Penny

Maverick Malediction

Calliope let out a deep breath as Neil lowered her onto a lumpy goose down mattress. The room wasn’t palatial but it was large and relatively clean, with walls of handsomely grained dark wood and windows of thick lead paned glace. Neil let out a similar sigh though his was one of relief, he was a strong man, but even a strong man would be aching after carrying another person for several miles. The woman to whom Calliope had given the coins, Yiga, appeared at the door, her face professionally pleasant though probably masking some amount of avarice and concern.

“Az dar anything ee can get you?” she asked in halting common. Neil turned to Calliope and arched any eyebrow.

“Soup if you have it,” she responded, then repeated the words in the woman’s own language.



“And beer!” she shouted at her back, or tried to shout, it came out as more of a croak. There was a scuffled outside and three bearded men pushed past Yiga and into the door. All were muscular and none smelled too clean. One of them shouted in his own language and pointed at Calliope, veins bulging in his neck.

“I don’t understand,” Calliope lied, touching the back of Neil’s wrist to forestall him from drawing the knife he was easing out of his belt behind his back.



“He says you are Necromancer, with the Black Horde,” the leader of the group growled. “This means death!”

“Necromancer?” Calliope asked in feigned shock. “I can assure you I am no necromancer.”

“She must be tested, and burned before she can bewitch us,” the so far silent man snarled.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

“Well it only seems fair that you give me odds, seeing you are a big bad Inquisitor and this is my first day at the range,” I suggested. Hadrian considered it.

“You want odds on a bet we haven’t set yet?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Five to one,” I suggested. He snickered.

“What if it it something that doesn't scale?” he asked. I made a show of thinking it over.

“Ten to one,” I countered. He laughed and threw up his hands. “Fine ten to one. What weapon did you want to use.” I picked up a Magistratum riot gun and hefted it, feeling the weight of its black polymer steel barrel.

“Thats a shotgun, you can hardly miss with one at twenty five meters,” he pointed out. I grinned impishly.

“ Got to make the odds work for me,” I suggested. Hadrian stared at me for a minute and then rolled his eyes.

“Fine, you go first,” he suggested. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I sighted down the barrel towards the dummy, pulling the weapon in tight as I had been shown with the autogun. I breathed in, breathed out, breathed halfway in and made the iron teeth of the sight line up and then pulled the trigger. The blast of it slammed me in the shoulder and dropped me on my rump on the deck. I managed to hang onto the gun and keep my fingers off the trigger but my shoulder throbbed in protest. The dummy lit up were a half dozen of the pellets had peppered its flesh.



“Well that is one to me,” I muttered, levering myself up and massaging my shoulder.

WoT: The Dark One's Own Luck.

Lysabel smiled at Markus. It was a considered, practiced smile. Every initiate who gained the Shawl had long since come to appreciate the value of Aes Sedai mystique. She sat a fine gray mare of the stock Jaramide was famous for. Even laden down as it was with saddle bags and packs it all but frisked with energy and enthusiasm. Lysabel was dressed for travel in a white riding gown and wore a waterproof cloak of fine gray leather. The prince had been dismayed when she informed him that she was leaving and more dismayed when she had been evasive on her reasons, citing only unspecified Aes Sedai business. She wasn’t entirely sure why she hadn’t been forthcoming with him, perhaps because the reasons for her own interest seemed tenuous or perhaps it was because the Prince himself seemed in a mood. The campaign against the bandits in the south promised to draw the public’s interest away from his voyage for a time, though he assured her it would be over quickly once real soldiers got involved. Fortunately he had been more than willing to provide her with a fine horse and the service of one of his Outriders, especially if it meant her returning quickly to continue her work on navigation. The rationale behind the particular outrider she had picked was a little more convoluted. Markus had already ridden over the terrain they would need to cover, had survived where others had perished, and had been clever enough to find the arm, recognise it for what it was and bring it to her. Privately she had to admit that requesting him also gave her a certain amount of satisfaction as a repayment for his brusque if not exactly rude behavior.



“Unfortunately, he is already heading south,” Lysabel admitted. She had tried to prevail upon the ogier to join them but he had already been long away from the Stedding and was eager to be home. Lysabel suspected that having a severed trolloc arm dropped on the table during tea had not improved her odds of convincing him either.



“He did draw this for us,” she explained, producing a parchment map. It was in the ogier script, though it had several large towns marked in charcoal with their common names printed beneath them.

“It should get us close to the waygate, I am hopeful that the locals will be familiar with these white hills he told us about.” She handed him the map.

“I will rely on your local knowledge to find us the most efficacious route,” she told him, “If there are any supplies we need, we can pick them up before we leave.”

@POOHEAD189

WoT: The Dark One's Own Luck.

It had not occurred to Lysabel that Markus might react in such a way to an ogier. That was foolish of course, even in Tar Valon the builders were rare. Most of the ogier built cities dated to shortly after the Breaking, and only in Tar Valon did they visit regularly maintaining the Tower and the city at the behest of the Aes Sedai. Lysabel didn’t mind being wrong, but she despised being foolish.



“Let us take tea Master Kadal,” Lysabel suggested and the ogier nodded, taking a seat on one of the divans. The furniture creaked beneath the ogier in protest and the overall effect was somewhat ridiculous, like an adult taking a seat on a child’s toy.



“You honor me Aes Sedai,” Kadal rumbled, “I had heard you were in the city and you had been given the run of the Library.” Further discussion was interrupted by a pair of serving girls entering carrying trays on which steaming pots of Tremalking black, cubes of sugar and pots of milk. One of the cups on the tray was very large, sized for the ogier, and it would take most of a pot just to fill it. At least the shock of actually meeting an ogier seemed to have stopped Markus’ carping for a time. Lysabel waved the servants away and poured the tea herself before the ogier could attempt the task. She added a little sugar and milk to hers and poured some for Markus which she left black.



“I’m afraid I have a matter I need to discuss with you Master Kadal,” Lysabel told the ogier as she sipped at her tea.

“I assumed as much,” the ogier rumbled, his big shovel like teeth baring in a smile. “I am not so interesting a conversationalist that Aes Sedai and great warriors seek me out.”



“Outrider, if you would,” Lysabel prompted, making a gesture to the Borderlander. Markus hesitated for only a moment before setting the severed limb on the table, as far from the tea set as it would go and unfolded its covering. Kadal made a sound like a flock of angry bees.

“Aes Sedai…” Kadal said in obvious shock.

“I’m sorry Master ogier, but I need you to look at this,” she stretched out a finger, not quite touching the arm. Kadal huffed out a breath that would have fluffed the sail of a ship and forced himself to look.

“It looks… it looks like the symbol of a waygate Aes Sedai, you must know of them?” the ogier asked. Lysabel nodded her head in agreement.



“Is there a waygate north of here, perhaps one or two hundred leagues?” she asked intently. The ogier made a rumbling sound that might have indicated he was thinking.

“I have never seen it Aes Sedai, but there are legends of a lost gate. My father told me that it was at the gate to the World’s end, in a valley marked by two white hills.” The ogier explained.

WoT: The Dark One's Own Luck.

Lysabel nearly let him go. The borderlander was curt to the point of rudeness, but she supposed she preferred that to the Custodian’s forcing her to extract each fact one by one. She turned and reached for her book but her mind was already processing the information she had been given, just as though Sarene Sedai had set it to her as a lesson. Four days march south, two days march east. Alot depended on where the march had began from. What had they hoped to accomplish. This was Jaramide, a handful of trollocs could never hope to overwhelm even a single fortified watchtower. That logic was proceeding from a false premise. Of course a single group could not hope to overwhelm a watchtower. Ergo there was more than one group, probably traveling dispersed in order to avoid detection, or if they were detected as this group had been, so they would be passed off as random raiders. Was this just trollocs bent on slaughter? Who was the black figure Markus had seen?

“Outrider, wait a moment,” Lysabel ordered, sighing inwardly as she picked up her book and crossed the garden towards him.



“I need to report,” Markus growled, not for the first time as he followed her through the streets. The city seemed unusually alive to Lysabel, though her experience beyond the library and the palace was minimal.

“And you shall, once you have escorted me to my destination,” she replied, striving for Aes Sedai serenity. In the tales, when an Aes Sedai asked a service of someone, they complied willingly and they certainly didn’t carp and complain the whole time. The destination she had in mind was the Choir Tree, a tavern on the edge of the city near the south gate.

“Besides, isn’t it better if you have a full report?” she coaxed. This extracted another sour grunt from her companion. Blood and Ashes, they did breed a maudlin sort this far north. The Choir Tree was and impressive building with a central structure flanked by two wings of white brick around a stone courtyard that was bright with blooming flowers in an elaborate series of stone planter beds. The interior of the tavern smelled pleasantly of baking bread and mulled cider, several barrels of which stood beside a fire over which hot irons hung on a metal grate. The innkeeper was a round looking man with a shiny bald pate and an impressive mustache. He polished at a glass with a rag brightening as she entered.



“You honor my establishment Aes Sedai,” he said with a florid bow, “do you and your warder require quarters?” Lysabel blinked, nonplussed for a moment, before realizing he was referring to Markus.

“Thank you but no,” she replied, failing to correct his misapprehension. “Can you tell me if Master Kadal is still in residence?” The innkeeper nodded vigorously.

“Indeed he is Aes Sedai, is he a friend of yours?” the innkeeper asked.

“I hope that he is, would you tell him that Lysabel Sedai has an urgent matter to discuss with him. We might speak in the tea room if it is available?” she arched an interrogatory eyebrow. The innkeeper nodded pleasantly.

“Of course Aes Sedai, Ill have tea set out and send for him,” the man promised.

“Send for him first if you will,” she corrected, “we are somewhat pushed for time.”

“Is this to do with the bandit raids Aes Sedai?” he asked unexpectedly. Lysabel frowned, shaking her head.

“The whole town is buzzing about it, they say that the King is sending men south to chase them back across the border,” the innkeeper informed them with a knowing smile.

“We will await Master Kadal in the tea room,” she told him. The innkeeper nodded and led them into a pleasantly appointed room with large glass windows that looked out over the courtyard and comfortable divans arranged around a low central table. Lysabel took a seat but Markus did not, his face was impassive but his anger was growing increasingly evident.

“I do not have time to take tea Aes Sedai, with all due respect…” the borderlander began.

“Don’t be so hasty young sir,” a voice like a small avalanche rumbled from the doorway. Markus turned to see a giant figure, nearly nine feet tall with great bushy eyebrows and a bright red coat and green breeches that would have served as a tent for a man on campaign.

“I find there is almost always time for tea,” he rumbled, stepping into the room and straightening almost to the tall roof beams.

“I am Kadal son of Mavaam,” he introduced himself with a slight bow and a rich chuckle.

@POOHEAD189

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

The idea of having a home, even one that by Hadrian’s own admission we would visit only infrequently was a very strange one. I couldn’t remember ever having a home not since Q… My brain sheared away from whatever it was I had been thinking about like the unconscious reaction that pulls a hand away from a hot stove. I was perplexed for a moment, unable to recall what I had been thinking about. Hadrian was looking at me slightly askance.



“Are you ok?” he asked with evident concern. I shook my head as though to clear it.

“Yes,” I responded feeling a sudden growl in my stomach. “Just… I don’t know exactly.”



“Lets get some food.”



The kitchen of the Caladonian was a simple affair. Most ships I had traveled on tended towards the extravagant when it came to galleys, but once again Urien’s unsophisticated background shone. It might have been an exaggeration to even call it a kitchen, it rather resembled a massive larder. Cheeses, preserved meat, and other dry goods hung from hooks in the ceiling or were piled high on shelves. An entire wall was given over to barrels of ale and mead stacked and secured with netting against the bumps and shocks of transition. Several vast cooling units dribbled unhealthy smelling coolant gasses and haunches of grox, ambull and other meats could be seen hanging within. Vegetables tended to be freeze dried in sacks, though there were a few refrigerated bins containing greens and root vegetables which I had to assume had been acquired on Moldar. A reasonably sophisticated servitor was in the process of making a stew in a vast cauldron, clicking and whirring as it poured minced garlic into the pot in a pungent spray from one of its extruder nodules. It seemed an extremely odd place to be in a ball gown and I felt more than a little foolish as we took a loaf of still warm bread from a cooling rack and loaded up a platter with meat cheese and what condiments we could find. Hadrian demonstrated his familiarity with the set up by finding a crate that contained stoneware bottles which turned out to contain a very crisp but not unpleasant cider. There was a refectory beside the kitchen, although judging by the thin coating of dust and the smell of old antiseptic the crew rarely used it, preferring I imagined to eat in Urien’s main dining room in the tradition of armsmen rather than in shifts like a naval crew might have done.

“So what is the plan once we get to Danubis?” I asked around mouthful of bread and salted grox.



“I suppose its too much to hope for that we can just level the place from orbit?”

WoT: The Dark One's Own Luck.

Ynild made a violent retching sound as he beheld the object that had thumped to the grass. The superior sneer on his face wiped completely away in the space of a few heartbeats. Lysabel felt a certain discomfort herself, but the discipline of the White Tower prevented her from showing anything beyond the slightest curl of her lip. The grim borderlander merely looked on expectantly.



“You may go,” she told Ynild bluntly. The Custodian straightened up with afronted pride somewhat spoiled by the shade of green his face was turning.

“My lady, I cannot allow…” Ynild began but he trailed off as she fixed him with her arctic blue eyes. There were many ways by which she might have cowed him but the simple stare was most effective, combining as it did the promise of unknown wrath and his own desire to be away from the grotesque thing that had been brought, so unexpectedly, into his world. The Custodian offered a stiffly affronted bow and then fled. Lysabel gave her attention to the arm. It was thick and muscular and covered with bristly hair perhaps similar to that of a boar but it was thin enough that it didn’t obscure the flesh beneath. Standing gracefully she sat her book down with care on the bench and knelt beside it peering intently at the markings. They had been carved into the flesh some time before death, perhaps weeks or even months, the symbols marked out in keloid scarring that puckered the flesh an angry red brown. Few, even among Aes Sedai, could have read the script, but Lysabel had studied long under the Brown Ajah before ultimately choosing the White.



“A strange thing Outrider,” she mused, leaning close and moving the arm slightly to reveal the script concealed by the curve of the limb. It wasn’t easy to dredge up the knowledge and it felt almost physically uncomfortable to do so. That things as vile as trollocs had a mockery of the written word was offensive on a level that only a dyed in the wool bibliophile could appreciate.



“These appear to be marching orders, or perhaps a map might be closer to the truth,” she began, her mind engaging and the icy veneer sliding away from her face as she became involved in the puzzle.



“Four nights march to reach a great lake, turn towards the sun, two days march to reach the… this might be fortress or watch tower. On the night of the dark moon. Kill,” she translated. She followed the script backwards in time and towards the elbow and she paused.



“They were heading south when we intercepted them, but there were hardly enough of them to threaten any fortress,” the gruff borderlander supplied. Lysabel barely noticed so engrossed in the translation.

“This is no trolloc symbol,” she said, pointing to a particularly contorted knot of flesh.

“If I didn’t know better…” she trailed off looking up at Markus. “I’d say its an Ogier symbol for a waygate.”@POOHEAD189

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

It had honestly never occurred to me that Inquisitors might have homes. I just always assumed that they spent all their time roaming the galaxy fighting the Emperor’s enemies. This was, of course, naive of me. Obviously they needed places to recuperate, places to train, places to study. I had seen the Inquisitorial palace on Manaki once, I assumed that when they were off duty that they stayed in places like that, grim fortresses of black marble and adamantium. It had also never occurred to me that Urien was merely lending his services to the Inquisition. I had thought the Rogue Trader was a permanent member of Hadrian’s warband rather than an ally drawn in as necessary. A lot of assumptions I had made exploded under the weight of a few words.



“Is everything ok?” Hadrian prompted, clearly surprised at my silence.



“I… I’ve never been to Pacitus,” she admitted, as thought that was all was on her mind.

“I didn’t realize Inquisitors got to take vacations to…” she waved the glass, “have lives I suppose.”



“Of course I suppose all of this depends on us not getting killed on Danubis.”

WoT: The Dark One's Own Luck.

The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long passed, a wind rose in the rocky hills of the World’s End. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings in the Wheel of Time. But it was A beginning.



The wind gusted down from the hills, redolent with the salt of the Dead Sea. It swept down over the great plains, passing prosperous towns and the isolated pockets of tithe forests. It swirled across the faubourg, past taverns, mills and the shops of small craftsmen. It soared over the ancient walls of Barsine, fluting through the golden spires that reflected the afternoon sun like aurite mirrors.



The wind fluttered the leaves from the cherry trees in the courtyard of the Library of Kelcis, ruffling the pages of a book being read by a woman on a stone bench. Lysabel Paeron, Aes Sedai of the White Ajah for less than a year, regarded the tome on celestial navigation carefully. It was strange to be outside of Tar Valon for the first time in most of a decade, almost as strange as the Oaths that still clung to her skin like a dress that should have been put aside a season ago. The older Sisters told her that the feeling passed with time and experience. Lysabel had been in Barsine for nearly three months as a guest of Lord Protector Malwin. Malwin’s son was in the early stages of outfitting an expedition to sail west beyond the seas explored by the Athan’mire. Lysabel had written to the prince when she had heard of the venture, describing what she thought the land masses south and west might be, based on analysis of maps from before the Breaking and the comparison with modern charts, such as they were. As a result she had been invited to come to Barsine to aid in the preparation, mostly by translating and updating what little literature survived that discussed navigation. Prince Kefin had been on the verge of asking her to join him in his endeavor, but she had forestalled him. The First Light probably wouldn’t approve of her sailing off the edge of the world, and she wanted to be able to claim she hadn’t been invited. That wasn’t the same as saying you weren't going after all. The ships were being built in the port cities along the coast. Kefin had taken her to see them. The craftsmen of Jaramide had out done themselves, they were great rakers in the Sea Folk tradition, but larger and three masted, built heavy for the deep sea. Lysabel herself had aided in fusing in place the copper plating on their hulls and talked with the ship masters over sail configuration and lading. Initially the craftsmen had been skeptical of a woman, and an Aes Sedai at that giving advice, but she had been born on the shores of the Arryth, down south on the Shadow Coast and was no stranger to the sea or seafaring. The fact she was excited to learn had taken her along way, that and the fact she was a pretty young woman always willing to buy a nice meal while discussing keel design and windage requirements.



The idea of the upcoming adventure tantalized her. There was so much yet to be discovered, or yet to be rediscovered. What relics of the Age of Legend might she recover? She had even given some thought to how she might use Saidar to see what lay beneath the ocean, though her drawings and sketches on the matter were a long way from being fleshed out. There would be time yet, as they couldn’t sail before the middle of spring with any hope of success. That meant perhaps another six months of study and preparation, a time that seemed at once too short and too long.



“Aes Sedai,” a man said in a tone that suggested this was not the first time he had said it. Lysabel looked up to see one of the Library Custodians standing before her with a frown. He was dressed in the emerald green coat of his office and had the heavy gold chased baton at his waist. These days the batons were ceremonial but in more turbulent times the Custodians had been expected to use them to defend the precious knowledge within their walls from mobs and looters.



“Yes…. Ynald is it?” she asked pulling his name for a brief introduction months in the past. A memory for faces and facts was a trait her White Ajah mentors had approved off. The Custodian seemed a little taken aback that she knew his name. Some of the officiousness went out of his eyes.

“Ah… Ynild Aes Sedai,” he replied, correcting her pronunciation slightly. Lysabel looked down at her book, noticed a leaf had blown in between the pages and brushed it away. She dearly wanted to return to her reading but the quickest way to deal with this interruption was to see what the man wanted. No Custodian would trouble an Aes Sedai without cause, no matter how many irritated looks they shot each other when they thought she wasn’t looking.



“What is it Ynild,” she prompted, feeling the flash of irritation at having been made to ask. The White Ajah valued logic and control above all things but that didn’t mean its Sisters lacked emotion. Lysabel was proof of the opposite, she valued the discipline because it helped her not to switch at a man simply because he interrupted her reading and then made her prompt him.



“There is a man who wants to see you,” he informed her. Lysabel repressed the urge to strike the man. Was it too much to ask for a prompt and succinct report. Who was this man? What did he want? From whom had he come? Why are you wasting my time by reporting it to me in the smallest increments possible?



“Is this all the information you have on this person? His gender and his desire to see me?” Lysabel asked. By the flinch she got from Ynild she hadn’t been quite as successful at keeping the chill from her voice as she had hoped.



“Uhhh… he says he needs to see an Aes Sedai. Should I send him away?” the Custodian’s words tumbled over each other in what was becoming a panic.



“Bring him too me, it seems easier than dragging every detail of the matter out of you,” she said, closing her book in irritation.



“But Aes Sedai, he dosen’t have an introduction I cant just bring him within the walls and…”

“Bring. Him. To. Me.” Lysabel enunciated with the exaggerated precision one uses when addressing a child, and the coolness one uses when a dinner guest has thrown up on ones shoes. The Custodian reeled back as though struck.

“At once Aes Sedai!”

@POOHEAD189

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

"Lieutenant is it?" I asked, giving him a searching look which obviously categorized both his undress and his 'attention' posture. "I should have worn something with epaulets." Without responding to his question I took a seat at the table in the center of the room and poured two glasses of amasec from the sideboard. There was a regicide game set up on the table and I picked up a piece and turned it over in my hand while he dressed. A social visit sounded a little formal to my mind but I reminded myself that I had just roused him from bed for no good reason. Maybe the first decent sleep he had had given how much was on his plate right at the moment.

"I don't know if I'd call it a social visit exactly..." I began, setting the piece down with a musical clack sound.

"This is really the only thing that I own that ... well that doesn't feel like a costume." That didn't make a tremendous amount of sense given that this dress literally was a costume but I felt some that because we had shared a real moment while I was wearing it, that it had become something more than a prop for deceptions. Clearly I was getting fuzzy being mixed up with the high and mighty.