Blue Crystal
Chapter One: Vastii in Black (part iii)
Rated PG-13 for violence
(Or go to Chapter One (part i) to read from the beginning)
Above the caves of the poor and the skilled craftsman was the arena, which stood roughly three quarters of the way up the Pit from the bottom. It served, in Rylan’s mind, as a marker to separate the districts even if that wasn’t quite correct in practice. The arena was its own entity, like the palace, and the major spiraling road passed directly through it. The Mordache loved intricate facades in their architecture, and it was the first example of their elaborate sculpture to be seen on the way up. Naked stone women held their hair aloft and bared their chests along the top left corner, while men in a similar state of undress battled a multitude of animals with spears and swords. Rylan’s eyes went first to the tiger and its long, curved fanged teeth, but there were other creatures: packs of wild dogs, wolves with mouths to rival their own torsos, huge, blind ice snakes that would devour anything warm. Even the mythological animals were represented, carved into the inside of the tunnel through to the upper city. Rylan passed by them with less interest, hardly glancing at the crowned dragon that predominated the tunnel inside the arena.
The facades and the buildings grew larger and larger as he continued upwards. Simple caves began to show large doors, and in time those doors were made of wood, bound with brass. A rich Desolidifier had the outside of his own dwelling wreathed in fire, and the street around his home were illuminated by identical lanterns. Simple rock gardens became gatherings of elaborate sculpture. A temple had holy words written not in carved words, but in luminescent fungus that glowed faintly green along the top of the building. The Vastii university itself took up not one, but two levels of the Pit, and Rylan took their convenient staircases to bypass another trip around the hole, navigating their familiar corridors to the street level again. A few of the inhabitants glanced at him, but though there were not very many humans here he was not bothered.
The Mordache were usually easy to identify, especially on the streets. While the humans huddled in furs to protect themselves from the cold, the white-skinned people walked in silks and gossamer, in lace and tanned leather with cuffs of fur only for fashion. The women kept their breasts lifted and displayed, but it was the men that wore most of the cosmetics. They painted in their eyelashes and elongated their eyebrows to their temples, painted their lips with colors and powdered their face to accentuate cheekbones and a feminine delicacy. Anatomically they were little different from the humans, no different in height or weight by nature, though occasionally the Mordache showed traits akin to animals. Tails were the most common sign, pointed teeth and slit pupils were not far behind it. Rylan saw a boy with scales scattered over one cheek, but as he saw no one with wings, he ignored the rest as curiosities. The King of Marla was partial to Mordache with wings, whether they were functional or not, and any who held the trait would almost certainly be under his influence if not speaking to him directly.
Rylan’s destination was not the university or the mansions, however. His eyes were set even higher. The royal palace glowed from several hundred brass bowls of lit oil, and they burned red, gold, and white; the color was altered by chemists’ powder in the mixture, and the oil was fed through some piping in the white marble. Along the higher walls, clearly illuminated by the fire were a series of painted wood carvings about five feet high each depicting the ruling houses. The Kanichende sigil was a whiskered golden dragon over a field of stars. Beside it stood a red serpent, then a violet eye, then the fiery line in the sky that separated the stars from the darkness. A religious symbol that they did not have in Renideo lingered near the end of the line.
The main entrance was an impressive, carved set of doors in wood and gold. Rylan avoided these and made for a smaller gateway beside it. He kicked the plating on the door, and was admitted in by armed guards. Eight men stood with drawn weapon in the small entry room inside and demanded that Rylan reveal his identity. Rylan nodded, familiar with the routine, but instead of showing his face he pulled his torn left sleeve up. Beneath them was a wrist bracer of solid gold that ran from his elbow to his wrist, and when Rylan turned his hand over he showed them that the bracer had been welded shut. Then he took his glove off and showed them a chain that ran from the brace to a signet ring on his middle finger. And though his furs had been liberally splattered with frozen blood they recognized the symbol on the ring (a swan with its wings spread) nodded and gave the signal to the next room to open up the door. Rylan passed through the palace security into a small, warm servant’s hallway that could take him virtually anywhere within the palace.
Rylan’s head was just inches from striking the ceiling, and he was not a tall man: these passages were small and cramped, convenient, but not comfortable. As he progressed he began to take off his warm clothes, his outer coat, his inner coat, paused in a wider corridor to doff his thick trousers. He carried them as he went along.
When he exited the servants’ halls and into the wide, cooler nobleman’s corridors, he was dressed in deep blue clothes adorned with golden buttons, and the golden bracer on his left wrist gleamed brightly. The door behind him was part of another carved mural, and when it closed became only a thin outline in the artwork.
He entered into a set of chambers with thick molding around a brown, carved doorway set in bands of brass. Inside the chambers were four women and five men.
Three of the woman sat around a round table with playing cards in hand. One woman was young and pretty, one was plump with glossy black hair piled on her head in an elaborately knotted bun, the last wore purple face paint, an outlandish multi-colored dress, and so many bone and wood beads around her neck that the bosom of her dress was completely obscured. Four of the five men in the room wore golden dragons on the breasts of their uniforms. They had halberds in hand and swords on their hips, and were posted in each corner of the room where they slouched and watched the other inhabitants with an air of bored superiority.
The last woman in the room was a frail creature with the white-blue skin of the noble Mordache, and she sat beneath a matte glass tree with large flat leaves with a thick tome in her lap. Her hair was golden, so pale it was nearly white, her face was long and thin. She wore a dull, unintelligent expression. Her blue eyes were only half open as she read, and her colorless lips were parted slightly to show the bottom of her upper teeth. Beside her was a young man with similar white skin and shaggy black hair. He looked up and watched Rylan as he approached. Rylan frowned. The others he had expected, but the young man (a nobleman?) was unknown to him.
“My Lady Jadis de Renideo,” Rylan addressed her, his warm clothes and furs still draped over his arm.
The pale, Mordache woman raised her head until her eyes rested on him. The expression did not change, but she told her companion, “We will meet later, Tyobe.”
The Mordache boy with the shaggy black hair climbed awkwardly to his feet. He bowed to the lady and departed without a word. Rylan glanced behind him to see the unfamiliar person leave the room, then back to the colorless Lady.
“My necklace?” the lady asked him. She spoke slowly, but despite her care her pronunciation was slurred.
Rylan drew a case out of a pocket and showed her a closed wooden box. He opened it up to display the contents, holding it just a little too high for her to see clearly. Diamonds sparkled in the lamplight of her apartment, and the lady had to sit up higher to be able to see. As she did so, Rylan put his other hand on his chest to turn his gesture into a proper bow. He held his breast pocket open so that she could see the small leather bound book inside.
“No problems?”
Rylan paused long enough for her to grow suspicious. “Some. Nothing I was unable to handle, my lady. You needn’t be concerned.”
The lady nodded once. “Put it away,” she ordered, and closed her book. She gathered up her skirts as she stood, and she started for the grand door opposite the entrance to her apartments. Her shoes made no sound on the thick carpeting, but due to the amount of furnishings in the room she was forced to go around a chaise lounge, a three-sided bookcase filled with leather volumes, and a large dining table before she could reach it. Rylan turned as well and moved to the side of the room. The safe was covered by a locked wooden door, and once they had been open the metal door bore five keyholes. Rylan put the keys in one at a time and turned them individually to open the safe’s combination. The lock clicked, and he opened it to reveal several jewelry cases. The wooden doors opened out far enough on either side to give him some privacy. It was a simple task to slide the book into a secret compartment beneath one of the jewel boxes.
“Rylan.” The lady had not yet entered her room.
Once the book was away Rylan turned to look at her.
“Come,” she instructed, and turned into the doorway. Rylan reclaimed the five keys and locked the safe behind him before he turned to follow her. One of the guards was sniggering, probably contemplating what the lady would want with Rylan in her private bedchambers. Rylan knew better. The walls were very thick, and nothing less than an earnest scream would carry from one room to the other.
Rylan followed her and closed the heavy wooden door behind him. He settled his fur and warm clothing on the floor to free his hands.
Two pieces of furniture dominated her private room, the rest were peripherals and decorations. The first was her bed, an enormous four-poster with thick velvet drapes around the thick blankets and mattress, and it stood on its own pedestal to the left of the entranceway. The other was a multi-tiered desk, well used, well loved, and the upper section was overrun with melted candle stubs and bubbles of used wax that covered the woodwork. Candles melted over candles, the wax came in a variety of colors and textures. The lady turned the high-backed chair in front of that desk around to face outward, and she seated herself upon it. “Details,” she ordered.
“Your uncle’s police killed the supplier. I had to get the book directly from the middleman,” Rylan replied. His expression turned more open now that he was away from the guards, and he scratched at his orange beard. “I made sure that I wasn’t seen. As much as was possible. He’s willing to set us up with another supplier. You just need to give the word.”
Lady Jadis didn’t reply verbally. She rose from her chair and approached him, put her hand on the sword that hung from Rylan’s left hip, and drew the blade. The steel was covered in blood from its tip to the round hilt.
She looked at the steel for a moment, then dropped it. The metal clanged on the marble floor and the hilt rolled slightly and came to rest against the sole of Rylan’s boots.
“Common thugs were lurking in the craftsmans’ district,” Rylan explained, and wondered how she had known that there had been a fight. “The blood wasn’t mine.”
“You’re sure of their status.”
“I’m not sure of anything, Wyrren,” Rylan used her personal name. “Nobody with wings. Nobody wearing silver masks. Two men attacked me. One ran, the other died. I can only tell you what I saw.”
Lady Wyrren Jadis didn’t reply immediately. She turned to a side table with a box atop it, and pulled out a bottle of wine made of dark red glass. She took one glass from her cabinet and poured it half full of golden liquid, then handed it to Rylan. The wine was spiced, and made him feel warm at the first sip.
Wyrren resettled herself in her chair without taking any of the liquid for herself. Her hands clutched at the edges of the armrests, her white fingers fingered the woodwork before she forced herself to remain still. “Things must change again. We will do something differently next time. … Perhaps Dacha?”
“Send Dacha with me?” Rylan clarified, eyebrows raising. “I think two would arouse suspicion where one would not.” He paused, briefly, then added, “She’s also very loud.”
Wyrren’s face did not change, her expression remained dull and unintelligent. Her head turned slightly to the side, though, and from the angle Rylan knew that he had amused her. “… I will think on it then. Call Ana in?”
Rylan opened the door and called out the name. The three women near the entranceway stopped playing cards and looked up, and the youngest, prettiest girl of the lot scampered past Rylan and into the room. Wyrren requested a bath to be drawn and clothes to be set out for a dinner party, in the fewest words possible. Wyrren was self-conscious about her poor speech. But when Wyrren also requested that Ana find suitable garments for Rylan as well, the red-haired man turned and regarded his mistress silently for some form of an explanation.
Wyrren put away her book. “Necessary,” was all she had to say on the matter. Rylan studied her body language, and decided that she didn’t look pleased at the prospect.
He finished the rest of his wine.
Second, Never..
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