Shadow Walker
by James 'Fel' Galloway
Chapter 1
Avannar was under siege, from within.
The entire city knew about the attack at the Loremasters' headquarters by dawn, and by noon, the entire city was locked down. There was no one in the streets but Loreguard patrols, and they were going door to door, searching for the black fox Arcan they knew was responsible for the attack on the building. They were searching every building, hunting for him, and they were giving every citizen in town a picture of him mass produced on sheets of paper by alchemy. There were no words on the sheets because so few could read, but the likeness of the black fox was scattered across Avannar, along with the stern warning that the Arcan was a Shaman, and that no one should try to capture the Arcan, they should immediately warn the Loreguard. The Loreguard were not gentle in their searching for the Shaman. They felt that the Shaman either had help or had used magic to enslave humans in the city to hide himself, and so they treated every family, every room renter, every business, every single person, as hostile. Families were rounded up and questioned with a truth crystal as the Loreguard tore their houses apart, searching for anything out of the ordinary, armed with magic sniffers and room detectors to ferret out secret chambers, hidden alchemical devices, and possibly a Shaman. Arcans within those houses were all but tortured during questioning to see if they were the Shaman in disguise. Any house searched was marked on maps the Loreguard carried, any people searched were given a magical tattoo on the backs of their hands that would fade after two weeks, a tattoo that couldn't be duplicated because it could only be seen by someone looking for it through a specific alchemical device.
All their efforts earned them nothing.
When they approached the shop of Kyven Steelhammer, a crystalcutter in the employ of the Loremasters to cut difficult or valuable crystals, and also the black fox Arcan for which they were searching, they thought to look at their maps, and discovered that the house had already been searched and all those within questioned. Another search detachment also approached the house whose job was to search houses already searched, but when they approached the shop, they felt that searching someone who worked for the Loremasters himself was a ridiculous thing to do, that it wasn't worth searching because they wouldn't find anything, and they turned away without performing their duty. When a roving patrol approached the human Kyven on the street the evening after the attack, who was walking quickly and fearfully back towards his shop carrying a huge box filled with a great deal of food bought at outrageously high prices from a greedy and enterprising greengrocer who was taking advantage of the chaos in Avannar to make some quick chits, they challenged him for breaking curfew. He answered that he was out of food and desperate, had tried to get the attention of a wandering Loreguard patrol to issue him an emergency pass but hadn't had any luck, and had finally had to come out to get something to eat. They accepted his explanation immediately and without question, and they wrote him out an emergency pass so he could return to his shop without being challenged again. The fact that he was carrying enough food in the box that would last five people for a week didn't cross their minds, even though it should have. It was as if what he had in the box . . . didn't matter. They could see it was food, but the amount of that food seemed irrelevant, insignificant, not even worth pursuing. The fact that they didn't check to see if he had the Loreguard mark on his hand didn't seem to matter to them either. It was as if it was unimportant, wasn't worth checking, for they were sure that it was already there. Why would it not be? they asked themselves, shirking duties they were supposed to very strictly enforce, no matter how mundane the situation appeared to be.
Such was the very subtle and effective ways Clover had bargained them protection. The spirit that watched over their shop and them, a wise-looking owl the size of an eagle, was acting in a very subtle manner by removing the desire of the Loreguard to inspect the building or the people who were inside it when the protection was enacted. The Loreguard and Loremasters knew the shop was there, and they would challenge the inhabitants in matters not dealing with hiding the secret of the shop, but the owl's influence caused them to feel that checking the shop or challenging the inhabitants was a waste of time, and thus not worth pursuing. It was an extremely effective tactic, since the fact that the shop had been previously searched took away a viable reason to search it, and so long as the owl was there to discourage their enemies from becoming motivated enough to inspect the shop or question those within, they were safe. Even when they did finally search the shop again once they ordered a second complete search of the city, the owl's subtle suggestion to ignore what was there would cause them to do a very poor job, and thus be much easier to fool. They would accept any plausible explanation as the truth, they would give each room just a cursory glance, and so long as there was nothing outrageously out of place or blatantly obvious, the shop would pass the second inspection as easily as it had passed the first.
The young man that entered the shop through the front door certainly wouldn't look out of place on the streets of Avannar. He was an athletic-looking man that was taller than the norm, with coal black hair that was long, very thick, and a little shaggy, and piercing green eyes. He was a ruggedly handsome man, a face and body that sometimes caused a woman's eye to follow him for a moment, maybe even more so because all he was wearing was a short-sleeved brown linen shirt and a pair of denim trousers, and was wearing a pair of scuffed, worn-looking boots, clothes that showed off his athletic form.
Those women would quickly change their favorable impression of him if they knew the truth of him. Though he appeared to be human, he was not . . . at least he wasn't right at the moment. Kyven Steelhammer was a Shaman, the only known human Shaman alive, but he was human no longer. To both punish him and to teach him the truth of the terrible lives the Arcans suffered while in slavery, Kyven's totem spirit stripped him of his humanity and transformed him into an Arcan, an Arcan based on the species of monster she created, the shadow fox. Kyven was the black-furred fox the Loreguard were desperately trying to find, Kyven was the Shaman that had invaded the headquarters of the Loremasters, ransacked several offices, killed several men, then set fire to the building both to do as much damage as possible and also to facilitate his escape from their island headquarters. It was Kyven they wanted, to find out just how much he'd discovered, and whether or not he had passed along any of that information to someone else.
Would they be angry if they knew the truth. Not only had Kyven found out everything he needed to know while he was there, that the Loremasters were about to break the treaties they drew up and take military control of the Free Territories, but he also found out that they intended to invade the unclaimed territory west of the Smoke Mountains and establish a kingdom ruled by the Loremasters. He also learned that they wanted to find the original machine that created the first Arcans so that they might use it to find some way to control or destroy the present Arcans or use it to create new ones, and he had learned that they wanted to rebuild the machine in some insane idea that it would make new mana crystals, but that machine had caused the Breach and brought about the destruction of the Great Ancient Civilization. It was insanity to want to build another one. He knew everything that they did not want anyone else to know, and what was worse, he had already passed on that information to the Shaman, and tonight he would pass that information on to someone else that they really didn't want to know, for he was an agent of Flaur. With that information in his hands, the other human civilizations of Noraam would discover the perfidy of the Loremasters, and would probably damn well do something about it.
He already knew what was going to be done about it. War. The Arcans east of the Smoke Mountains were slaves, property, used and abused by the whim of humanity. On this side of the mountains, Arcans were bought and sold like commodities, kept in pens and cages and wearing alchemical collars that guaranteed their obedience to their owners. They were worked in all forms of manual labor, worked hard, where life for an Arcan was filled with endless backbreaking labor and life was short and brutal. They were made to fight one another for the amusement of men. They were raced like horses. They were shown off like prize livestock in competitions. And they were slaughtered for their fur and their meat, which was used to feed to other Arcans, and being killed for his fur was a fate that Kyven had just barely managed to avoid after his totem had transformed him into an Arcan. Though most Arcans were as intelligent as men, their hybrid animalistic appearance made humans consider them to be animals, chattel, creatures without souls that existed only to serve men as beasts of burden. In a way, they were. Kyven knew the secret of the origin of the Arcans, and he knew that the Great Ancient Civilization had created them to be soldiers, to fight in the great war that was the catalyst that destroyed their world. In a way, they had been created to serve man by fighting for him, but the truth was that they were created in the worst way. The Great Ancients killed hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of humans to create the Arcans, and did not tell them that they would die in the process. From what he was told, the Great Ancients used anyone who could not fight and forced them to die to create an Arcan that could. The young, the old, the infirm, the unfit, all were sacrificed to become Arcans, even infants.
And the humans called Arcans animals.
But west of the Smoke Mountains, Arcans were free. There was an entire nation of Arcans hidden far to the northwest, on the cold grassy plains north and west of the Inner Sea, the twisted sea of fresh water, where hundreds of thousands of free Arcans lived safely away from the humans that would enslave them, or destroy them had the known the Arcans were there. But the humans would know about them soon, for the Arcans were preparing for war. Under no circumstance, under no condition, could the Arcans allow the Loremasters to succeed in any of their plans. They could not allow the Loremasters to establish territory on the fertile plains of the Snake River, far to the south of the secret Arcan nation of Haven. They could not permit the Loremasters to find the original machine used to create the Arcans over a thousand years ago, for they would either use it to find some way to kill the Arcans living now, studying the process by which they were made to come up with some way to attack them at that level and kill them, nor could they allow them to have it to make new Arcans that were tractable and obedient. They didn't know that the machine that created the Arcans required a human sacrifice in order to complete the process, putting a human and an animal in it where the human was killed and imparted the essence of his humanity upon the animal, transforming it into an Arcan. And they could not, under any circumstance, allow the Loremasters to build a new version of the machine that had caused the Breach and nearly destroyed Noraam a millennium ago. The Arcans were prepared to sacrifice their entire race in order to prevent such a disaster to come to pass, because the Loremasters had absolutely no idea what kind of unbridled destruction that machine could wreak upon the land and on both human and Arcan that inhabited it.
Kyven had been born human, and had apprenticed to the best crystalcutter in Atan, Master Holm, but he'd been an Arcan for nearly a year now. There were only two of his kind in the entire world, two shadow fox Arcans, and the other, Umbra, was pregnant with three babies, three of his children. In that year he had learned from the inside what kind of life there was for an Arcan on the east side of the mountains, and it had so horrified him that his life was now utterly devoted to their salvation. Kyven had joined the Masked, the secret organization of Arcans and humans that worked ceaselessly to free the Arcans from enslavement, and he used both his Shaman magic and his shadow powers granted because of what he was for those ends. Kyven was an Arcan, but he was not an Arcan of an animal, he was an Arcan of a monster, a creature transformed by magic to possess certain magical qualities or powers. This distinction gave him the same powers of the shadow foxes, the ability to control, create, manipulate, and interact with shadow. His shadow powers allowed him to blend with the shadows to become literally invisible, and change the shape and size of shadows that already existed. He could pull shadows off the ground or walls and into the air, and the most useful trick he'd learned was creating a cloud of shadow around him that could fill a large room. One of his clever little tricks he'd learned was to create just enough shadow and wrap it around himself, them meld into it, rendering him all but invisible, nothing but a shadow himself, which made him almost impossible to see in darkness or dim light. In brighter light, the shadow he wrapped around himself was visible and let them see at least the shadow with which he was joined, but in sunlight there was little he could do. When there was that much light, his shadows were melted away quickly by the brilliant light, and it took a lot of effort on his part to counteract it. The only thing that really worked was to create a cloud of shadow around him, anything less than that the sunlight burned away. His powers were based on shadow itself, and in simplest terms, the more light there was, the weaker his powers became. The darker it was, the stronger they became, up until there was no light at all, and then he lost his powers. There could be no shadow without both light and darkness, though his powers were definitely attuned to the darkness of shadow rather than the lightness of shadow. The absence of either rendered him all but powerless, only able to do the most basic things.
It was a good thing he had those powers, for as a Shaman, he was very weak. His human heritage made him much weaker than other Shaman, but his totem had worked around that little problem. For her, he was the perfect Shaman, because for what she wanted him to learn, he didn't need power, he only needed stamina . . . and stamina he had, he had it in spades. His totem spirit's forte was guile, deception, deceit, and her focus was illusion. And since Kyven was a totem Shaman, bound to a particular spirit and granted boons based on the nature of his spirit, that made his illusions stronger and better than illusions created by Shaman who had no totem. For the shadow fox, to kill was the last resort. For the shadow fox, lies and trickery were proper behavior, guile and deceit were the most desired qualities of a Shaman. The shadow fox tried to deceive him and trick him at every turn, and had used his initial trust of her to gain total power over him, gave her the ability to transform him into an Arcan. Kyven hated the fox, hated her for what she did to him, but he was bound to her, and he was helpless. He was her slave now, for she held his humanity in her jaws, and if he ever wanted to be human again, he had to serve her. And in the back of his mind, deep in his heart, a part of him knew that she would never let him go. He was her possession, and she did not seem the type to give up her possessions.
But, if serving the shadow fox also helped him free the Arcans and stopped the Loremasters, he could live with it. He had grown . . . accustomed to being an Arcan over the year. He understood their customs and their society, and he could interact with Arcans on their own level, be accepted by them as one of their own. He'd grown used to the unique physical advantages he had as an Arcan, being much stronger and more agile than a human, and armed with sharp claws and deadly teeth that could, and did, kill a human, though it certainly hadn't been easy when he was first changed, unable to walk on his digitigrade legs which were much different from his human plantigrade legs, unable to talk clearly because of his boxy vulpine muzzle. He had grown fond of raw meat, though he'd started that transition while still human, because he'd needed to eat raw meat to recover from being exhausted from his Shaman training. He'd had to learn how to eat and drink all over again because of the muzzle, but he was used to that now. He was truly a child of both races now, a human who knew Arcan custom, who could be accepted in both worlds . . . and maybe that was what his totem wanted. An Arcan Shaman hiding behind an illusion of a human wouldn't know the little nuances that would allow them to pass as a human, where Kyven could because he was born and raised human. And he had been immersed deeply into Arcan society, literally a trial by fire, transformed into an Arcan and literally thrown into the cage with them, where he learned the mannerisms of the Arcans through personal experience, in a way few humans could ever hope to manage, since Arcans were extremely hesitant and guarded around humans. Arcan society was intricate, and he certainly didn't know as much about being an Arcan as he did about being a human, but Kyven had learned the basics quickly, and that basis had allowed him to understand enough to be accepted into Arcan society. He could move freely through both worlds, passing for either human or Arcan, and that gave him a freedom that few could match.
But this . . . this almost felt weird. He looked down at his human hand, almost mesmerized, as he entered his shop through the customer lobby and put the box of groceries on the counter so he could lift the leaf and get back into the shop. It had been nearly a year since he had a human hand, and to see it again when it wasn't an illusion, to feel the air on his skin instead of shifting through his fur, to not see his black-topped muzzle with the faint touches of white on each side because of the white ruff that came halfway up his muzzle, surrounding his mouth, dominating the bottom of his vision, it was, was bizarre. He looked at himself in the reflection of the glass and was startled to see himself as a human, with pale skin because it had been covered by fur for a year, but the same eyes, the same eyes he had as an Arcan, those same piercing green eyes. To see the skin on his neck, see his human arms, see his normal human legs, to not have a tail, it was an eerie feeling after so long.
Too bad it wasn't real. This human shape came from an alchemical device, and right now, halfway across Noraam, Danna Pannen, his human friend, was now wearing his fur, had a muzzle and a tail and had hybrid legs, she was wearing his outward Arcan appearance and he was wearing her outward human one. Beneath this alteration, however, he was still an Arcan, and Danna was still human. He wondered how she reacted to seeing herself in a mirror, since she wasn't exactly friendly with most Arcans. She considered Arcans to be soulless creatures, animals granted human intelligence through alchemy, and whose place was to serve man by the design of the Father and the Trinity. The medallion he wore that gave him that appearance was around his neck, but instead of it having Danna's human face, it now appeared as a fox head, as it changed to reflect Danna's appearance. However she appeared, the medallion appeared. So, he knew what Danna looked like in the face as an Arcan because of the medallion, but to the passerby, it just looked like Kyven was wearing a smoky gray metal fox head necklace, since Danna kept her hair in a braid and that gave the fox head the appearance that it didn't have hair, since it was tied back and pulled down.
At least the transformation was painless when he enacted it. When he changed, his body took on a feeling of water, a feeling of liquid, and then it flowed into the other shape. But only his body changed, not his clothes, so he had to be careful about wearing boots or something that may not accommodate his transformation when it was over. For Kyven, that wasn't that hard, because he was the one that controlled the transformation. He had the time to remove his boots or any binding clothing that wouldn't like suddenly having a tail trying to push through it. But for Danna, he knew, it wasn't quite that simple. She never knew when he was going to use the medallion, so she couldn't wear her boots, and had to wear a pair of pants with a hole in the back for where the tail would go . . . which exposed the top of the cleft of her buttocks, since that was where the tail came out of an Arcan, extending out at the top of the base of the buttocks and fully clearing them about a quarter of the way down. Danna's only respite was knowing that when Kyven took the human form using the medallion, for every minute he stayed in human form, the medallion would need an equal minute to recharge after he changed back. So if he transformed for two hours, she knew that he couldn't change again for two hours once he changed back. The medallion could also only maintain him in human form for one full day before it exhausted itself and forced him to change back, where it would need a full day to recharge before being usable again.
Thankfully, the fox was thorough with such things. The medallion carried its own protections, and could not be seen by those who did not know it was there. Clover, Patches and Tweak knew about the medallion because the fox and Kyven had specifically shown it to them, they were there when the fox gave it to him. But no one else could see it, touch it, or otherwise interact with it. To Kyven it was a solid object, but to those to whom Kyven did not specifically show the medallion, it did not exist. It couldn't be detected with magic sniffers, it couldn't be touched, there was quite literally no way it could be taken from him by force. And part of that protection also extended to his transformed state, which was actually necessary given that his body would radiate powerful magic to a magic sniffer while he was transformed. While he was a human, any attempt to detect magic about him would fail, to prevent a magic sniffer from penetrating his disguise. It only worked when he was wearing the human shape, but that meant that he had up to a full day of invisibility to magical detection if he needed it.
He stared at himself another moment, then lifted the leaf and went in. As soon as he closed the door to the lobby, he put the box on a nearby table, sat in a chair he'd put by the door, and bent to take off his boots. Patches, his red panda apprentice, hurried out of the kitchen when he sat down. Patches was a small, slim little thing, with red fur but white and beige patches of fur over her eyes and near her ears, which was how she earned her namesake. Her tail was long and thickly furred, with alternating bands of red and tan fur up to the tip, and she wore nothing but a simple gray canvas smock that hung down to her thighs, her cleaning smock that had two large pockets in the front and was belted at her waist with a frayed piece of rope. Patches was a very timid Arcan, the result of severe abuse when she was a child, abuse by both her owners and her parents, but she could be extremely brave when the situation demanded it. There was a hidden strength in his little apprentice, and he admired her for it. When the fat was in the fire, he knew he could depend on her to do what had to be done, even if it terrified her.
"Kyven!" she said with relief. "Was there any trouble?"
"A brush with a patrol, but Clover's spirit kept me out of trouble," Kyven answered as she picked up the box, grunting a bit under the weight. Despite her small size, Patches was an Arcan, and that meant that she was stronger than a human of the same size. But, since she was so small, that meant that she wasn't quite as strong as most human men . . . but she came close. Her strength would surprise any man who accosted her. "There's enough in there for the whole week."
"There must be, it's so heavy!" she said as she lugged the box towards the kitchen. "I'll get it sorted out and stored, Kyven."
"Has Lightfoot came back yet?" he called.
"Not yet," Clover answered for Patches as she came down the stairs. Clover was a coyote, sleek and athletic, with a beige stomach, grayish-brown fur on her side and back, but with dark stripes along her flanks, running from just under her armpits to her hips. Her hair was cut very short and was unkempt, and her coyote ears poked out from her hair atop her head. Clover was also a Shaman, a much stronger and better trained Shaman than him, and it was her bargain with the owl spirit that had put it here, protecting them from the Loremasters. Clover was a very mild, unruffled woman who thought fast, and was exceptionally wise. She was his sister Shaman, his role model for proper Shaman behavior, a woman he admired and respected for her intelligence and ability, and in the custom among Arcans, she was his casual lover. "She should be home soon. I am starting to worry about her. It's very dangerous out there right now."
"And it's only going to get worse," Kyven grunted as he pulled off one of his boots. "I just hope your owl spirit can protect two of us outside at the same time."
"Of course he can," she chuckled as she helped him with the other boot. "How much food did you get?"
"Enough for a week," he answered. "No meat, though, the butcher wouldn't let me in."
She sighed. "A week of vegetables. Not a way a Shaman should eat," she complained mildly.
"Be glad for those vegetables, the greengrocer charged me ten times their worth," he growled as he freed himself of the other boot, then stood up and started unbuckling his belt. "I'm going to pay him a little visit tonight and get my money back," he said darkly as he undid the ties on his breeches, and then pulled them down enough to sit and finish taking them off, leaving him nude from the waist down, but it didn't bother him at all. One thing he had earned from being an Arcan for a year was a complete indifference to his own nudity. His ability to blend into the shadows didn't work if he wore clothes, so he had adjusted to being naked all the time . . . though it often didn't feel that way because of the fur. His Arcan fur almost felt like clothing to him, and he never really felt self-conscious about exposing himself when he was in his fur.
It took but a moment's concentration. The foxhead medallion flared with light, and then there was the sense of fluidity as his outward appearance changed back to his Arcan self. His feet elongated, widened through the ball of his foot, transformed into a fox's paw, as his shin shortened to create the proper proportion that would allow him to walk. His fingernails and toenails grew out, thickened, curved, forming the non-retractable hooked claws of his breed. His nose, jaw, and face elongated to form his long boxy muzzle, his ears were absorbed back into his head and new ones sprouted from the top, and the snaky line of a tail appeared just above and between his buttocks. Black and white fur sprouted from all over his changing body and quickly grew out to its full length, with a very thick short, soft base, almost like down, a layer of medium-length fur over it, and a slightly shaggy layer of long hairs over that, forming the fur that everyone told him was the softest fur they'd ever felt.
All that change, and yet his eyes never changed, remaining those piercing green eyes in either of his shapes.
He shook himself as if to shake off water, dropping down onto all fours to do so, getting rid of that creepy feeling of fluidity, like his muscles were made of water. His tail slashed behind him several times, then he stretched like a cat, arching his back sharply, then rose back up onto his feet, his body realigning itself to a vertical base.
"That looks so much better," Clover noted, putting a padded hand on his shoulder, feeling his fur.
"You are so biased," he accused, stretching his arms out and yawning widely to shake off the last of that feeling. "Much better," he said. "It makes me feel cold and watery when I do that."
"It looks like it would hurt," Patches told him compassionately.
"Not hurt, but it's a creepy feeling," he told her. "Like your bones and muscles turn to water, and you flow into a different shape. Where is that cat?" he complained. "She should have been back by now."
"She left before the crackdown and got caught there when it happened, Kyven. I'm sure she'll be along soon," Clover assured him.
"You know we're gonna have to be totally honest with Shario," Kyven said.
"Yes. He has to know who we are, what we're doing, and what is coming. And we have to stress the fact that war is coming, my brother, and the Arcans will fight."
He nodded grimly.
The bell of the outer door rang, which caused Kyven to immediately react. He quickly and effortlessly formed an illusion of his human self, wearing the same clothes he'd worn outside, and beckoned to the fox to grant the power to enact the spell. She responded immediately, and Kyven's form shimmered, the black fox Arcan replaced by a human one. Illusion was the power of his totem, and since he was a totem Shaman, it gave him a command of illusion that far surpassed Clover and other Shaman. They couldn't make illusions as large as he could or as detailed as he could, couldn't make them as believable as he could. Kyven could introduce such a level of detail that his illusions took on aspects of actual reality. By instilling the substance of an object into an illusion, it took on qualities of the real thing. The substance of stone captured into an illusion made the illusion feel like stone to the mind that accepted what it could see, would cause the mind to touch that which was not there and accept it as reality. Kyven had instilled the substance of humanity into his illusion, so much so that anyone who touched his bare arm wouldn't feel the soft fur that was really there, their mind would force them to believe that they touched a man's tan skin. That was the power of illusion, and that, Kyven believed, was why his kind of magic was actually the most versatile of them all. He was limited only by his ability to instill substance into his illusion. If he made it believable enough, the victims accepted the illusion as reality. The fox told him that the ultimate expression of illusion was to take an illusory sword and use it to inflict a real injury, putting so much substance into the illusion that it actually took on aspects of reality. Kyven was nowhere near that level of mastery, but if he could achieve it, then the floodgates would be open. With that kind of ability, he could all but control reality itself, because it would be by his will that reality would be perceived by those around him.
The door to the shop opened, and Lightfoot stepped through. Lightfoot was a cat Arcan, small and slender, with curious fur that was a riot of jagged white and black horizontal stripes. It was impossible to tell if Lightfoot was black with white stripes, or white with black stripes. Kyven was of a mind that she was white with black stripes because her hair was bone white. Her vertically slitted pupils were intimidating when she met one's gaze. Lightfoot never wore clothes, wore only a wide leather belt around her waist, which usually dipped down over one hip or the other since it was much wider than her slender waist, displaying her small, powerful little body. Like most female Arcans, Lightfoot's breasts were small, and her hips were slightly narrow, giving her a waifish look. But her small little frame concealed deceptive power, even as her little fingers concealed small yet razor-sharp claws. Lightfoot was a fighter, a fighting Arcan, and she was very good at what she did. But, she was a hard Arcan to know. She was almost militantly silent. She expressed herself in the fewest words possible.
Behind her was the reason she went out, for Shario filed in behind her. Shario was a tall, olive-skinned, handsome man with wavy black hair and a black goatee and thin moustache, dressed in a light waistcoat made for the summer heat, soft cotton trousers, and elegant half-boots, dressed like a proper gentleman and a man of means. And while he truly was a man of means, he attained those means in a manner that was not gentlemanly. Shario was a thief who had built his fortune stealing and doing other dastardly things, and had since branched out into legitimate businesses . . . but that was all a front. Shario was a Flauren spy, sent by his government to keep an eye on things in Avannar. He used his status as a thief and murderer in the city to keep an eye on everything going on, both officially and behind the scenes, keeping Flaur informed of the activities of the Loremasters . . . which they very much liked to do. Of the kingdoms of Noraam, Flaur was the most resistant to the Loremasters, the most troublesome for them because they were highly independent. They had their own language where the only other languages spoken on Noraam, Meinar and Nuvian, were spoken by very small kingdoms by comparison, where Flaur was huge, dominating the entire Flauren Peninsula. They followed a different tradition of religion as well, for though they believed in the Father and the Holy Trinity, they had a much more orthodox approach, much more formal, much more organized. Flaur had an organized national church, the only kingdom of Noraam whose churches were so organized, watched over by the High Prelate. Flaur was large, organized, strong, and had an independent streak, and had long been a thorn in the side of the Loremasters.
"Ah, Kyven my friend," he said, shaking Kyven's hand and clapping him on the upper arm. "I was expecting this invitation. Really, did you have to set fire to the building?"
Kyven chuckled. "Usually I'd say something clever to distract you from that line of thought, but not today," Kyven told him seriously. "Yes, setting fire to the building was more or less necessary."
"So you are the black fox they seek!" he said with a laugh. As soon as Lightfoot closed the door to the lobby, Kyven dismissed the illusion, which made Shario gasp and take a step back. "Mei diau," he gasped in Flauren, looking him up and down clinically. "Amazing! How do you accomplish such a disguise? When I shook your hand, I felt your skin, felt the linen of your shirt!"
"Part of why I'm still here, Shario," Kyven told him. "You said you wanted to see what I really look like. Well, here you go."
He laughed. "Then you must have something monumental to tell me, if you're willing to reveal this secret, my friend." He looked down. "You cannot accomplish your disguise without clothes?"
He shook his head. "They get in the way," he answered honestly. "Come in and sit, Shario, we have a lot to talk about."
They sat near his workbench, in chairs pulled from the other benches and his office, and were joined by Tweak before they began. Tweak was his other apprentice, a small, thin ferret with ruddy beige fur and a dark stripe down his back, as well as a bandit-like mask of brown fur over his eyes. Tweak was a talkative, energetic young ferret that talked fast, walked fast, did most things fast, but he had steady hands and had once been an alchemist's apprentice back at Haven, and could repair alchemical devices. Patches would be the better crystalcutter because she was much better at appraising crystals, but Tweak's cutting skills were acceptable for an apprentice.
Not that it would matter much longer. Kyven was training his apprentices in a doomed craft, for the crystals were running out. The Arcans knew it, the Loremasters knew it. The mines that produced crystals were failing. The crystals were created in the Breach, when the Great Ancients used a device they should have never built that breached into the spirit world. That breach had created the crystals that the modern society was using now to power their alchemical devices, spirit energy ripped out of the spirit world and into the real world, where it formed crystals when exposed to the human reality, and then scattered by the force of the explosion, seeding the Smoke Mountains with the crystal deposits that they now mined. The number of crystals created during that cataclysmic event had been limited, and now, after discovering them and learning to use them, mankind had used most of them up. Within five years, the crystals would be so rare that, by most estimation, the nations of Noraam would fight over the crystal-producing Smoke Mountains, try to control what few crystals would remain. War would erupt across Noraam, and the way of life known by all its inhabitants would forever change. For one, it would mean that there wouldn't be enough crystals to power the collars that controlled the Arcans. Humanity would lose its easy control over the Arcans, forced to take different measures like chains or ropes, which weren't nearly as effective given a large male Arcan could break chains, and nearly any Arcan, of any size, could kill a human. They were stronger, faster, and most were armed with deadly teeth or claws. Simple chains could not stop an Arcan from killing a human that got too close, and that made controlling slave Arcans much, much harder.
This was the reason why the Arcans of Haven were about to reveal themselves. When the crystals got so scarce that there weren't enough collars for the Arcans, they feared that the humans would solve the problem with a mass slaughter of Arcan slaves. They wouldn't allow that to happen, but that was in the future; but current events had come about in a way that required that they make dramatic, drastic moves now, not in three years when the crystals started getting harder and harder to find. They were going to reveal to the world that Arcans were not stupid animals, that they had their own nation far to the northwest, where the winters were frigid and the game plentiful. The Arcans fully expected there to be a backlash over this, a sudden fear of the Arcan slaves, but they saw no choice in the matter. The Loremasters had made a move that required an immediate response, and they could not hide themselves after they responded.
It was a bad situation for the Arcans no matter which way it went, but brutal pragmatism had to rule here. To save all of Noraam, they had to risk a violent backlash against the Arcans still enslaved in human lands. Stopping the Loremasters far outweighed the Arcans in captivity, for if the Loremasters carried out their mad plan, they would die anyway.
Sometimes there were no happy endings.
Kyven sat on his stool as Patches and Tweak sat on theirs, and Clover sat at a chair turned backwards so she could lean on the backrest and also to give her room for her tail, as the chair back was not split or made to accommodate an Arcan. Lightfoot stood just behind Kyven, a silent protective presence.
"There's much to tell you, Shario, and you may not believe some of it," Kyven told him. "But the most important part doesn't depend on whether you believe it or not."
"I'm listening, my friend."
"Last night, we found out what they're doing," Kyven told him. "Simply put, the Loremasters are preparing to take complete control of Noraam."
It took them nearly an hour to explain everything to him. Shario asked no questions, seeming to save them for after they were done, listening with a quiet, intense expression as Kyven explained their three objectives. When he finished, Kyven looked him squarely in the eyes. "We can't let that happen, Shario," he told him. "The Arcans will fight. We can't let them accomplish any of those objectives, any of the three is a threat to the Arcans, and to all of Noraam. You may not believe me about the Arcan device or the device they intend to build, but the solid fact that they're preparing to set up their own kingdom in the Snake River valley, and they are going to take over the Free Territories. We can't allow that."
"Surely there is some evidence of this activity, something you brought from the headquarters."
"I can't carry anything, Shario," Kyven told him. "If I do, I can't do what I do that lets me move through their headquarters undetected, for the same reason I can't wear clothes."
"Without some kind of evidence, I cannot take what you say at face value. I can only take it under advisement and seek out the truth, to verify your claim."
"Shario, the Arcans have their own home beyond the Smoke Mountains," Clover told him. "It is a nation of free Arcans, hidden from Noraam. The invasion of the Loremasters into our territory cannot be permitted. If you understand nothing else of what we have told you, then understand that. When the Loremasters cross the mountains, they will meet us, and we will fight. We cannot allow it. We just cannot. We are going to reveal ourselves to Noraam, Shario, reveal that the Arcans have a nation of their own. Think about the implications of that. Understand how seriously we take this information."
He was quiet a long moment. "Ah yes, the mythical Arcan homeland. We sent loyal Flauren Arcans into the wilderness to find the truth, but no word ever returned from them. We feared them dead."
"We found them, Shario, and convinced them that the lives of our people depended on secrecy," Clover answered him immediately. "How would the humans of Noraam react to know that the Arcans had their own nation, that they were enslaving our people, and our people are not the dumb animals they believe them to be? We feared that the humans would kill our enslaved people in retaliation. The lives of our people enslaved in Noraam depended on our secrecy, leaving us to try to free them through the efforts of the Shaman and the Masked. But we will risk that now, for the sake of all of us depends on stopping the Loremasters. That is how seriously we take it, Shario."
"I . . . cannot promise anything," he said. "I can only do my patriotic duty to my homeland and send word of this back to them. How they wish to respond is their decision."
"That's fine, Shario, but you had to know," Kyven told him.
"So, the Shaman and the Masked, they work for this Arcan nation?"
"The Shaman do, but the Masked do not," Clover told him. "As of right now, you are the only human on this side of the mountains that knows of our nation. The Masked do not know, they only know of the Shaman, and work with us to free the Arcans. The Shaman help them, for it is our duty to help our people, as well as the humans."
"You will help the humans?"
"Are we not here warning you now?" she asked simply. "The spirits care about all of us, Shario, both human and Arcan. Would not that the humans would slaughter us, we would help them. The spirits regret and mourn for what they know is coming, but at this point, it is unavoidable. They have worked long years to prevent humans and Arcans from going to war with each other, but now there is no choice. The spirits have spoken, Shario, and they command us to prevent the Loremasters from carrying out their plans, no matter the cost."
"Most humans would not believe you don't wish war on humanity."
"Unfortunately, the Loremasters have been quite efficient with their propaganda," Clover said with a small frown. "The role of the Shaman is to serve the spirits, but it is also to serve those who need us," she told him. "That is because the spirits care about us, be us human or Arcan. We Shaman often help humans, though they usually never see our actions. In this case, however, our aid will be quite obvious."
"We can fight propaganda with propaganda," Kyven grunted, scratching the white ruff on the side of his mouth. "That's one thing we were hoping you could help us with, Shario. If the kingdoms of Noraam know what the Loremasters are doing, they won't find it quite so easy to just walk into the Free Territories and take them over. Especially not when they find out that the Loremasters are moving to secure the mines and what few crystals there are left in them."
"But we can't prove that."
"We can prove they're about to undertake a military expedition," he answered. "You said it yourself, Shario, the Loremasters is arming the Loreguard to the hilt. Why would they do that unless they expect some kind of major action? They're even importing firearms from Eusica. I told you why they were doing it, remember? Well, now we know what they intend to do about it. Just go to Riyan or Stinger Bay, Shario, and see the troops that are flooding into the Free Territories for yourself. The reports I read said that they're there. Why are they there? What reason would there be for them? The Free Territories don't have armies outside of little village militias and the Riyan Regulars. The Loremasters don't need to mass an army unless they have a reason to use it. And they do. They want to take over the mining villages to the west, and they also want to take over Deep River and march into the frontier so they can dig in before winter. To do that, they need troops, they need supplies, and they need labor, and they can't find any Arcans to use as that labor, so they're hiring any able-bodied man that'll take the job, and those men have to be talking about that job. Trace the supplies and the labor, Shario, and you'll see our information is good."
Shario was quiet a long moment, then he looked to Patches. "So are you a part of the information network, my little chef?" he asked lightly.
"No, Shario, I just cook and clean," she answered shyly. "They need me to take care of them while they do the dangerous stuff."
"We'd be lost without her," Clover smiled at her.
"I will look into these things, my friends, and see how much corroborates your tale. I will also send word of everything back home, whether I believe it or not, because you want us to know. And I must say, Kyven, that you are already quite famous. The Loremasters have seen you, and if you don't recall, the mysterious black fox Arcan was the only Arcan ever to escape from the Blue Ring of Alamar, which immediately ran for Atan, which was your home. And now, that selfsame black fox Arcan shows up in Avannar. They might trace the black fox to you."
Clover looked to Kyven, who sighed. "Well, if Toby didn't do his job covering up my tracks in Alamar and they connect the black fox that escaped from Alamar to me, they're gonna figure it out," he reasoned. "After all, I did use my real name. I don't think the Loremasters are quite so dumb as to miss that connection. But, I also have a pretty powerful defense in that I am human. I don't have to lie when they ask me that question under a truth crystal. I have an established history, and the fact that I'm here now, cutting crystals that only Kyven Steelhammer could possibly cut, gives me protection. My defense, if it comes to it, will be that this black fox Shaman must have met me while I was prospecting using some kind of disguise, found out who I was, and used my name to pass himself off as me while I was out having my fun before settling down to be a shop master."
"Yes, that would work, at its face," he said. "But if they inspect you, they'll find the truth of you. No disguise I can imagine would allow you to evade a magic sniffer."
"They'll never find me, Shario, trust me," Kyven smiled. "All we want you to do is warn your government, so someone beyond us knows what's going on in human lands. The Arcans have already been warned, and they're starting to prepare to meet the Loremasters when they march out of the east and into our territory."
"No requests for help?" he asked with a slight smile.
"If you want to help, you can help on this side of the mountains," Clover told him. "We do not need even more human armies marching into our territory. That might be seen as a hostile act by our people," she warned.
"I will be sure to stress that," Shario smiled. "But I do need to take you to task for causing me so much trouble, my friends," he told them. "I've already had two of my brothels raided, and I've had to send my Arcans underground for fear of losing them to avenging Loreguard."
"We would have warned you if I'd have expected to make so much noise, so for that much I'm sorry," Kyven told him. "But I'd keep them under wraps if I were you, because I'm not going to let them settle down."
"Eh?"
"I'm going out again, before sunset," he told him. "With the Loreguard turning the city upside down and shaking it to see if I fall out, this is the perfect opportunity to poke through their building a little more, because they won't be expecting me to be that brazen. There's something in there I need to know, and I didn't get the chance last night to find that answer. I got a little sidetracked," he chuckled.
"I am against that idea, my brother," Clover told him seriously. "They may be looking for you out here, but they will be on a razor's edge inside."
"Yes, but right now there are a bunch of workers inside cleaning up the mess I made," he said. "With all that confusion, this is the perfect chance to get in and snoop. I already know how I'm going to get in, I just have to wait for his shift to start," he said with a toothy smile. "I'll find out what the Loremasters know about what we're doing with the Arcans, and I'll cause a little more chaos tonight."
"How do you mean, friend Kyven?" Shario asked.
"Well, I don't know how the Councillors are going to feel if one of their own gets murdered," he said with an ominous smile. "He was supposed to die last night, but he wasn't home. Well, as soon as he shows up at home, he's going to die."
"You intend to assassinate a Councillor in his own house?" Shario asked with surprise. "I would never dare allow one of my assassins attempt such a dangerous thing!"
"I have advantages they don't, Shario," he answered simply. "Most humans have no idea what a Shaman can really do, because we've never done anything like this before."
"Truly," Clover agreed. "We have always striven to preserve life whenever possible, and have never resorted to such tactics because we have always labored to effect change peacefully. But this is war now, Shario. The Shaman will fight, and we can fight in ways the Loremasters are not prepared to counter."
"Does that give you an idea of what's coming?" Kyven asked. "The Shaman and the Arcans are now at war with the Loremasters, Shario, and war has no rules. My job here is to disrupt them as much as possible, even as I keep an eye on everything they do. From this day forward, no Councillor or high-ranking Loreguard officer who sets foot off that island is safe. If I know they're in the city, I'll try to kill them. If I can kill off their leaders, those below will be in disarray, and it'll cause problems in their chain of command."
Shario was quiet a long moment, then he laughed ruefully. "Why do I get the feeling that the Loremasters are in for a very bad month?" he asked with a bright smile at Kyven.
"That's something I think both of us can hope for, Shario," Kyven told him. "One thing you can do for me is warn me if you know a high-ranking target leaves the island. Get word to me quickly so I can go out and kill them."
"I believe that I can fit see to arrange that," he nodded. "The Loremasters have never been the allies of Flaur. They forced the treaties upon us with threats of instigating war between us and the entirety of Noraam. We have ever felt the occupied nation since we were forced to sign into the agreement. If you wish to depopulate the gilded chairs in the Loremaster headquarters, I will send you off with a cheer and a smile."
"Oh, and I want one more thing from you, Shario."
"What is that?"
"I want you to get me a Briton rifle," he said. "I'll pay you what it costs you to get it."
"Why do you want one?"
"Because they don't take magic to use," he answered simply. "And I could use that. More to the point, I need the most accurate rifle you can find, Shario. Something I can use to hit a target from three hundred paces with one try."
"Ah, you want a sniper's rifle," Shario said with a knowing smile. "I can get you one, friend Kyven, but they are not cheap. It will cost you nearly two thousand chits."
"Done. Tweak, can you go get the money please?"
"Surely, Kyven. Be right back," he said, jumping up and hurrying towards the stairs to the basement.
"I would suggest you ensure that rifle cannot be traced back to you, Shario," Clover warned. "I believe you have an understanding of why Kyven wants it."
"Yes, yes, of course, they'll never know it came from me," he said with a nod.
Tweak returned quickly carrying a small leather pouch. "Two thousand chits," he said, offering it to Shario.
"Thank you, my boy," Shario smiled, tucking the pouch into his waistcoat. "I'll have the rifle for you by sunset, Kyven."
"Just bring it to the shop, someone will be here to get it," he nodded.
"Very well, very well, I'll take my leave now to pass along this information. When I get word of what will be done about it, I'll be sure to let you know."
"We'll be here," Kyven said. "Do you want help getting home?"
"Help?" he laughed lightly. "No, I'll be fine. As you know, my whorehouse is just two doors down, and I can get home from there with no trouble. I should visit to ensure my girls are well, anyway. No doubt they are worried and upset with the curfew and the lack of customers. I also need to ensure they have enough food to get through curfew."
"Lightfoot, go to the roof and make sure there's no Loreguard that can see Shario get home," Clover ordered. The small cat nodded once, then turned and bounded up the stairs on all fours.
Kyven again shrouded himself in his human illusion, then escorted Shario to the door. He opened it and looked both ways, making sure the street was empty, and Lightfoot's call from above sounded an all clear. "Good luck, my friend," Kyven told him.
"I think you are the one that needs luck, my friend, so I will pray that good fortune finds you today," he answered, clapping Kyven on the shoulder, then intentionally feeling around. "I felt cloth at first, but now I feel what is there," he whispered.
"I'll explain how it works someday," he whispered back. "Now go before a patrol comes up Sun Street."
Kyven watched Shario hurry down the street, going past the chandler's shop and rushing up the steps of his brothel. He knocked just once and was immediately allowed in, so Kyven shut his door and barred it, then went back into the shop. Inside, Clover, Patches, and Tweak were giving him serious looks.
"What?" he asked.
"My brother, going back out today is insane," Clover said adamantly. "They are too upset and too wary right now. They will be suspicious, and they will catch you."
"I need to, Clover," he said simply as he locked the door to the lobby, and Lightfoot came back down. "I'm positive I can get in and move around without attracting any attention, because only my face is going to be an illusion."
"How do you mean?"
"I've seen you alter clothes using magic, Clover. I'm going to need a common Loreguard soldier's uniform, can you make it and have it pass a close inspection?"
She opened her maw, and then laughed and nodded. "Easily. What rank do you need to be?"
"A Lieutenant," he answered. "Lightfoot, I'll need a pistol and a shockrod for the disguise. Do we have them in the armory?"
"Yes."
"Good. I'll need the entire uniform, Clover. Boots, the belt they wear over it, the surcoat, helmet, chain jack, everything. And it does need to fit me."
"I can make them easily, my brother," she assured him. "When do you need it?"
"By four bells," he answered. "The Lieutenant starts his shift at six bells, so I have to be in position to intercept him before he makes it to work."
"Which is it?"
"Lieutenant Ezram Thatcher," Kyven answered. "He's a fellow who secretly frequents certain pubs and tea shops that cater to men who prefer men, but this one's claim to fame is that he likes to rape his partner. I'm sure the city will be a cleaner place when I kill him and take his place, and he's so disliked as a moral reprobate that I won't be overly bothered when I get into the building. The only reason he's an officer in the Loreguard is because his father is a Colonel. Since he's an arrogant ass and his father is a high-ranking Loreguard, I can move around with little challenge."
"Clever," she nodded.
"Thank Danna, not me, she's the one that told me about him, and it just took about a day to learn all those unpleasant things about him. Once I'm inside, I'll pull rank to get around and penetrate the Department of Arcan Affairs to find out what they know. I'll do that the easy way, I'll just kill the entire room and take everything that looks promising, then just walk out with it. We have to know what they know about what we're doing, and it'll get more important when they try to take Deep River."
"They'll probably find their first shock when they try to cross the river," Clover mused. "A single Shaman could pin them on the east bank of the river for weeks, preventing them from crossing. All it would take would be the cooperation of a water spirit who would make the river uncrossable."
"I'm sure they'll see to it," Kyven told her.
"We are the only Shaman away from Haven right now, my brother. All the others are there, preparing."
"Well, they might send you to go do it," he noted. "It's a five day trip for you, where it'd be almost a month for someone else."
"I am needed here."
"You're needed where you'll do the most good. And if you can stop the Loremasters from crossing the river all by yourself, you'll be doing a hell of a lot more good there than here. I promise you, sister, I can make without you for a while. I'll be very lonely, but I'll survive."
"Flatterer," she teased, leaning in and licking him on the muzzle fondly.
"Truth isn't flattery," he replied, licking her on the cheek in reply. "Now go make that uniform while I go read up on my notes about Ezram Thatcher. Hop, you," he said lightly, swatting her on her backside.
"You are saving up for a reckoning, my brother," she winked at him.
"I'll enjoy that reckoning when we have time to get to it," he told her as he dropped down on all fours and padded towards the cellar.
The cellar looked like any other cellar, a place where things were stored, but it held a secret. Hidden behind a shelf, a large room held the heart of their little operation. It was a room holding a desk, a table, several cabinets, a shelf behind the desk holding three alchemical communication machines that kept them in contact with the Masked in Avannar, and also with Virren and Timble in Atan, and on one wall there were pinned hundreds of pieces of paper that held the entirety of the Loremaster operation, each piece of paper holding a name and a rank, some of them with a location under them. Kyven had painstakingly built that wall over weeks, learning every name worth knowing, and working hard to find out just where those men and women had their offices within their headquarters. Most of them only had a name and a rank, very few had an office, but it would both fill out and change over time, as he assassinated Loremasters and they were replaced. But those weren't the only notes he had. His cabinets had files in them, files of promising targets for exactly what he was going to do, targets he would kill and replace to gain access to the building. Because he might be challenged wearing another man's face, Kyven made it a point to find out everything about his potential target he might need to know. Names of family members. Friends. Hobbies. Favorite places to go. Ezram Thatcher was a very promising target because he was an officer and he was also hated, with a reputation for being a pervert and an unmitigated ass. That was a golden combination for Kyven, because it made the man very unpopular and less likely to be bothered for idle conversation, and also gave him access and the ability to move about unchallenged due to his rank. Nobody would want to talk to Thatcher except maybe his father, but Kyven could avoid Colonel Jed Thatcher . . . or, if the opportunity presented itself, kill him too. The loss of a Colonel in the Loreguard would cause problems for them, and the more trouble Kyven could heap on them, the better.
Today's excursion would serve two purposes. First, he would gain entry to the Department of Arcan Affairs and get the information he meant to get last night. Second, if he had any moment of opportunity to cause damage or kill someone important, he would take it. Kyven could kill silently and without attracting attention, both with and without magic. Since Kyven would be wearing the human shape in the building, it would prevent him from using his claws and teeth, but the human Kyven had a different bite when it came to killing silently, his daggers. Kyven could pin a fly to the wall with a throwing dagger from across the room, and the wound made by a throwing dagger was all but indistinguishable from the wound from a regular dagger. Kyven could plant a dagger in the back of a target of opportunity's neck, which was a silent kill, or if he was in a position to use Shaman magic, there were several ways he could go about killing his target. Either way, the target would be dead, and that would remove someone that might cause the Arcans or Haven any problems later down the road.
The Loreguard would fight their war with soldiers, muskets, and alchemy. Here, the war would be fought with guile, deception, and an assassin's dagger flashing in the night.
Kyven studied his notes about Ezram Thatcher for a couple of hours, until Clover came down with the uniform. "Alright, my brother, let's size it," she said. "Put yourself in that ugly shape."
"Hey, that's the real me," Kyven protested as he stood up and willed the change. Again, his body became water, and it flowed from the shape of an Arcan into the shape of a human. The now naked Kyven stepped out from around the desk and held the coat up to his shoulders, checking the size. "Looks close."
"It will be perfect," she scoffed. "Patches! Kyven will need underclothes please!" she shouted.
"I'll bring some down!" she called in reply.
"So ugly," Clover chuckled, looking at him. "You are a very handsome Arcan, my brother. That coloration of yours suits you so well."
"You are unbelievably biased," he accused.
"Of course I am. I'm an Arcan," she smiled at him, looking down. "I'm glad to see that some parts of you are just as . . . impressive, regardless of which shape you wear."
"Stop, you'll make me blush," he said in a bland voice, which made her laugh lightly.
Once Patches delivered the undergarments, Kyven dressed in the uniform with everyone down in his office, to make sure he looked right. Clover was right in that it fit him perfectly, and he cut a rather dashing figure in it, with its blue coat with white epaulets and the single star and stripe on the outside edge that marked him as a Lieutenant. His boots were highly polished and nearly reached his knees, and his weapon belt was notched to accept a pistol holster, sword, and shockrod holster, and he attached the pistol and shockrod to it and checked himself in a full length mirror he kept in the office to practice his illusions. "I'm going to take the sword from Thatcher," he said. "I'm going to take his shockrod and pistol too, but I wanted ones from the armory to make sure it looked right. And it does. Well done, my sister."
"Thank you, my brother," she said with a nod. "I told you, that's a simple affair."
"How are you going to replace him, Kyven?" Tweak asked.
"I'm going to ambush him at his house, just before he leaves," he answered. "The little ass lives by himself about fifteen blocks from here, near the Blue Moon tea shop, his favorite place to try to pick up men to rape. Lightfoot, I think you should go pick the house over tonight after dark. There might be something useful in there, especially his uniforms. At the very least, we can clean him out of anything valuable."
Lightfoot nodded silently.
"I'll disable any alchemical defenses he might have before I leave, so you just have to get past the lock."
"Easy," she said simply. Lightfoot was never one to use two words when only one would do.
"Alright then, I think we're set."
"I do not like this, my brother."
"I'll be fine, because it's the last thing they'll expect. The last time I did this, I buried myself somewhere in the city after they found out and didn't resurface until last night. Odds are, they'll expect me to do it again, because it's crazy to try to go back in there immediately afterward . . . and that's exactly why it'll work. Because it is crazy, and in this instance, crazy works. If I were me, I'd stay far away from them, so they won't be expecting me, even though they're putting up new defenses against me. So, I'll just sneak in while they're not looking for me but looking for me, because it's a crazy thing to do."
Patches giggled, and Tweak gave him a strange look.
"He's analyzing what he thinks they think he will do, Tweak," Clover told him. "And making a very foolish decision based on his assumption of what they think he will do."
"We'll find out in about an hour," he said simply, turning and looking at his back, his head over his shoulder. "Father, that looks weird."
"No tail," Clover chuckled.
"It's the one part of me as an Arcan I never see, why is it so strange that that's the one part of me I think is the strangest not to see?" he complained. "I should think it's strange not to have my muzzle under my eyes, not miss the tail I almost never see."
"I can't deal with your male logic right now, my brother," she smiled at him.
"It's a good thing you used male there, Clover. If you tried to use female, I'd have to accuse of you of speaking in impossibilities."
"Someone doesn't want dinner before he leaves," Patches giggled.
"You wouldn't send me out there without my supper, you fraud. Why, I'd be sneaking up on someone, and my growling stomach would give me away," he challenged, which made her laugh. "Seriously, though, can you make me something, little one?" he asked.
"I can make you a sandwich of cheese and leftover beef from last night, but there's not much else unless you want raw vegetables."
"A sandwich sounds fine, thank you," he nodded to her.
He knew that he'd be unchallenged on the streets of Avannar dressed as a Loreguard officer, and he found just that. The streets were empty of everything but Loreguard patrols, and they didn't challenge a Loreguard officer on a horse, moving as if he had a purpose, his horse galloping towards some certain destination.
In reality, the officer and the horse were an illusion. Kyven, in his Arcan form and with his uniform in a pack on his back, ran on all fours beneath the illusion, running as fast as the illusory horse. There was a certain strange joy and freedom that came with being able to run so fast, the ability to outrun any human, to chase down a horse or a deer. That was a very liberating feeling, like he could race the wind, and it made him feel safe in knowing that no man on foot could ever catch him. Out here, on open ground, he was a free man. His muscles moved with a symphony of harmony that propelled him forward with grace and power, his hands and feet barely touched the cobblestone streets of Avannar, and in a strange way, it almost felt like he was flying.
It seemed that almost before he knew it, he was there. The illusory horse slowed to a stop before a small row house on Coin Way, then, when the officer seemed to nod that he was at the right place, he turned and went around the corner, and then down an alley behind the row of small townhouses. Behind the houses along the alley were a series of gates leading into gardens, and the horse and officer opened a specific gate and trotted into a weedy, unkempt garden. The officer atop the dismounted and tied the horse to a fencepost nearby. Kyven had to separate his illusions then, as he moved away from the illusory horse, having to split them into two separate spells to maintain the horse as he moved to the back door of the house. His eyes were open to the spirits, and he saw no alchemical devices on the door to serve as an alarm or deterrent, which would make it easy for Lightfoot when she came later tonight. He put three small scratches on the door from his claws, a mark telling her where to enter, and then he banged loudly on the door.
Moments later, just before he was going to knock again, the door was yanked open, and an effete-looking man with blond hair was in the doorway. He had his uniform pants on and his white undershirt for the coat. "What?" he demanded hotly, looking insulted.
"New orders from headquarters, sir," Kyven told him, sizing him up. This Ezram Thatcher was about a finger shorter than Kyven in his human form, so that wasn't going to be a problem. Nobody would notice such a small difference in heights. "You need to pack your field gear, sir, you'll be leading a search party checking the horse ranches and outlying farms."
"What? I'm being sent out?" he demanded harshly. "I'm an aide to Colonel Jed Thatcher, I don't do field work!" he said scathingly.
"You can take that up with command, sir. I just do what I'm told, and I was told to deliver these orders and warn you to pack your field gear."
"We'll just see about that!" he snapped. "I'm not being sent out like common rabble! My father will see to that!" he declared, storming back into the house . . . and leaving the door open. Kyven simply stepped inside and closed the door, inwardly smiling. He was almost making this too easy. But when he realized that Ezram was going to use an alchemical talker to contact his father, for he had it in his hands and was turning it on, Kyven had to act. He called forth a zone of silence and dropped it on Ezram Thatcher before he could do anything, which made him freeze in surprise when all sound around him suddenly stopped. He turned to look at Kyven, realization dawning on him that he had to be under attack, and he snatched up the weapon belt on the table to draw his pistol.
He never made it.
The room exploded into darkness as Kyven enacted his shadow powers to fill the room with a cloud of shadow, then he dropped down onto all fours and surged forward, able to see his victim as he seemed to start in surprise, then tore his pistol free of its holster and pointed it wildly, randomly through the room, unable to see, unable to hear, and having no idea where his attacker was. Kyven slithered by him, rose up on his legs behind him, then reached out and touched him with almost surprising gentleness, a single finger on the back of his head. With that touch, Kyven imagined lightning lancing from his finger and into the man's body, and then beckoned to the fox to grant him the power to cast the spell. Ezram Thatcher's body suddenly locked up and shuddered horribly as he was electrocuted by Kyven's spell, and then fell to the floor with eerie silence.
Ezram Thatcher was dead, killed by Shaman magic. And that was why Kyven was so effective as an assassin. His illusions let him get close, his ability to silence and blind his opponents with magic and his shadow powers kept a wary target from stopping him, which would let him get close enough to kill silently with either magic or his natural weaponry.
Of course, now the other part of it came into play, getting rid of the body. Kyven quickly stripped the body, and then took it upstairs and put it in the bed to make it look like he died of natural causes. Were he any other Shaman, he would have had any number of ways to dispose of the corpse, but Kyven didn't have the kind of power needed to shape stone like Clover to cover it over, or decay the body into dust, or change it. All he could really do was burn it, bury it, go throw it in the river, leave it for Lightfoot to get rid of it, or conceal how the man died and make it appear it was something else that killed him.
Once Ezram Thatcher was removed, Kyven moved quickly. He first took on the human shape using his medallion, then he dressed himself in the uniform that Clover had made for him. He then took all the pins, rank, and decorations off Thatcher's uniform and placed them on his own, then took his sword, pistol, shockrod, and a useful little trinket, the communicator that Thatcher was about to use. Kyven had held one once, when he killed the Loreguard on his first trip here, but he'd given it to Coldfoot and they had it in Haven by now, most likely. The one Coldfoot had would let them listen in on announcements to all roving Loreguard patrols in Avannar, but this one, it was an alchemical communication device that probably only worked between father and son. He finished dressing and then checked himself in the mirror in Ezram's bedroom, and found that he would pass inspection.
Kyven attached the sword to his belt, then prepared himself for the second part of the public show. He put on an illusion of Ezram's face, created an illusory duplicate of himself as he went out the back door, then gave a cold look to the illusion of him that filed past him, silently got on the horse, then trotted off. The strain of maintaining three illusions at once, then two illusions with one of them getting further and further away, made his knees a little weak as the illusory horse and rider turned a corner, the clop clop of hooves fading into the distance. He dismissed the illusion of horse and rider and felt much of the strain lift from him, then closed the door and got to work.
First, he had to make sure the house would be safe for Lightfoot. He searched the house first by surveying it with spirit sight, marking the location of every alchemical device in the house, but also seeing that there were two Arcans in the basement, and from the positions they were in, they were being held in tiny cages. He left them where they were for the moment, for clearing the house for Lightfoot was more important than running down there and getting sidetracked. They could wait a few more minutes. They looked healthy, one of them was asleep, and the other was laying in his tiny cage that Kyven couldn't see in a fetal position, his eyes open and a nervous look on his face. Kyven returned to his mission and inspected every alchemical device in the house, making sure that none of them were dangerous. He did have to disable one device in the bedroom that looked to protect a secret door, and when he got it open, he'd rather have not. It was a room that smelled faintly of waste, of stale urine and feces, and there were whips and lashes and rods hanging on the walls. There was a wooden bed in the center of the bare floor, with leather manacles at the four corners, that told him that the man brought victims into this room to torture them.
Not men. Arcans. The bed's upper board showed deep furrows that could only have been made by a canine or feline Arcan's claws, and there were an array of muzzles on the far wall, for every type of snout that Arcans had, be it short mouse snouts or long canine muzzles. The man liked to rape his lovers, but it seemed his other hobby was torturing Arcans. And no doubt, the two Arcans in the basement had been destined for this room.
Once he got that done, he descended into the basement. It was a dark, dank place filled with small cages stacked on top of each other along the wall, stacked three high and fifteen in total, and two of those cells were occupied by Arcans. One was an adolescent male cat Arcan, a calico with a riot of conflicting colors of fur randomly arrayed across his body. The other was a young male raccoon Arcan, and that was the one that was awake. Kyven then did something he'd never done before, he took on the illusion of himself in his Arcan form, and he was sure to allow them to see that his eyes were glowing with green radiance. That was the mark of a Shaman, eyes lit from within with magical light, for that was how their eyes appeared when their eyes were open to the spirits. "Wake up," Kyven called from the stairs.
Both of the young males looked in his direction. The raccoon gasped and shrank back in his tiny cage, but the cat gave him a startled look and grabbed the bars of his cage. Kyven noticed that one of his hands was covered with white fur, the other covered with red fur. "Shaman!" he said with a gasp. "Oh, Shaman! Let us out!"
"I will, but it's important that you remain calm and quiet," Kyven told them as he came down into the basement. "Can you do that for me, young ones?"
The raccoon gaped at him, but the cat was reaching out to him with his red paw. Kyven came up to the raccoon, but the young male just cowered deep in his cage, his eyes fearful. "Calmly, little one," Kyven said in a soothing voice. "I am here to help you." He glanced to the cat. "Is he wild?"
"I don't think so," the cat answered. "I've heard him muttering."
"I'm going to let you out, young one, but it's very, very important that you remain quiet and calm. Can you do that?"
The raccoon gazed at him fearfully, then blinked and nodded.
"Good," Kyven said, unlocking the cage and opening the door. "Let me help you out," he offered, reaching a hand in a little for him. The raccoon took his hand, and Kyven gently pulled the young male out of the cage, holding him under his arms as he put him on the floor. The male was almost starved to death, nothing but fur and bones, and his legs trembled to hold up his weight. "Shh, I'll get you something to eat in just a moment. Then you can sit and rest for a while, alright?"
The raccoon nodded, but he held onto Kyven, clinging to him, as he opened the lower cage and helped the calico crawl out. The calico looked in much better shape, and as soon as he was out, he took Kyven's hands and looked up at him adoringly. "Will you bless me, Shaman?" he asked.
"I'm going to do more than that," Kyven chuckled, pulling the cat close to him and embracing both of them, holding them close. Poor boys, how terrifying it had to have been! But it was the lot of the Arcans. Fate rolled the dice when they stood on the auction block, and these two poor boys had rolled hag's eyes. "My name is Kyven, young ones, and I am a Shaman. I came here to kill your master, but the spirits have also led me to you."
"He's dead?" the raccoon asked timidly.
"He's laying dead up in his room," Kyven answered immediately. "You can go up and see him for yourself, but for now, come upstairs, come up and eat. His food is now your food."
"Are you going to rescue us?"
"That wasn't the original plan, but yes, I'm going to save you," he said as he led them towards the stairs, the cat following behind him as he carried the raccoon in gentle arms. "I came to kill your master so I can take his place and invade the Loremaster headquarters. I can just take you back to my home on the way there and drop you off. How long have you been here?"
"Just a few days," the cat answered.
"I don't know, a long time," the raccoon answered woodenly. "I was next," he whispered. "Next to be taken out and disappear. I don't know where the others went. We didn't know if it was good or bad to be taken, because it's always so quiet here . . . so quiet."
"It's over now, little one, shh," he said gently as they came up into the kitchen. "Find food for both of you while I go finish what I was doing," he ordered of the cat. "Help our brother, he's weak."
"I will, Shaman," he said with adoring eyes as Kyven set the raccoon down in a chair by the small table.
Kyven left them in the kitchen to finish his sweep of the house, and he found nothing else that required his attention. He did go up and close the secret door in case the raccoon came up here, so as not to upset him with what might have happened to him. From what Kyven could deduce, the man starved the Arcans to weaken them, then dragged them up into his torture room and tormented them until they died. Then he'd just sell off the body to a butcher and bring up another one when the mood to be cruel hit him.
Kyven knew what it felt like to be starved, and he shuddered at the memory of it. His compassion for the raccoon was quite deep. That had been him, once. Starved nearly to death, and for nothing but the twisted amusement of a sadistic monster. But he'd killed his tormentor, killed Arthur Ledwell to save his wife from his murderous rage, and then that bitch paid him back by trying to sell him in the Blue Ring of Alamar. He guessed he got his revenge on the bitch too, since he'd escaped.
He returned to the kitchen to find the cat literally feeding the raccoon by hand, feeding him slices of bread cut from a dark loaf sitting on the table, which the raccoon ate slowly. Kyven nodded when he saw them and went over to the back door and made sure it was locked, then came up to them. "I'm going to use magic to take on the appearance of Thatcher, the man who bought you," he warned the young males. "So don't be afraid. It's not him, it's me in disguise. Understand?" he asked. When the two of the nodded, he dismissed his illusion of himself and again took on the illusory face of Ezram Thatcher. The raccoon seemed to stare at him in fear for a moment, which Kyven felt needed to be addressed, or the poor boy would never feel peace. "Come with me, young one. Let me show you your former owner's corpse, so you can know that he'll never hurt you again."
The raccoon allowed Kyven to pick him up, and Kyven carried him upstairs as he cradled a piece of bread and gnawed on it weakly. He brought him to the door and slipped in, and turned so the raccoon could see the naked corpse splayed out on the bed. "There he is, young one. Dead. He'll never hurt you again."
It didn't surprise him too much when the young raccoon began to cry. Kyven cuddled him and held him close, tucking his head under his chin and comforting him as he cried out his relief, rocking him gently back and forth as he held the weakened young male. "Shh, it's alright, my young one. You're safe now. I'm going to make sure that you'll be cared for. Do you have a name?"
He sniffled. "My mother used to call me Smoke, because of the color of my fur."
"It's good to meet you, Smoke. Do you want to go back to the kitchen now?"
"May I?"
"Of course," he said in a gentle voice, and he carried the young male back down the stairs.
Kyven let the two boys eat for about ten minutes, as he rifled through the first floor, then he went back up and grabbed some of the clothes from the dead man's room and a blanket. After the two had finished the bread and had some water, he handed a pair of breeches and a belt to the cat. "What's your name?" he asked.
"I've never really had one, Shaman," he answered. "My last owners just called me cat."
"Well, you'll have to think of one," Kyven told him as he put the blanket around the shoulders of the raccoon. "Fur like that would beg for me to call you Patches, but then my Patches wouldn't appreciate that," he chuckled. "So don't name yourself that."
"Well, I think the spirits have smiled on me to send you to save me, so I think that makes me very lucky. So that's my name. Lucky."
"Lucky it is," Kyven nodded as he finished settling the blanket over the raccoon. "Let me explain how we're getting out of here," he began as Lucky tore a hole in the back of the pants with his claw, the pulled them on, having to belt them in place because he was thinner than Thatcher. He knelt down and started rolling the cuffs of the pants so they didn't drag the ground. "I'm going to take you back to my house, and to do that, I have to use magic that hides us from the Loreguard. While we're walking, it's absolutely imperative that you remain absolutely silent and never let go of me, Lucky. Do you understand? You have to grab hold of me and not let go, no matter what."
"I can just hold your tail."
"Actually, you can't, part of this magic makes my tail impossible to touch," he said, motioning at himself. "I'm going to be carrying Smoke, so you need to grab hold of me somewhere and not let go."
"Okay."
"Alright then, are you ready to go?" he asked, and both of them nodded. He picked up Smoke and settled him into his arms, then Lucky grabbed hold of his belt.
"Is this good?" he asked.
"That's fine. Just don't let go, no matter what happens."
"I won't."
"Alright, from here out, both of you must be very quiet," he instructed. "And no matter what happens, make no sound and don't let go of me, even if we're stopped by the Loreguard. Let me handle it. Do you understand?"
Both of them nodded silently.
"Alright then, let's go," he said calmly.
It was very easy. Kyven covered all three of them with a single illusion of Ezram Thatcher walking along the streets, swaggering on his way confidently, as if he owned the whole city. Lucky kept a death-grip on the back of his belt, and Smoke stayed huddled in the blanket Kyven had put around him, allowing Kyven to carry him. Kyven moved straight towards his house, and thankfully, they encountered no patrols of Loreguard on the empty streets, which let him bring the two young males, both of them probably around three or four, just barely past puberty, all the way back to his shop. He took them around to the alley and padded up to the alley door, then knocked on it in a specific pattern that those within would identify. Tweak opened the door for him, and gaped a moment at him before looking at him curiously.
"Move, Tweak," Kyven ordered in his own voice.
The ferret laughed lightly and backed up, then let him in. As soon as the ferret closed the door, he dismissed the illusion, which revealed his two companions. "Woah!" Tweak exclaimed. "Who are they, Kyven?"
"The Loreguard owned them," he answered, bringing them into the shop. "Clover! Patches! Lightfoot!" he barked, carrying Smoke into the main shop. The three females hurried to the main shop room at his call, and they all looked curiously at him as he set Smoke down in a chair. "This is Smoke, and that's Lucky," Kyven introduced. "The Thatcher boy had them locked in cages in his basement, and I couldn't leave them. Clover, Smoke has been starved," he said simply.
"I'll take care of it, my brother," she said with a nod, coming up and putting her hand on Smoke's shoulder. "I am Clover, my young one. I am a Shaman, and I will take care of you."
"Another Shaman!" Lucky gasped, rushing up and taking hold of her forearm. "Will you bless me, Shaman?"
"Of course I will," she smiled, putting her hand on his shoulder and giving him the ritual blessing of the Shaman, which made him quiver in delight. "Patches, our young friend here needs food. Whatever meat we have left."
"We have a little, but not much. I'll get it," she nodded, and hurried to the kitchen.
"I cleared his house of any nasty surprises, Lightfoot, you can get in through the back door," he told the cat. "It has nothing but a lock."
She nodded silently.
"Are you a Shaman too?" Lucky asked Lightfoot enthusiastically, which she answered with a shake of her head.
"No, Lucky, she is my thief," Kyven said, giving her a smile. "Nothing is safe from her."
"Especially you," she answered, which made him chuckle.
"Patches and Tweak work here in the house, helping us stay hidden," he added. "Together, we do our work."
"You will stay with us for a little while to recover from your ordeal, and when you are recovered, we will send you on to a place where there are no humans," Clover told them with a gentle smile.
"There is no such place," Smoke said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.
"Yes there is, young one, far from here," Kyven told him. "But I'll let Clover explain it to you while she gets you more to eat. I'll be back sometime after dark, Clover."
"I wish you would not do this, my brother. It is too dangerous," she objected.
"I'll be fine, I promise," he told her, leaning in and kissing her on the nose. "Be careful out there, Lightfoot."
She nodded calmly to him.
Kyven's bold plan to just march up to the guards at the bridge and bluff his way past actually worked.
There were fifteen guards there, and when Kyven approached and railed at them in Ezram Thatcher's voice, being as annoying and insufferable as possible, he clearly must have convinced them that he was the real deal, for they allowed him to pass after inspecting him with a magic sniffer. The sniffer found no magic about him, which was a gift from the medallion, for it hid both its own magic and the magic of his illusion, making him appear to be completely normal. After that, he waltzed over the bridge and into a very busy grounds, where guards, Loremasters, and workers were milling around all over the place. Kyven marched down the gravel path and towards the building, passing Loremasters in deep discussion, Loreguard supervising workers who were cleaning up, and men and women carrying beams, boards, rugs, and panes of glass. They must have cleaned up most of the fire damage on the sixth floor, and were now rebuilding. Kyven simply attached himself to one of those gangs of workers and walked right in with them, acting like he was supervising them. The guards at the front doors looked a little surprised to see him herding a group of workers, but they did not challenge him, letting him in without comment.
It worked.
Kyven continued to play the deception as the workers filed up the nearest set of stairs, moving just close enough to seem that he was with them but not so close that they took notice. When they went past the third floor, however, Kyven slowed down and let them get a lead on him, and he approached the guards on the fourth floor. He gave them both a challenging stair as he squared off, clearly intending to move onto their floor, and his eyes arrogantly dared them to say a word. They saluted him sharply, and he came up to them. "Anything unusual?" he demanded.
"No sir!" one of them answered.
"Good. Carry on," he said, stalking past them and turning right, as if going to the right side stairs to check in with the guards at that station. He passed by the right stair guards without a word, just returning their salute, then came to the far side and did the same with the far side stair guards. He came back down the center hallway, going towards the door he knew, the Department of Arcan Control. He reached it and opened the door, and again found himself in the large cluttered office he had visited some days ago, on his very first visit to the headquarters. There were only two people in the office, sitting a desks on the far side, quills scratching as they wrote reports. "You there," Kyven said as he closed the door, looking at the two tired-looking men. "Where is the rest of your department? Surely you two aren't the only ones on duty!"
"They pulled my workers to supervise the construction efforts on the sixth floor," the balding middle-aged man said with a sour grunt. "What did you need, Lieutenant?"
"You just gave me what I need," Kyven answered, and without another word, he struck. He raised a hand and pictured in his mind the withering blast of cold striking at an angle that would kill both men but not hit their desks, hitting them only from the neck up. He beckoned to the fox for the power to grant the spell, and she responded. A pale blue beam of light erupted from his hand, and it struck the two men and the wall behind them. Their heads became rimed in frost, as did the wall, killing them instantly. They slumped to their desks, the balding man's head cracking in two like a piece of glass, showing the frozen interior of his head.
He moved fast. He grabbed a satchel from the floor beside the desk of the balding man, then started quickly grabbing up reports. He cleared out the balding man's desk, then the other man's desk, then he ran over to a cabinet and quickly searched it. He found where they were filing their reports, and he gathered up the most recent and worked his way backwards and stuffed them into the satchel, stuffing it almost to overflowing. He realized that he needed more storage space, so he ransacked the office for something he could use, and came up with a small bag that looked to be used for carrying a lunch, then piled even more papers into it. He filled that too, and decided that he both had enough and also was out of time. Both sets of guards had seen him come into the office, so someone had to leave the office, and very soon. Kyven kept the balding man's face firmly in mind and ready to take an illusion of him at any time, then hid the satchel and the small lunch bag by shouldering the satchel and tying the bag to it, then covering them over with an illusion that they weren't there, like he was leaving the office exactly as he appeared when he entered it.
He stepped out of the office and marched immediately towards the far stair guards, and they saluted him when he reached them. "Anything unusual?" he asked.
"Nothing, sir," one of them answered.
"Very good. Carry on," he said imperiously, then walked past them and down the stairs. He returned to the ground floor, and instead of heading towards the door leading to the front, he instead left through the back door, which brought him out behind the building and near the Loreguard barracks. He knew that right now, getting out was imperative, for the faster he did this, the less chance he had of being discovered. However, the tricky part now was getting out, which would require a little help. He couldn't just walk out the way he'd come in else he'd be challenged, and no amount of bluster would get him past those guards without them finding out why someone who'd just come on duty was leaving after little more than an hour. To get out, he needed to attach himself to a Loreguard patrol that was leaving the island. That, or he waited for about half an hour, for the sun was already very low on the western horizon, and soon it would be dark enough for him to attempt to slip past.
As a wagon ambled away, he realized that that was his way out. That wagon was heading towards the bridge, and was clearly going out to pick up more supplies to rebuild the sixth floor. He glanced around to make sure nobody was really paying much attention, then he hurried over to it. He stopped the wagon with a sharp call, putting an annoyed look on the driver and his assistant, two rough-looking men, the driver tall and wide and with a bristling black beard, and the assistant tall and lanky and with a trimmed blond beard. "I will inspect your wagon before you leave, to make sure no contraband is leaving!" Kyven announced arrogantly.
"Contraband? The wagon's empty, you jackass!" the black-bearded man declared with a hot look.
"Then this will take but a moment, won't it?" Kyven retorted. "Just hold until I'm done!"
Kyven carefully put a foot onto the wagon and pulled himself up, but doing so with a very light and gentle manner that put his weight onto the wagon very gently and prevented it from rocking or dipping, which would have warned the two men, who were pointedly not looking at him, that he was on the wagon. He stepped over the back gate and knelt down, then, after looking around quickly to make sure nobody was paying attention to them, he knelt down as if to look at something, then created a new illusion of himself that leaned back up. That illusion then split from him as he summoned forth a shadow, spread it through the existing shadow and also around himself, and then melded to it, creating a slightly darker shadow than what would be normal on the shadowed side of the wagon, something that wouldn't be obviously noticeable. Kyven hunkered down as his illusion of himself got down and moved over to the assistant's side of the wagon, and waved them on. "Be about your business," the illusion called as if disappointed.
"Oh, we will, you jackass," the driver growled. "And this'll be the last job I take for the Loremasters. It's always more trouble than it's worth coming here!" The driver snapped the reins, and his two horses started out, leaving the illusion behind. Kyven glanced up and saw where the illusion was, then literally laid down in the wagon, against the side, staying in the shadow cast by the wagon's side as he had his illusion start walking towards the shore. He kept just his eyes over the top of the wagon, watching his illusion as the wagon left it, and he had it walk towards the wagon so as not to let it get too far away from him too quickly and thus make it much harder to maintain. The illusion did get further away as the wagon pulled away from it, making Kyven strain to hold it and keep himself hidden in shadow at the same time. He looked around as his breath threatened to start coming quickly, seeing if anyone seemed to be looking at the illusion, and when it seemed to him that nobody was, he released it and let it waver and vanish. He tensed, waiting for a shout of alarm, but none came. Nobody had been paying attention to the illusion, and thus nobody seemed to immediately notice that it vanished.
The wagon was stopped on the bridge, as he knew it would be, and he saw two guards look into the back to make sure it was empty. Both of them looked right at him, but saw only shadow, and their eyes did not pick up that the shadow was perhaps a little deeper than it should have been, maybe just the tiniest bit darker. They looked out as the driver complained about being stopped, which made the Loreguard officer on the bridge chuckle. "Sometimes Lieutenants get a little too full of themselves," he said. "I should know, I'm a Lieutenant as well."
The driver laughed with him. "Well, you ain't no ass like that other one," he said. "Fuckin' little jackass. I'd love to meet him out on the streets some dark night."
"What did he look like?"
"Snotty bastard with blond hair and a look like he owns the island," the driver answered.
"Straight nose? Brown eyes? A little mole over his left eye?" the officer asked, and when the rider nodded, he chuckled. "That's Thatcher. Jackass describes him fairly well."
"Well, you guys should beat the shit out of him," the driver grated.
"Some of us would love to do just that," the officer laughed. "About when do you think you'll be back?"
"Won't be gone long," he promised. "The lumber's all stacked and waiting to be picked up."
The wagon started up again, and unwittingly carried Kyven out of danger.
He rode with it for about a block, then very carefully and very gently rose up, still shrouded in shadow and melded into it, then silently crept to the back of the wagon, stepped over the gate, and then stepped off of it. The wagon rocked slightly with the loss of his weight, but neither the driver or the passenger seemed to notice, probably attributing the rocking to the cobblestones. Kyven moved to the side, stepped into an alley, and after using spirit sight to ensure that no one was lurking near and able to see him, he took on the illusion of a large boarhound. A common dog was something that the roving patrols of Loreguard would not challenge without good reason, because it's just a dog. He unshrouded himself from his shadow and walked down the alley to the other side, then stepped out onto Hammer Street, just as alarms rang on the island.
They had discovered his handiwork.
Now it was important to get home. Keeping his eyes open to the spirits so he could see through buildings, he ran at a fairly fast clip, yet feeling very slow since he was in his human form, as the dog illusion that hid him trotted along at a fair speed. Kyven saw a roving patrol around a corner, about to come onto his street, so he angled quickly into a shop doorway and had his illusion lay down, looking for all the world like a dog waiting to get back inside. The roving patrol stopped in the intersection as the Sergeant in command of the four men listened to his communicator, then he barked a command to his men and the four of them ran towards the Loremaster headquarters, running right past him without giving him a single glance. He had his illusion stand up, and then it padded out of the doorway as Kyven trotted to the intersection, turned the way they'd come, and broke out into a ground-eating run that the illusion took at an easy lope. He dodged another patrol by ducking into an alley and dismissing it as he melded to the deepening shadows of the alley, vanishing from sight completely, but the patrol wasn't really looking for him. They too were moving at a trotting run towards the Loremaster headquarters, and Kyven realized they were taking up positions to stop someone from leaving the island, occupying critical streets and intersections.
His choice of a dog rather than a Loreguard or Loremaster had been a wise choice, he realized. They would have challenged any human they saw, but they wouldn't care about a dog.
He slipped out of the alley after restoring his canine illusion and loped down Sun Street, and then turned a corner, went one block, and slipped into the alley behind his shop. He vanished into shadow once more and dismissed his illusion when he scanned the buildings around to ensure nobody was looking into the alley, then rapped in that specific sequence on the back door of the shop to tell them to let him in. Clover was the one to come to the door, looking through it with spirit sight, and when she saw nothing on the other side, she opened it. Not even spirit sight could penetrate his cloak of shadows. Kyven slipped in around her, and when he patted her on the side, she closed the door and barred it.
"I'm home," he said, returning to visibility. "That was quick and easy."
"So it worked?"
"Well enough," he answered, handing her the satchel and bag. "I cleaned out the Department of Arcan Control," he winked. "I took everything I could carry."
"Was there any trouble?"
He shook his head as they went back into the main shop. "I think your owl spirit was watching over me, though I never saw it. Nobody challenged me. They all took my lies for the truth without question."
"No, the owl would not protect you on their island," she said. "You were just that convincing. But I still say that was too dangerous, my brother."
"I knew it would be, Clover, but it was worth the risk," he said, looking around. "Where are the boys?"
"Upstairs resting," she answered. "Patches and Tweak are keeping them company. Lightfoot is in the kitchen."
"Good," he said, sitting down and leaning over to take off his boot. "Your uniform was perfect, my sister," he complemented her. "After I took Thatcher's jacket decorations and weapon belt, you couldn't tell your uniform from a real one."
"I told you it would work," she told him. "But that does not change the fact that you should not have done that!"
"I can't do my job without taking risks, Clover," he said mildly as he took off the other boot. "I knew the security on the island itself would be weak because of all the confusion with them rebuilding after the fire, and I was right. I was able to walk around without attracting any attention, and they'd stripped the clerks out of the department to work on the sixth floor, leaving only two functionaries in the office, so they were easy to kill without making a sound. But I know I won't be able to do it again. They already know I was there, I heard the alarms when I was well off the island. They never expected me to be crazy enough to come back the very next day, and they paid for it. But I know that they'll tighten security severely now, maybe even put magic sniffers everywhere to try to catch me using Shaman magic, since I used magic to kill the two clerks in the office. They're not stupid, and I know they're not. I exploited an assumption this time, and they won't make that assumption again. The next time I go, no matter when that is or what I did beforehand, they'll be waiting for me." He stood and took off the jacket, handing it to Clover, then the shirt, then he pushed off the trousers, leaving him in nothing but braes. He pushed those down and off as well, then enacted the power of his medallion. He again felt his body become cold and liquid, and it flowed back into his Arcan shape. He dropped to all fours and shook himself vigorously to get rid of that feeling, sneezed, then rose back up onto his feet. "I hate that feeling," he said, flexing his fingers to work out the last of that cold, watery feeling.
"Much better," Clover said, looking at him with open admiration.
"Down, girl, we have work to do," he chided with a toothy grin. "Let me go up and visit the two boys, then we'll skulk off to our underground lair and go through these papers and find out exactly what the Loremasters know about what we're doing."
The calico brightened when Kyven came into the room that the Arcans shared upstairs. Lucky was sitting by the bed where Tweak slept most often, sitting with Smoke, who was resting with the covers pulled up and around him. The raccoon was sleeping peacefully, and Patches was putting clean sheets down on one of the other beds. Tweak was helping her, and a look up showed him that Lightfoot was in the attic, waiting for it to get dark enough to go out. Kyven had no worries at all about letting Lightfoot go out with all the soldiers on the streets. They'd never see her. "Did you have a good meal, Lucky?" he asked, letting the young cat give him a hug, patting him on the back.
"Yes, I'm full!" he said happily. "Will you bless me, Shaman?"
Kyven smiled and gave him the ritual blessing, which made him smile beatifically. "How is Smoke?"
"Sleeping after eating all he wanted," Lucky answered.
"How is he, sister?" he asked Clover, who came in behind him.
"He will need several days to recover, but he will recover," she answered.
"That's good," Kyven sighed in relief, patting Lucky's shoulder. "It looks like you'll be stuck with us for a little while, young one," he said. "I hope you don't mind."
"No!" he said happily. "My mother used to tell me about the Shaman, but I never thought I'd meet one! What kind of Arcan are you, Shaman?"
Kyven chuckled. "One of only two, young one," he answered. "My breed is the rarest of them all." He leaned over Smoke and saw that the gray raccoon was breathing steadily, his thin, emaciated face peaceful. Kyven didn't wake him, was just content that he looked better, not as afraid. "Now I have work to do, young one, I just wanted to make sure you're alright."
"I'm fine," he said with a nod.
Kyven patted him on the shoulder. "Alright then, get some rest, and obey the others. There are things about this house that can be dangerous, so listen to them. They know."
"I will," he promised.
Kyven and Clover left the two boys with Patches and Tweak, padding downstairs. "Young, aren't they?"
"About three, both of them," Clover answered. "In their first stage of maturity. What you would call a teenager," she told him as they went through the main shop and to the stairs leading to the cellar.
"I can't imagine growing that fast," Kyven grunted. "It must be painful."
"Not at all," she answered as they both opened their eyes to the spirits as they came down into the dark cellar. "I grew from the size of a human toddler to the size of a human teen in about two years," she told him. "I was very clumsy during that time because I was constantly growing, as are we all, but there's little pain."
"You must have eaten like crazy."
"A child eats about the same as an adult. In that respect, it's easy to portion meals for us," she chuckled. They entered the office, and he saw that she'd already placed the satchel and bag on the desk. She shut the door and padded up to the desk, and as Kyven leaned down to start taking out the papers, he yelped when Clover smacked him on the backside, under his upraised tail, and she was not gentle.
"Ow! What the hell was that for?" he demanded, whirling to face her.
"For being foolish with your life," she answered in a serious voice. "This was a dangerous thing to do!" she accused, pointing at the papers. "They are alert and wary, my brother! It was just blind luck that you got away with it this time!"
"I know, that's why I won't do it again, because the opportunity is gone," he said mildly. "I told you, Clover, the circumstances were uniquely favorable for another invasion. But now that they saw me slip through in their moment of confusion, they won't give me another chance. I took a risk because I saw it as a worthwhile risk. The fact that I was proven right doesn't lower the risk that I took, and I know it. I'm sorry if I frightened you, my sister, but I felt it had to be done. But for what it's worth, thank you for trusting me enough to let me do it."
She looked up at him, then wordlessly embraced him. "I trust you to keep yourself alive, even if you are the one that placed yourself in danger to begin with."
"Always have to get in the last word," he chuckled, patting her on the back.
"You are my brother Shaman, but you are also one of my best friends, Kyven. I would hate to lose you to your own overconfidence."
"Ah, but I was following the path of wisdom, my sister," he told her lightly. "It told me that I had an opportunity that I couldn't pass up."
"I'm starting to forgive you. You are backsliding," she said, swatting him lightly on his rump.
"Always," he chuckled. "Now let's see what the Loremasters know, and hope that I killed the only man who knows what's on these papers."
"They will know we think they are close," she said.
"Yes, but without solid information, they won't know what or why," he answered. "They'll lose valuable time trying to reconstitute all this information, and that'll give us time to move our routes and get more Arcans out of the east."
"True."
They sat down at the desk and carefully searched through the information, paper by paper. Most of it was reports, a detailed analysis of what the Masked was doing, and much of it was right. They'd correctly identified over half of the agents of the Masked doing the buying, and had deduced that the Arcans were being moved out of populated lands. But they didn't know why it was being done, they could only speculate. They were waiting for more information before making that guess, according to the report Kyven had all but taken off the desk of the dead Loremaster while he was writing it. The Loremaster writing the report was convinced that the Masked or the Shaman were somehow involved, and the frankness of the report said much about what the Loremasters knew as the truth. "We cannot let it become common knowledge that the Shaman are intelligent and organized," the report noted. "If the Shaman are indeed involved in this, if this is not some move by a power broker to starve the market of Arcans to inflate prices, then we must be ready with a cover story to explain what's going on, because this can't be hidden by any conventional method. If we don't know what's going on, we need to make sure that we can convince the people that we do with a plausible explanation. To do less would cause us to lose respect among the commoners."
It seemed that the Department of Arcan Control served more than one purpose, they discovered. It was responsible for the oversight of the Arcan slaving operations and laws concerning Arcans, primarily ensuring that they remained enslaved and preventing people from treating with any dignity, but they also worked to try to find Shaman. That was basically an impossible job, but they at least tried, for many of the reports in the papers he stole were reports of suspected Shaman activity, descriptions of possible Shaman, and, rather chillingly, lists of Arcans killed because they were suspected Shaman. They were even trying to trace the bloodlines of those Arcans to inspect their parents or siblings. They were very serious about it, though Clover told him that the Loremasters had never actually captured a Shaman, but they'd come close a few times, and had killed several. But Shaman were hard to capture, and even harder to find . . . but unfortunately, not quite so difficult to kill. The Shaman who had died to the Loremasters had died because they had been protecting others, or died trying to escape when they were discovered. But the reluctance of the Shaman to fight was not misconstrued by the Loremasters. They didn't see this aversion to fighting as weakness, they saw it as Shaman buying time for others to erase all tracks and bury why the Shaman was there. They knew this because when they did discover a Shaman, they never found anything else, and Shaman couldn't just walk around. They were Arcans, they required humans to help hide them when operating in Noraam. This was how they knew the Shaman were part of an organized system that was sophisticated enough to vanish whenever it was uncovered. The reports correctly linked the Shaman with the Masked, but they didn't know about Haven or the Arcan organization that existed to the west. Their intelligence stated that the Shaman served the Masked, because the Shaman by themselves may be intelligent, but lacked the sophistication to set up a large and effective organization. The Loremasters believed that the Shaman were the instruments of the Masked, working for the same goal of freeing the Arcans from slavery, which violated the Loremasters' concept of the natural order of the world, both religiously and politically.
The Loremasters knew that some Arcans were intelligent. They knew they were enslaving sentient beings, but they didn't care. The reports noted that more and more Arcans were showing more and more intelligence, that some were as smart as humans, but that was an unfavorable trait they felt they could correct through breeding . . . and culling. They found plans in those papers, plans dealing with the crystal shortage, to begin the culling with the intelligent Arcans first, then to ensure that intelligent Arcans weren't bred together thereafter. They didn't want their race of slaves to be intelligent, to think, because they felt that the rise of the thinking Arcan was one reason why the Shaman came to be.
Their theory behind the Shaman was that because the Arcans were created using alchemy, they were naturally attuned to alchemical power. They felt that it was a natural trait, like intelligence, that could intensify through breeding, and that the breeding of alchemically suitable Arcans produced Shaman. Clover admitted that there was a little to their idea, for the children of Shaman had a much better chance of being Shaman themselves. It wasn't a guarantee, but they did have a better chance.
The reports did confirm one of his suspicions. They wanted to capture him if they could, rather than kill him . . . or any Shaman, for that matter. They knew that because one of the reports was sent to them dated yesterday by the Circle itself, seeing if there was any record of the strange powers the invader had, seemingly able to turn invisible, and what suggestions they might have to trap the Shaman the next time he entered the building. They wanted a live Shaman both to study and to interrogate, to help them track down and kill the other Shaman and expose the Masked. Little did they understand that they'd never accomplish that goal. A Shaman who was captured in that manner only needed a moment of clarity to beg a spirit to kill them, and thus deny the Loremasters their prize. That was why they'd never captured a Shaman, because a Shaman would never allow himself to be captured. In that respect, Kyven shared the Shaman way with his brothers and sisters. If he knew he had no way out, he would kill himself to deny the Loremasters any chance to learn anything from him.
All in all, the information he gathered had been useful, and worth the risk. Now they knew that the Loremasters hadn't yet discovered the truth.
Patches brought them something to eat as they neared the bottom of the pile, putting plates of boiled corn ears in front of them. "No meat," she sighed, looking at the ear.
"I gave it all to Smoke, like you wanted, Clover," she answered, a little defensively.
"I know, little one," she chuckled. "This is no meal for a proper carnivore."
"Coyotes eat anything," Kyven teased.
"You're looking rather tasty, my brother," she countered with a toothy smile. "And I know you won't put up much of a fight."
"Try me," Kyven smiled, showing his fangs and holding up his clawed hand for her inspection.
"Wait. Why fight each other, when there's this small morsel right here?" she asked, turning her gaze to Patches.
Patches gave her a startled look, then laughed nervously. "If you eat me, you won't have anyone to cook for you," she warned. But her eyes went wide when Clover turned more fully in her direction, and licked her chops. "Clover, stop playing. Clover? Clover!" she said in sudden worry as the coyote came around the table, then she gasped and turned to flee when Clover lunged at her. But her squeal turned to laughter when Clover grabbed her around the middle and picked her up off her feet and turned her towards Kyven. "I've caught our prey, brother, now let's feast!"
Patches laughed uncontrollably as Clover dragged her over to the table, and Kyven licked her hard on her nose. "I get the dark meat," he told Clover.
"So long as I get her liver, agreed."
"Okay, hold her still, let's divy her up," Kyven told her, putting a claw to her belly, which made her tense up. But when he started tickling her, she broke into uncontrollable laughter, but unable to get away because Clover was holding onto her. Kyven tickled her mercilessly for several moments, then collected her up from Clover and gave her a warm hug, holding her feet off the floor. "Thanks for the food, little one," he told her, licking her cheek fondly.
"It was nothing," she told him, nuzzling his cheek. "Now put me down, I have to clean the kitchen after cooking, and you need to eat before it gets cold."
Kyven laughed and set her down. "We'll be up in a while," he told her.
"Bring the dish up when you do," she ordered as she scurried for the door and closed it behind her, and they heard her close the shelf over the door to hide the secret room.
"She is such a treasure," Clover chuckled.
"I'm just glad she's happy," he said. "But you have to promise me one thing."
"What?"
"When I ask it, you take her and Tweak and leave," he told her as he sat back down. "I don't want her put in any unnecessary danger. When I think it's getting too hot here, I want you to take her back."
Clover gave him a long look, then nodded and sat back down. "Let's eat this totally unsuitable meal and finish our task, and in the morning we'll see what Lightfoot brings us from our departed officer's home."
"I just wonder if the Loremasters are tearing their hair out yet trying to figure out how the hell I got in right under their noses."
"Let's leave that alone," she said, a bit frostily, then chuckled. "Screaming in frustration, most likely."
"I hope so."