We call it Bastion” said that strange disjointed voice she had heard earlier. Jane could not, would not turn as the voice sent waves of futile, desperate terror through her.

“A Beacon in the Long Night it reads, a strange epithet for such a quiet city, no?”

The human thrall she had seen with her father earlier continued to address her in the same nonchalant, soft-voiced way. Such as a fox would speak to a hen thought Jane.

A rage rose in Jane, the rage of the fight that washed over in times of tribulation and need.

She spun around to address the thrall, her eyes blazing and her teeth grinding against one another

“Thrall, I wish to see my father” she spoke calmed through gritted teeth.

“But of course” he replied, a smirk crossing his face under the hood. His arms were folded into the robe he wore almost ascetically.

He led her through the left hand door and into another blank corridor, at the end there were metal stairs going up and down, he led her upwards and she could smell and hear the sounds of the ocean nearby.

The vessel lurched  Jane’s heart almost leapt out of her chest, but she did not care – she was to be reunited with her father. Even if they were to be dropped off at a distant port, they could still return home together safely.

She had to see him – it was all she could focus on.

They reached the top of the ship and she looked out over the uninhabited deck. The ship was now moving swiftly away from Sosaya with surprising speed – an alacrity hidden by the excellent design of the vessel she was on.

The thrall led her towards the rear of the ship and raised a hand into the night:

“He is there – see? He waves to you child” the thrall spoke calmly and evenly.

A few hundred meters separated them. A gulf that may as well have been thousands of miles.

Dylan Vulpes stared at his daughter and raised a hand, a hard yet sorrowful expression on his face.

Jane’s father was standing on Pier 3 watching his daughter leave on the Shadow vessel.

Almost instinctually Jane began climbing over the railing in an attempt to fling herself into the freezing cold water. Logically she knew she would not survive such a swim, but she simply MUST do it.

The thrall moved like lightning and was next to her, he tapped a point on the back of one of her knees as she attempted to left that leg over the rail – Jane was suddenly unable to move and fell back onto the ship, her eyes staring up into the thrall’s.

“So much work to do Jane Vulpes. So much fire, so much passion unchained and untamed. Worry not child, my master will enable you to channel this”

The Thrall’s eyes met Jane’s as she lay there on the floor. They were devoid of vitality and emotion: a cold, lambent blue.

Lightning coursed through the night and Jane saw the Thrall’s face for the first time.

His skin was translucently pale. His face was sunken and his skin seemed to be sloughing off its frame.

The thrall grinned his near-corpse grin at Jane.

“There is work to be done dear child…”

The thrall walked away, leaving Jane paralysed on the deck in the storm reaching a violent crescendo.

She shed a tear and closed eyes as her father became a speck in the distance

Chapter 2 – Through the Looking Glass

The wind whipped through Jane’s auburn tresses as she moved from shadow to shadow like a prowling fox. Winter bit into her skin deeply even through the protective clothing she wore. With every step she took, the weight of her blade added to her litany of bruises.

There was a clattering sound in the distance a few alleyways away – the sound of mischievous beasts prowling the city. Little, however, could detract from the concentration she was maintaining. She was terrified; afraid for her father, afraid for herself and already worried about the fate of her city should her nocturnal escapade go wrong.

After a few minutes of internal doubt she had reached her destination. Down the cobblestone road Jane could make out the top of the steps leading down to the already (at least in her mind) cursed Pier Three. At the top, there was a small cadre of armed city watchman keeping a rather lackadaisical surveillance. The leader of them was a rotund fellow with liver spots on his face and a florid humourful face. Jane knew many of the Guard well, however Sergeant Verona,  with his spots, balding pate and dented breastplate that seemed to be more rust than burnished steel, stuck out in her mind like a sore thumb. Tonight, Verona did not wear his usual wry grin and instead a look of grudging consternation was written across his face – all the confirmation Jane needed for her next few acts.

Jane proceeded to case the area – her plan for ingress was to approach the ship from above – crossing over the huge sea wall and then dropping down onto the rigging of the ship. Finally she would look for a window or hatch of some sort to gain entry.

Jane’s heart beat a furious staccato as she moved from shadow to shadow towards a merchants shop set into the great sea wall. There was a vine laden trellis upon which various flowers from lands far away flourished even among the cruel, biting sea winds. With a gloved hand, Jane reached out and took hold of the trellis and tested her weight on it. Although there was a somewhat ominous creaking, the trellis appeared to be stable. With a heave, Jane pulled herself up among the foliage.

About halfway up the 30 foot wall her eyes danced around the street below. Panic gripped her and it felt like she was carrying a tonne of bricks in her stomach. In the street below  a Guard patrol were making their way over to relieve Verona. She froze like a startled deer and calculated the distances – she reckoned that the torch light would get to her in about 3 minutes. With that thought she snapped out of her reverie and got back to work, hand over hand and foot over foot she made her way up the diamond-shaped trellis. As she gazed down she noted with an additional hint of concern and confusion that there was a large glint of gold – it seemed that Guard Captain Jax himself was to be relieving Verona. Jax was a fearsome man, with a penchant for dealing stiffly with any who would attempt to smuggle. His reputation alone, many felt, was responsible for the stability of prices in the City due to there being no illegal importing. Smugglers – rich or poor – were hanged in Sosaya.

Jane’s hand reached over the edge of the wall and she scrambled over, hearing the drum beat of the Guard’s boots striking the ground below. With a thump, she was on top of the wall: the soft glow of torchlight chasing her with intrusive alacrity.

With eyes closed Jane rested her head on the wall behind her, no guards were stationed on this part of the wall tonight – part of the agreement with the Shadow’s no doubt.

“Verona you pile of cretinous scum!” Jax bellowed, with a high pitched ferocity. “As usual I am *disgusted* by your disregard for uniform regulation”

There was a soft mumbling from below.

“I’m sorry Verona??” Jax asked interrogatively, obviously unimpressed with Verona’s response.

“Sir! I apologise, Sir” Verona said with just a hint of insubordination.

Jax launched into a diatribe that if Jane remembered his predilection for  eye-popping, near-psychotic pontification would last for quite some time.

After making her way to the other side, Jane looked down upon the ship properly for the first time.

As her eyes followed the angles along the ship’s hull she experienced something that could only be described as vertigo. Jane’s balance was stripped from her in a moment and she felt a great weight pressing down upon her back – as if someone were trying to force her into submission. With gritted teeth, Jane pushed back against this feeling with all the will she could muster, she concentrated on a single point on the hull: a barnacle that was a stark white contrast against the dark hue of the vessel. The ship defied categorisation – it was a sleek cutter style design but built far larger than any pursuit vessel. The “sails” seemed to glisten with an almost pearlescent, metallic sheen. Whenever she tried to stare at the ship as a whole and label or categorise it’s elements, the migraine returned.

Jane dragged herself around the wall above the ship – wary of the opportunity Jax had presented her with lapsing. She looked below her, only just able to make out the difference between the dark, churning waters and the midnight blue hull. With a lurching stomach and a redistribution of her lithe form, Jane tumbled down into the sails of the ship. She was not sure what she was expecting, but it was not this – she felt a prickly sensation as she touched the surface of the sail and she glided down towards the edge of the ship and the treacherous waters below.

Part of her mind screamed at her: “ACT” it commanded, in the tone she took when her friends were in danger. With a flick of her wrist she grasped the top of a hatch in the side of the ship before she tumbled from it. Even through her gloves she could feel the soft, oily texture of the hull’s material beneath her hand. Some how, she was not slipping – she could grip it and hold on with little effort, however the warmth and oiliness sent a shiver down her spine. With one hand she opened the release on the hatch (after taking a few moments to understand how it worked) and without looking, swung herself into the darkness, Jax’s voice trailing off as the darkness seemed to steal the light and the sound from behind her.

The hatch closed with no sound and she sat on her heels in the pitch black of the Shadow Ship and closed her eyes. The world was still spinning around – she took a deep breath and centred herself, focusing on her mission.

Find out what the Shadow’s were doing and find her father.

As she mentally prepared herself she thought she heard something emanating from around her:

Ba-Dumpth. Ba-Dumpth.

A drum perhaps? No…

A heart beat. All around her.

Chapter 1 – Dark Tidings

Chapter 1 – Dark Tidings

Outside the rain was pouring down, Jane could see the droplets in all their prismatic glory with the soft warm glow of her oil lamp casting its warmth through her balcony window into the oppressive night. The acrid scent of whale oil mixed with that of the sodden grass below and the tang of salt water from nearby. Jane was familiar with these sensations and it helped to calm her racing mind.

****

She had caught a glimpse of Them today, those shrouded shadowy figures with their midnight blue ships that appeared almost organic in their subtle shapes. They came to trade on the first day of every season and were gone before the third. Their human workers (or Thralls as she had heard them referred to) were the only ones the people of Sosaya had seen – they performed all the transactions for the Shadows every time the enigmatic traders had arrived. The goods they provided were of a varied type – some were almost esoteric in their alien elegance whereas others were far more brutal and efficient. The thing that stuck with the people of Sosaya is that every time you purchased an item from the shadows – they gave you a book, this book stayed with the item lest it never function again. Of course, the traders of the Free City tried to rid themselves of these dusky tomes only to find that obsidian blades would dull the next time they sliced vegetables or that dark marbled statues of ancient human heroes – portrayed by non-human hands – would crumble to a fine grey dust. Although the tomes remained with the people of Sosaya, not one could read them.

Three of the black ships had arrived today, with a delegation from… wherever it was they were from. To this day, her father – one of the Council of Traders of the City of Sosaya, still did not know where they were from or what they were truly called. Jane had followed her father, Dylan Vulpes, as he and five of his colleagues nervously ambled towards the docks. It was a bone-chilling February morning and the fishermen were returning with their catches. Jane cautiously trailed her father and his associates and watched their progress towards Pier three. She lithely dodged her way through the human traffic, always keeping half an eye on her much taller father – he was wearing his official chain of office as well as a grim demeanor – one she knew he would shed as soon as he entered a negotiation. Pier three was covered and no one could see those within until they went down a few steps and turned a corner. Although neither the city guard nor the Vulpe’s family soldiers had accompanied him, Dylan carried a gleaming scimitar and a well-oiled pistol. Both, she knew, had been used to great effect in the past and were wielded with the grace and cunning attributed to their bloodline. Jane watched her father as he approached the pier.

The wind that was customary in the City died down and the salt spray receded. The normally bustling city made space for their Patriarchs as they approached the ships. There was a pregnant silence as a grey-cowled man awaited them at the top of the stairs leading down into the docking area of the Pier.

Jane made her way close to her father and his entourage – she could almost taste their palpable tension in the wind. She hid roughly thirty feet away – just close enough that her keen ears could make out what was going on.

The cowled man spoke with a strange cadence – born of one highly educated and practised but still not accustomed to speaking the Traders Tongue.

“Greetings, my esteemed… friends” the man intoned without a hint of emotion. He extended his arm towards the representatives of the city and Dylan Vulpes took his hand and shook it.

Jane watched as her father’s eyes glazed over momentarily and he screamed – silently – up into the sky. His companions took a startled step backwards and began reaching for blades and pistols.

Her heart slowed to an almost halt and she could feel a chill running down her spine – a thousand love-filled hugs and a hundred absurd fights rushed through her mind as panic gripped her.

Then, after a moment, it was done.

Dylan inhaled deeply and gestured for his friends to stand down – and then he followed the Thrall who was already making his way down the polished marble steps.

When the robed figure was almost out of sight he turned and looked up towards Jane. For the first time she could see the glint of his glimmering alabaster teeth and his eyes that shone with a cold blue maleficence. After a moment, he turned and followed the leaders of Sosaya down into the depths.

Jane’s mind raced to conclusions, however there was little she  could do without starting a diplomatic incident. So with a heavy heart, she returned to her Villa.

That had been the last she had seen of her father, almost twelve hours ago. The situation had reached a pragmatic twilight – the time when many would hasten to action and other’s would cite caution. For who knew which would do more damage? No one would listen to Jane, but she had her own plans for how best to deal with a night such as this.

The Scimitar her father had trained her with weighed heavily on her back and her winter clothes hung about her diminutive frame reassuringly. She knew that she might be doing more harm than good, but Jane was a woman of action – as was her Father.

She chose to vault her balcony down into the gardens below and she chose to exit the Vulpes Villa in the dead of night.

She chose to act.